Category Archives: Digital studies

Abstracts

  By laurelfelt | October 1, 2011 - 2:21 am | , , , ,
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One day. Two abstracts. Pray to the guest editors of Learning, Media, & Technology…

SPECIAL ISSUE: Digital Literacy and Informal Learning Environments

Vartabedian, V., Felt, L.J., Literat, I., & Mehta, R. Explore Locally, Excel Digitally: A participatory learning-oriented after-school program for enriching citizenship on- and offline.

KEYWORDS: participatory learning, digital, citizenship, after-school, pedagogy

Following Jenkins and colleagues’ elucidation of participatory culture and new media literacies-enriched education[1], this article argues that facilitating a culture of participatory learning stimulates the development of 21st century social skills and cultural competencies. To support this argument, we examine the components of a new pedagogical framework designed for participatory learning and explore a case study in which this framework was implemented — an after-school program in digital citizenship for Los Angeles public high school students.

A culture of participatory learning (often found in informal learning environments[2]) respects and nurtures: heightened motivation and new forms of engagement through meaningful play and experimentation; learning scenarios relevant to students’ realities and interests; creativity with a variety of media, tools, and practices; a community designed for co-learning; and contexts that are situated within a larger learning eco-system. Such a culture empowers learners to practice new media literacies (NMLs) and social and emotional learning skills (SELs)[3] because it allows for the expression of all voices and multiple ways of knowing.

How one negotiates digital tools and norms impacts citizenship on- and offline. As such, the after-school program “Explore Locally, Excel Digitally” (ELED) used hardware (iPod Touches, desktop computers), software (mobile apps, Twitter, GoogleMaps, Prezi), and team-building activities to investigate ethics, mapping, and their intersections. Students examined the characteristics of their own communities and the nature of their participation within these networks, looking at ELED, their friendship circles, their schools, and the neighborhood surrounding Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools. Using ethnographic fieldnotes, video footage, student-generated multimedia content, and baseline and endline survey measures, we found that this pedagogical framework supported a participatory learning culture in which students practiced NMLs and SELs. Importantly, it also facilitated students’ development of self- and collective efficacy.

[1] (Jenkins, Purushotma, Clinton, Weigel, & Robison, 2006)

[2] Recent studies have established a relationship between out-of-school spaces and learning outcomes (Bell, Lewenstein, Shouse & Feder, 2009), as well as urged schools’ integration of Web 2.0 participation (Schuck & Aubusson, 2010). What facilitates learning in these informal, physical and virtual sites?

[3] (Zins, Weissberg, Wang, & Walberg, 2004)

———————-

SPECIAL ISSUE: City Youth and the Pedagogy of Participatory Media

Felt, L.J. & Rideau, A. Pedagogy for appropriation: How Sunukaddu supports youths’, instructors’, and communities’ development by amplifying voices in Senegal.

KEYWORDS: Dakar, youth, pedagogy, media, voice, sustainability, skills

While the world’s urban population is expected to skyrocket 41% between 1950 and 2050, Senegal’s rate of urbanization has outstripped the average and is projected to ascend even more sharply, growing by 48% over that span[1]. Therefore, as global citizens consider how best to manage youths’ education within the volatile contexts of rapid urbanization, economic uncertainty, public health challenges, and technological shifts, a case study from Senegal can offer potentially useful insights. This article examines Sunukaddu[2], an instructional program in producing civic-oriented multimedia for Dakar youths.

Non-profit organization Réseau Africain d’Education pour la Santé created Sunukaddu in 2008 to support youths’ creation of digital HIV/AIDS messaging[3]. During the summer of 2010, staff redesigned Sunukaddu to facilitate its ease of appropriation. First, they established a collaborative curriculum design process that boosted instructors’ teamwork and ownership. Second, they increased participants’ hands-on exploration and access to local role models. Third, they adopted smartphones and encouraged sharing content online. Fourth, they addressed participants’ communicative capacities by harnessing new media literacies[4] and social and emotional learning skills[5].

