Ontologies of risk in research with young people: interrogating research practices and de-centring ‘risk’ in youth digital media research

Research practices can be framed by ontologies that position the very people and practices we aim to make sense of (and with) in our research. Research examining young people’s digital media experiences can often start from positions of risk that conflate marginality, risk, harm and vulnerability. We question this framing, examining how risk emerges in research practices. Focused on digital research, where new (and older) forms of risk have (re)emerged, we interrogate research practices that centre risk in youth lives. We argue practice theory and its development in media studies offers tools to de-centre risk. Drawing on two case studies we show how research practices are embedded within research infrastructures that situate youth as risky, conflating risk, media and harm, obscuring broader practices and situated experiences of risk. We provide a ‘toolkit’ to locate how and when ontologies of risk slip into research projects, and how we might disrupt such framing.