ABSTRACT
When we began this research it seemed obvious to us that what we would be studying was the way media mediated relationships. We assumed that this is what is implied simply by juxtaposing the two words ‘mediated’ and ‘relationships’. The relationship itself was both given and paramount, in this case, the desire for mothers to be mothers to their children and for children to still have mothers. The question we wanted to investigate was how far this had been constrained by the previous lack of media, and how far it was now facilitated by the extraordinary transformation in the past few years towards more diverse and affordable polymedia. But the theory that will be presented in this concluding chapter comes from our gradual appreci ation that the situation is more complex than what we had originally anticipated.