Analysis of ethnographic photographs, participant-generated multimedia content, baseline and endline survey measures, participant focus groups, and instructor interviews suggests that Sunukaddu participation supported instructors’ professional development and facilitated youths’ holistic growth. This article argues that Sunukaddu’s design explains its success. Asking instructors and participants to personalize content and raise their voices[6] enriches the learning experience and helps to bridge the “second digital divide”[7] or the “participation gap”[8].  Nurturing fundamental skills[9] prepares individuals for productive negotiation of varied contexts. Finally, leaving open-ended specific activities and technology requirements respects the unpredictability and/or modesty of funding streams as well as the swiftness of social and/or technological change. Thus, Sunukaddu’s adaptable format should ensure its long-term viability — both an important ethical consideration and key development imperative.

[1](WORLD: 1950: 29% urban, 2050: 70% urban; SENEGAL: 1950: 17% urban, 2050: 65% urban; (United Nations Population Division, 2009)

[2](“Our Voice” in the indigenous language of Wolof)

[3](For a review, see Massey, Morawski, Glik, & Rideau, 2009; also Massey, Glik, Prelip, & Rideau, 2011; also Felt & Rideau, in press)

[4](Jenkins, Purushotma, Clinton, Weigel, & Robison, 2006)

[5](Zins, Weissberg, Wang, & Walberg, 2004)

[6]via writing curriculum and producing documentaries, graphic novels, posters, songs, news reports, etc

[7](Somekh, 2007)

[8]which Jenkins et al (2006) define as “the unequal access to the opportunities, experiences, skills, and knowledge that will prepare youth for full participation in the world of tomorrow” (p. 3)

[9]e.g., NMLs and SELs

Literacy

  By laurelfelt | August 28, 2011 - 3:49 pm | , , ,
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This story misses the story. I don’t have access to the original research so I’m unsure as to whether the reporter is spinning an oft-told, irresponsible tale — “Kids these days are lazy and stupid!” — or the investigators employed an inadequate data collection tool.

Here’s what happened: The UK’s National Literacy Trust asked 18,000 seven- to 16-year-olds about their out-of-school reading habits. The article basically argued that children are not reading very much, and concluded with the British secretary of education’s opinion that children need to read more books — specifically, 50 per year.

I like books. I think they’re neat. But they’re not the only “game” in town.

Offering literacy experiences alongside books are: newspapers, magazines, blogs, forums, corporate websites, ads, social media profiles, games, TV, mainstream films, indy films, amateur films, radio, podcasts, comics, manga, fan fiction, ebooks, SMS texts, etc, etc, etc. Arguably, the sheer amount of text — and texts — in young people’s environment has exploded. So too has the amount of time they spend doing literacy: decoding, meaning making, and creating. We need to value the reading of multiple texts, for each has its own nature, and engaging in the experience of reading these texts has merit, both practical and theoretical.

According to the article:

“The research also found that the older the children are, the less likely they are to read. The 14- to 16-year-olds were 11 times more likely than the seven- to 11-year-olds to say they had not read a book in the last month.

Half said they read emails and websites at least once a month. Only just over a quarter – 27% – flick through comics.”

I take issue with the ambiguities and hidden assumptions here. Are older kids really less likely to READ, or just to read the products enumerated by the researchers? Are they less likely to read YouTube videos, Facebook profiles, or text messages? Are they less likely to read school-related non-fiction, such as textbooks or online sources (whose credibility may or may not be sterling (another issue entirely))? I think not. In these domains, older children’s participation dwarfs that of younger children’s. And while the older kids reported reading fewer books, it is entirely possible that, in terms of word count or cognitive challenge, they read the equivalent (or more!) via other platforms. It is also possible that these older kids, hoping to seem cool, under-reported their book-reading; the opposite is also possible, that the younger kids, eager to please/impress the researchers, over-reported their book-reading. Even without conscious manipulation, the accuracy of monthly estimations is poor for any demographic — people are just bad at remembering. For seven to 16-year-olds, you’ve got to figure that they’re even worse.

As for emails vs. websites vs. comics — who cares? Only a few decades ago, children’s comic book reading inspired moral panics. And now its (purported) diminution is also alarming? Which one is it? And is it even occurring at all? When the researchers say “comics,” do the kids understand this to mean online and offline, professional and amateur, anime, manga, and graphic novel? As for websites — what does it even mean to read a website? What kind of website? The language is too imprecise to even take on. Finally, emails. Many youths report that emails are seldom sent among their cohort, just as senior citizens claim low rates of text messaging amongst their peers. So, does this “low” (compared to what?) figure of email reading merely reflect the modest number of emails circulated? What is the value of this context-less data?

