Parents disclosing information about their children's and parenting in mediated spaces is referred to as sharenting. This practice leads to 92 percent of children having their personal information published online before they reach the age of two-years-old. This is problematic because parents are argued to be violating children's privacy and putting their identity at risk of being stolen. Qualitative sharenting scholars suggested several influential factors such as self-presentation, social connection, and privacy concerns may explain why parents sharent, indicating a need for quantitative research. Building on previous studies, this mixed-method dissertation examines the empirical makeup of sharenting and tests predictors of it through three separate studies. Study 1 investigated the validity of the assumed dimensions of the construct and explored the breadth of the construct through semi-structured interviews. Study 1 results demonstrated that sharenting construct is a two-dimensional construct and parents shared both children's information and emotional experiences. Study 2 aimed to develop a scale of sharenting and validated its two-dimensional structure with the quantitative survey method. Results of exploratory factor analysis validated its two-dimensional structure and displayed a 15-item scale of sharenting, but found the second dimension as parenting information disclosure instead of emotional disclosure. Study 3 confirmed the structure of the scales and tested factors that predicted sharenting behaviors by using the privacy calculus model. Results showed that social capital was a positive predictor of both children's information disclosure and parenting information disclosure, whereas self-presentation was positively related to parenting information sharenting but negatively related to children's information sharenting. Perceived enjoyment, privacy concerns and privacy self-efficacy were only significantly related to children's information. Discussions, implications and limitations were included at the end of each study.
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