Lange, Patricia G. Kids on Youtube: Prospects for Civic Engagement, 11 October 2010
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Lange, Patricia G. Kids on Youtube: Prospects for Civic Engagement, 11 October 2010.
What do kids actually do when the go online?
- Part of 23 MacArthur founded case studies
- http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu
- Forthcoming: Kids on youtube: Technical identities and digital literacies (Lange, in preparation)
- Hanging out, messging around, and geeking out: Kids living and learning with new media (Ito et al. 2010)
"Civic style"
- What skills do they have?
- How can these be extended?
Sociology of childhood
- (James and Prout 1997)
As applied to civic engagement
- We've gone so far in terms of protection that we aren't respecting, recognizing what they are actually doing
- Need to expand beyond the notions of the "cherished" child
- (Jans 2004)
- (Flanagan 2003)
- See kids more as "assets" than a "problem to be solved"
Civic engagement
Need broader def of Ce
- "Proto civic engagement" (Lange)
- Civic activities and literacy (Flanagan and Faison 2001)
- Political activities
Proto civic engagement
- (Andolina et al. 2003; Lange)
- "Civic attachment" - need "affective or emotional connection to the community or polity" (Flanagan and Faison 2001)
- Feelings that "one matters, has a voice and a stake in public affairs" (F&F)
- Participation in spaces where kids are respected
Case Study #1: Field Family, Neighborhood Affiliation and Self-expression
- Asian-American family in California
- Active as early video bloggers (pre-YouTube)
- Highly technical
- Goal: have one's own video blog (outside YT)
Mr. Field
- "I want [my children] to be actors in the sense of the world stage"
Kids on video
- Interviews
- "Interview skills", (Rheingold wrote about this?)
- Attending local events
- Confronting the camera
Technical affiliation
- Performing, displaying in "words or deeds" alliance to certain "beliefs, values, and practices assumed to be associated with technical cultures (Lange 2003)
Case Study #2: Wendy, Neighborhood improvement
- She makes a video documentary about a playground/park improvement
- Eventually interviews people about their dreams for a new park
Skills and contributions
- Topic selection exposes a collective problem
- Interviewing skills (Rheingold 2008)
- Establishes authority of interviewee
- Displays framing of rapport
- Visual literacies
- Diff angles, pans
- Split screens, illustrations
Process
- Diagnosis through witnessing
- Prognosis
- Motivate others to act
Case study #3: Max, Human rights
- 14-yo male from East Coast
- Highly successful YT participant
- Self-branded
- Early adopter to YT (Dec 2005)
- Numerous views
"Palestinian holocaust" video
- Remix video about "Palestinian Holocaust" with music from Schindler's List
- Mashups are meaningful activities within deliberative democracy (Edwards and Tryon 2009)
Reactions to his remix
- Support/oppose
- Discussion of the role of media, "two sides to every story"
- Max values the opportunity for others to leave comments, "even if it is sometimes painful"
Media's multiple functions
- Concerns about "flaming"
- What constitutes appropriate argument culturally and contextually varies (Lange 2006, 2007, 2008)
- Comments and videos are facilitating important work
- "Metapragmatic" stances with regards to freedom of expression
- Language about language, norms
Diversity, tolerance, and arguments
- Classroom cultures in the U.S. and U.K. eschew discussion of contentious issues (Frazer 2000, Flanagan and Faison 2001)
- Kids say that YT offers a aspace where they can express more diversity and they can show support of free speech
- Amelia: "YouTube opens doors that are usually closed"
Reflection and critique
- Overreliance on the productivity of immediate comments
- "Noble goal" but there are other things to think about
- Comments as a "touchstone" for later (classroom?) discussion
- "Reticulated civic engagement", como of actions, knowledge, media sharing, ...
Case study #4: Frank, Net neutrality
- 15-year old white male from Midwest
- Early adopter of YouTube, December 2005
- Has web biz helping clients make, design, and fix websites
- Trying to get peers involved
- People often don't get involved because they "aren't asked"
- Net Neutrality (Montgomery 2008)
Metaphenomenology of media expereince
- Phenomenological: refers to first person experiences
- Metaphenomenological: Experiences that analyze or comment on experiences, sometimes offering normative commentary
- Frank's use of simple media is a metaphenomenological experience
Consumer-citizens
- "consumption ... suffused with citizenship characteristics and considerations" (Scammell 2000)
Future projects
- Development of place-based affinities
- Numerous vids about specific ("micro") places
- Longitudinal studies that examine "civic style" of future generations and succesfull "civic habits" (Delli Carpini 2000)
- Media choice for specific purposes (Madianou and Miller, Forthcoming)
- Comparative generic focus
- Documentary, video blogging, remix, mashup
- Are particular forms or mix of forms more successful?
Conclusions
- Kids are active in mediated civic engagement
- Already have skills. How can repertoires expand?
- Models of "reticulated civic engagement"
- Circumstances creating motivation, opportunity, ability, and trust (Delli Carpini 2000)
- How to move from interested to active? From one-on-one to group action?
- Challenges that block branching at particular points
- Expanded concepts of civic engagement and participatory literacies
- Proto civic engagement and skills, public voice (Levine 2000)
- Playful mediated forms and their persuasive character
Q&A
- Are these cases representative?
- Are they "stars"? If so, how does their "star power" work?
- Parents posting vids of kids
- Didn't observe patterns around ethnicity?
- But there seemed to be some interesting things happening with gender
- Displacement? How does their YT activity fit into their daily life?
- Hard to answer with current sample
- Kids did not have an easy time sharing their vid experience with friends
- Kids seemed to value the feedback they found in YT because they weren't getting it at school (from faculty or classmates...)
Jump offs
- Teaching tech savvy kids, Lange contributed a chapter about YouTube videos