I know this much is true: To overlook multiple texts and the role they play in young people’s lives, and then conclude that children aren’t reading, is intellectually irresponsible. To fail to support children’s literacy skills around these texts is professionally irresponsible.

Our task is twofold, “local” and “global.” First, readers of all stripes should grapple together with the unique affordances of each text/literacy experience, helping one another to become savvier vis-a-vis specific sites. Some sample considerations: “Here’s what you should consider when you read a Wikipedia post.” “What does this podcast’s very existence tell us about its author?” “What do you know about the anime hero’s world by looking at the art in the background?”

Second, readers (and those who seek to teach and assess them) should focus on the underlying, universal skills required and developed by engaging with texts, such as: comprehending, synthesizing, and responding. They should also seize upon the perspective-taking that naturally occurs when readers connect with stories/storytellers, and help readers to improve their proficiency therein. Better ability to perspective-take will not only enrich individuals’ enjoyment of literature, but it will boost their efficacy as communicators and their capacity for sensitive social negotiation.

As the tide of texts surges, I don’t want to lose the book baby in all of this bathwater. But neither do I want to zero in on the baby and ignore the fact that she’s swimming in a sea of possibility…

Culture Clashes

  By admin | May 8, 2011 - 5:01 pm | , ,
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Young People, Ethics, and the New Digital Media- A Synthesis from the Good Play Project (James et al, 2008) explores the promises and perils of new digital media vis-a-vis young people’s development of ethical reasoning and practice. While some of the treatise rings true (the part that echoes the work of Henry Jenkins and colleagues), other parts feel facile, judgmental. For example:

“According to a recent report from The Josephson Institute of Ethics (2006), 60% of high school-aged youth admit to having cheated on a school test, almost 30% to having stolen from a store, and 33% to having plagiarized from the Internet for an assignment, providing further evidence that participating in a “cheating culture” may be routine for many youth (Callahan, 2004)” (James et al, 2008, p. 26).

A major issue with this information is its lack of context. What on earth are we comparing this number to? Does this indicate an increase from the “good old days” when the Boomers were kids? [NOTE: Stephanie Coontz (1993/2000) exposed this mythology in The Way We Never Were; evidently, those old days were considerably less good than many convenient narratives contend.] Or are we comparing to the “plastic rainbow days” when some of today’s parents were Care Bears/Rainbow Brite/G.I. Joe-loving kids? Maybe there has been no change in the numbers; maybe the numbers have gone down and there’s actually LESS of a cheating culture! Moreover, who made up this sample? Is this a nationally representative group?

Even if the research methods were beyond reproach, what does this teach us about changing tides in moral reasoning? Have attitudes/opinions shifted (or deteriorated, if you buy this flimsy argument) in our online age, or are these behaviors artifacts of shifting conditions? In the past, stores did not span football fields as do our contemporary “big box” emporiums; therefore, access to unsupervised pilfering was constrained. Additionally, business owners were more likely to be citizens in the town whose livelihoods were more likely to be impacted by petty stealing than today’s distant and monied multi-national corporations. So who’s to say that the “angels of the golden age” would have refrained from pocketing the odd knickknack given contemporary conditions or, equally, that today’s “digital bandits” would have boosted sodas from Mr. McGreevy’s Shoppe?

I’d also like to draw attention to the increase of opportunities both to cheat and to steal. The amount of time that young people spend with tests (both standardized and customized) and consumer opportunities have skyrocketed. Therefore, when you consider the ratio of frequency:opportunity, perhaps contemporary youth cheat and steal LESS than our bobbysoxed predecessors; proportionately, the Beaver and even the Bradys might have engaged in significantly more depravity than Beavis, Butthead, and the cast of Gossip Girl.

Sandra Ball-Rokeach (1998) and Vincent Mosco (2004) caution against technological determinism, invocation of “the digital sublime.” Technology is created by people and, as such, betray cultural biases. Technology is used by people and so our behaviors also betray cultural biases. Tools facilitate behaviors, yes, but modding and multi-purposing demonstrate individuals’ active direction of behavior, literally bending tools to their will. As Jenkins et al (2006) argue in their comparison of the digital divide to the participation gap, tools do NOT deliver capacities. Skills are gained through practice.

The Good Play paper contends that adult mentors must guide young people through this ethical quagmire. I applaud good mentors. But they don’t necessarily have to come in adult packages, nor should they. Young people could also guide adults through some ethical reflection, and the power of peer-to-peer learning should not be underestimated. Here’s a passage that deserves to be problematized by a youth or youthful thinker:

“Our analysis makes reference to an “infringing youth culture” online, meaning an overreaching sense of entitlement with respect to information and property such as music that normalizes illegal downloading and thus may be “infringing” on the rights of musicians and other creators” (James et al, 2008, p. 46)

Inherent in this declaration is acceptance of the current model of private property, which is central to capitalism. In order to “infringe,” one must acknowledge the sanctity of fences on the common, the defensibility of walled gardens. Some suggest that “information wants to be free” and dream of a new way of arranging resources that valorizes open source access. Others argue that private owners still benefit from unchaining their work because it allows for deeper engagement and easier spreadability, which ultimately delivers financial benefit by motivating purchase of the original (in fact, this argument by Jenkins and Green (forthcoming) was cited in the paper (James et al, 2008)!).

So maybe contemporary copyright laws deserve to be re-examined; perhaps their violation should be reframed as “civil disobedience” rather than “illegal activity”; and maybe we need to kick our ethics up a notch, transcending Kohlberg’s stages of moral development (if we choose to acknowledge this system’s legitimacy; see Gilligan’s 1982 In a Different Voice) from 4-Law and Order (“Look to society as a whole for guidelines about behavior. Think of rules as inflexible, unchangeable.”) to 5-Social Contract (“Recognize that rules are social agreements that can be changed when necessary.”) or even to 6-Universal Ethical Principle (“Adhere to a small number of abstract principles that transcend specific, concrete rules. Answer to an inner conscience.”) (Ormrod, 2000).

Regarding judgment, morality, and intercultural exchange, Conquergood (1988) also has a bit to say. While “Health Theatre in a Hmong Refugee Camp: Performance, Communication, and Culture” principally examined his sensitive efforts to understand the community members and work with them to create culturally appropriate intervention tools, he concludes with personal critique:

“Those who participated in this intercultural performance found it deeply moving. However, they were a small, self-selected group who were already the most open-minded. Most of the expatriate guests politely remained in their seats but observed attentively. The most dogmatic agency workers — for example, the Christian nurse who refused to allow any Thai calendars in her ward because they had pictures of the Buddha — did not even attend this event. I should have been more assiduous in attempts to reach the expatriate personnel who were most ethnocentric in their dealings with the Hmong” (p. 199).

It’s important that the people we send — or those who send themselves — as “agents of uplift” neither wreak more harm nor fail to meaningfully assist due to ossified positioning vis-a-vis identity (self vs. Other) and morality (right vs. wrong). Openness (again, that word) is key, the willingness to immerse in the lives of those with whom one seeks to work, and use their input in order to understand the lay of the land. All of this must be balanced properly — overindulgence results in loss of diverse perspectives, which is the value-added of outsider consultation, as well as possible fetishizing of indigenous voice (as in “pursuing a fantasy of ‘authentic’ youth experience, which often translates into a sensationalized portrayal of racialized urban youth (Fleetwood, 2005)” (Soep & Chavez, 2010, p. 56)). Additionally, community members should not be regarded as uniform and/or interchangeable — a single perspective will not necessarily generalize to the group. A holistic portrait must be cobbled together from multiple informants.

In terms of the Good Play agenda, this demands that adults not only mentor (or, as I advocate, share mentorship with) youths, but also engage with youths in their culture(s) and experiences, forming relationships and developing valid, nuanced understandings. It also demands that we resist the urge to focus on a single constituency in a community; unfortunately for those who desire simple, speedy processes, the more complicated, ecological approach is necessary.

Conquergood (1988) saw that, due to sanitation conditions in the refugee camp context, Hmongs’ behaviors had to change, and so he campaigned to change them. But the extent to which sanitation conditions could truly improve was not solely a function of Hmongs’ behaviors; it was also a question of context.  The power-wielders in the refugee camp context might also have been visualized as an “intended audience” whose behaviors vis-a-vis construction and maintenance of the context also needed to change. They could have benefited from a dose of culturally sensitive street theater too, and maybe moved the trash cans. Conquergood resisted the urge to blame the victims overtly; but his intervention blamed the victims implicitly, as it placed the burden of change solely upon their shoulders and failed to challenge the structures that victimized in the first place.

In our dealings with youth, let us not turn a blind eye to the contextual conditions that normatize, glamorize, and/or incentivize unethical behavior. It is not only “the primitives” who have to change; it is all of us.

Responding to selections from The New Media Reader

  By admin | December 9, 2010 - 5:40 pm | ,
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Selections from The New Media Reader (2003) (13|193 McLuhan, 18|259 Enzensberger, 19|277 Baudrillard, 20|289 Williams, 21|301 Nelson, 22|339 Boal, 24 Weizenbaum, 27|405 Deleuze + Guattari) provoked my series of philosophical questions…

Response to NMR II
WILLIAMS
I. What is old and what is new? When we consider technology, do we understand it as part of a phenomenon both natural and well-established — the process of tool creation? Then can we also regard the social ruptures it inspires as natural, well-established… and inevitable?

Or might something different be happening today? Is the nature of contemporary technology, and the speed with which it is produced and disseminated, in a class all its own? Then can we understand the social changes associated with this technology as deliberate choices to which we collude?

WEIZENBAUM
II. How do we situate social processes on a continuum from 1 to 7, with 1 being “must be handled by a human” and 7 being “must be handled by a machine”?

In Likert scale-ese, the scale might look something like this:

1 = must be handled by a human
2 = much better if handled by a human
3 = slightly better if handled by a human
4 = neither better nor worse if handled by a human or a machine
5 = slightly better if handled by a machine
6 = much better if handled by a machine
7 = must be handled by a human

During the past century, we witnessed several processes migrate from 1 to 7, industrial processes such as car manufacturing and food production (from factories to agri-business). Customer service processes are currently shifting: directing telephone calls within large organizations via voicemail systems; trouble-shooting via embodied conversational agents (e.g., Microsoft Word’s infamous, animated paper clip querying whether we need help writing a letter); purchasing luxury goods via vending machines (e.g., high-end electronics, such as digital cameras and handheld game consoles, vended in airports).

Is therapy next? Is there a role for an intelligent but totally disinterested listener in the lives of some individuals who simply need to unload? Are the risks of certain people falling through the cracks simply too great to bear? And is the very contemplation of such a practice emblematic of flexible thinking and new social paradigms, or of civil degradation and a certain loss of humanity?

III. BAUDRILLARD
How does one resolve the “problem of the passivity” vis-a-vis the consumer in relation to producer? Do we collapse such distinctions by all engaging in the production process, becoming “prosumers” (Toffler, 1980)? Is such a solution scalable? Even if all produce, the rate at which they can produce, the quality of their productions, the extent to which these works circulate, are surely variable. So does Charlene’s DIY video equal Spielberg’s feature?

Media literacy has been offered as a partial solution to this conundrum, suggesting that the capacity to interpret productions helps to restore some balance of power between consumers and producers. Yet boomerang effects have been noted in relation to media consciousness-raising efforts (Bissell, 2006). What is power, if not knowledge? Should we concentrate on a different type of knowledge, or different means of delivering it?

What is the cost-benefit of addressing this power differential? Which battles are worth waging?

Responding to Berger

  By admin | December 9, 2010 - 8:07 am | ,
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This post represents a strengthening in my critical position of academic mystification which, I submit, is usually achieved by means of excessively complex jargon. Perhaps in reaction to this sin of scholarship, I utilize informal language and engage in frank self-disclosure, possibly verging on the contextually inappropriate. While I condemn Berger (and Galloway) for academic posturing and distantiation, maybe I am “regular Joe” posturing and trying too desperately to connect. This would make us — Berger, Galloway, and me — not horses of a different color, but two sides of the same coin. And considering my “corruption” by years of higher education, such a characterization is probably more accurate. I end with a call to find some middle ground between “folks” and “philosophers,” the School of Life and Life in School. I hope that my work always reflects my honest effort to bridge this distance.

Ways of Communicating: Response to Berger’s (1972) Ways of Seeing. (originally posted to class wiki on September 8, 2010)

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

“Our goal should not be to model books on television or television on books but instead to discover the most rigorous, stimulating and sophisticated ways to take advantage of different platforms’ unique capabilities” (Kozberg, 2010).

I agree entirely with Alison’s well-turned phrase, and find that it echoes Thembi’s observation in class that utilizing HootSuite in order to simultaneously update your profile on various social media platforms (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Buzz, LinkedIn) is tantamount to spamming. What both of my fiercely smart classmates are arguing, I think, is that there is such a thing as message-platform appropriateness (see Media Richness Theory, Daft & Lengel, 1986). You don’t share exquisitely detailed technical instructions face-to-face, you don’t interview for a job via text, you don’t deliver hash-taggy URL’s to your online resume, and you don’t deconstruct the visual via print.

Am I reading you right, ladies?

It’s difficult to really appreciate our myriad ways of seeing when all we’re seeing is text, and imprecisely written text at that. Like Alison, I bristle at the gender essentialism (which was present even in the television show — his claim, “Men dream of women; women dream of themselves being dreamt of. Men look at women; women watch themselves being looked at… Women constantly meet glances, which act like mirrors, reminding them of how they look, or how they should look. Behind every glance is a judgment” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u72AIab-Gdc, first minute).) that ran rampant through this book’s pages.

I feel a real frustration with the language of scholarship, particularly art scholarship. What is our objective here? Are we trying to communicate, really, or are we just trying to say a lot of things that maybe sound smart to the stupes who are impressed by polysyllables?

At dinner tonight, my aunt told me that she couldn’t understand an email I sent. Friends who are NOT in academia did understand it, and I swear to whatever, I broke down my studies as simply as I could, but that’s the kind of statement that gives me chills:

“I didn’t understand a word of it. Do they teach you how to write that way?”

She tends to exaggerate, my aunt. Let’s all acknowledge that. But heaven forbid I lose touch, don’t know how to talk to people outside this ivory tower, jack up my hubris-inflated sense of myself, expound ineffectively for purposes unimportant. Maybe that’s what I should dress up as for Halloween, the pathetic academic — that’s the scary monster that haunts me.

So I take issue with Berger’s TV show too. I know he talked to kids, I know he wore groovy 70s shirts, I know he had a humanizing speech impediment, but… eh? Is it still a little full of itself? Is it still a little distancing? I don’t know, I really don’t. I like how he juxtaposed classical art and contemporary video — great way to make connections and keep the old relevant… Ah, but this space is for figuring things out, right? For ruminating and experimenting? If I put such imprecise ramblings on limestone, that’d be message-platform inappropriateness. Oh! And it all ties together…

But seriously, I’m struggling. I certainly don’t want to limit scholarship or imply that intelligence/expertise should be cloaked. In fact, quite the opposite. Moreover, I find the tide of anti-intellectualism in this country ignorant and dangerous…

Let me digress for a minute. The third-person effect is a communication phenomenon. Researchers have found that individuals tend to overestimate the degree to which other people, NOT their superior selves, will fall prey to trickery/noxious influences. “Oh, sugary cereal ads won’t influence me/my kids, but my kids’ friends will probably be duped and want to buy Glucose Snappers, so let’s pull that commercial from Saturday morning television.” Capische? So I want to acknowledge the third-person effect too — it basically tells us, we’re terrible judges of what other people think and how impervious we’re really not.

Here’s how I’m putting this all together:

Maybe I need to give lay people more credit (and regard my aunt as the outlier). But maybe it couldn’t hurt for us, we in this bookish community, to turn up our vigilance. Let’s make sure we avoid becoming our own caricatures, NOT solely because we assume (perhaps fallaciously) that outsiders can’t understand us and/or that they’re out to financially lynch our industry and/or ridicule our ways. Let’s keep on being grounded and human-speaking in order to ensure that our eyes remain fixed on the all-important prize: using this education to meaningfully contribute.