Civic Life Online

Front matter

Learning How Digital Media Can Engage Youth edited by W. Lance Bennett

THE JOHN D. AND CATHERINE T. MACARTHUR FOUNDATION SERIES ON DIGITAL MEDIA AND LEARNING

This book was made possible by grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in connection with its grant making initiative on Digital Media and Learning. For more information on the initiative visit www.macfound.org.

Contents

Foreword vii Series Advisors

Changing Citizenship in the Digital Age 1 W. Lance Bennett

Youth and Digital Democracy: Intersections of Practice, Policy, and the Marketplace Kathryn C. Montgomery

Foreword

In recent years, digital media and networks have become embedded in our everyday lives, and are part of broad-based changes to how we engage in knowledge production, communication, and creative expression. Unlike the early years in the development of computers and computer-based media, digital media are now commonplace and pervasive, having been taken up by a wide range of individuals and institutions in all walks of life. Digital media have escaped the boundaries of professional and formal practice, and the academic, governmental, and industry homes that initially fostered their development. Now they have been taken up by diverse populations and non-institutionalized practices, including the peer activities of youth. Although specific forms of technology uptake are highly diverse, a generation is growing up in an era where digital media are part of the taken-for-granted social and cultural fabric of learning, play, and social communication.

In 2005, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation began a new grant-making initiative in the area of digital media and learning. An initial set of exploratory grants in the study of youth practices and the development of digital literacy programs has expanded into a major initiative spanning research, educational reform, and technology development. One component of this effort is the support of this book series. As part of the broader MacArthur Foundation initiative, this series is aimed at timely dissemination of new scholarship, fostering an interdisciplinary conversation, and archiving the best research in this emerging field. Through the course of producing the six initial volumes, the foundation convened a set of meetings to discuss the framing issues for this book series. As a result of these discussions we identified a set of shared commitments and areas of focus. Although we recognize that the terrain is being reshaped even as we seek to identify it, we see these as initial frames for the ongoing work to be put forward by this series.

This book series is founded upon the working hypothesis that those immersed in new digital tools and networks are engaged in an unprecedented exploration of language, games, social interaction, problem solving, and self-directed activity that leads to diverse forms of learning. These diverse forms of learning are reflected in expressions of identity, how individuals express independence and creativity, and in their ability to learn, exercise judgment, and think systematically.

The defining frame for this series is not a particular theoretical or disciplinary approach, nor is it a fixed set of topics. Rather, the series revolves around a constellation of topics investigated from multiple disciplinary and practical frames. The series as a whole looks at the relation between youth, learning, and digital media, but each book or essay might deal with only a subset of this constellation. Erecting strict topical boundaries can exclude viii some of the most important work in the field. For example, restricting the content of the series only to people of a certain age means artificially reifying an age boundary when the phenomenon demands otherwise. This becomes particularly problematic with new forms of online participation where one important outcome is the mixing of participants of different ages. The same goes for digital media, which are increasingly inseparable from analog and earlier media forms.

In the case of learning, digital media are part of the redefinition and broadening of existing boundaries of practice and our understanding of what learning means. The term learning was chosen rather than education in order to flag an interest in settings both within and outside the classroom. Many of the more radical challenges to existing learning agendas are happening in domains such as gaming, online networks, and amateur production that usually occur in informal and non-institutional settings. This does not mean we are prejudiced against learning as it happens in the classroom or other formal educational settings. Rather, we hope to initiate a dialog about learning as it spans settings that are more explicitly educational and those that are not.

The series and the MacArthur Foundation initiative respond to certain changes in our media ecology that have important implications for learning. Specifically, these are new forms of media literacy and changes in the modes of media participation. Digital media are part of a convergence between interactive media (most notably gaming), online networks, and existing media forms. Navigating this media ecology involves a palette of literacies that are being defined through practice but require more scholarly scrutiny before they can be fully incorporated pervasively into educational initiatives. Media literacy involves not only ways of understanding, interpreting, and critiquing media, but also the means for creative and social expression, online search and navigation, and a host of new technical skills. The potential gap in literacies and participation skills creates new challenges for educators who struggle to bridge media engagement inside and outside the classroom.

The shift toward interactive media, peer-to-peer forms of media communication, and many-to-many forms of distribution relate to types of participation that are more bottom-up and driven by the “user” or “consumer” of media. Audiences have always had the opportunity to “talk back” to corporate media or to create their own local media forms. However, the growing dominance of gaming as a media format, the advent of low-cost digital production tools, and online distribution means a much more dynamic range in who participates and how they participate in the production and distribution of media. Gamers expect that media are subject to player control. Add to this the fact that all forms of media are increasingly being contextualized in an online communication ecology where creative production and expression is inseparable from social communication. Finally, new low-cost digital production tools mean that amateur and casual media creators can author, edit, and distribute video and other rich media forms that were once prohibitively expensive to produce and share with others.

We value the term participation for the ways in which it draws attention to situated learning theory, social media literacies, and mobilized forms of media engagement. Digital media networks support existing forms of mass media distribution as well as smaller publics and collectivities that might center on peer groups or specialized niche interests. The presence of social communication, professional media, and amateur niche media in shared online spaces introduces a kind of leveling effect, where small media players gain new visibility and the position of previously authoritative media is challenged. The clash between more socially driven or niche publics and the publics defined by professional forms of media is playing out in high-profile battles in domains such as intellectual property law, journalism, entertainment, and government. For our purposes, the questions surrounding knowledge and credibility and young people’s use of digital media to circumvent adult authority are particularly salient.

The emerging power shift, where smaller and edge players are gaining more visibility and voice, is particularly important to children and youth. If we look at children and youth through the lens of digital media, we have a population that has been historically subject to a high degree of systematic and institutional control in the kinds of information and social communication to which they have access. This is one reason why the alchemy between youth and digital media has been distinctive; it disrupts the existing set of power relations between adult authority and youth voice. While many studies of children, youth, and media have for decades stressed the status of young people as competent and full social subjects, digital media increasingly insist that we acknowledge this viewpoint. Not only must we see youth as legitimate social and political actors, but we must also recognize them as potential innovators and drivers of new media change.

This does not mean that we are uncritical of youth practices or that we believe that digital media necessarily hold the key to empowerment. Rather, we argue against technological determinism, stressing the need for balanced scholarship that recognizes the importance of our current moment within the context of existing structures and unfolding histories. This means placing contemporary changes within a historical context as well as working to highlight the diversity in the landscape of media and media uptake. Neither youth nor digital media are monolithic categories; documenting how specific youth take up particular forms of media with diverse learning outcomes is critical to this series as a whole. Digital media take the form they do because they are created by existing social and cultural contexts, contexts that are diverse and stratified.

As with earlier shifts in media environments, this current turn toward digital media and networks has been accompanied by fear and panic as well as elevated hopes. This is particularly true of adult perception of children and youth who are at the forefront of experimentation with new media forms, and who mobilize digital media to push back at existing structures of power and authority. While some see “digital kids” as our best hope for the future, others worry that new media are part of a generational rift and a dangerous turn away from existing standards for knowledge, literacy, and civic engagement. Careful, socially engaged, and accessible scholarship is crucial to informing this public debate and related policy decisions. Our need to understand the relation between digital media and learning is urgent because of the scale and the speed of the changes that are afoot. The shape and uses of digital media are still very much in flux, and this book series seeks to be part of the definition of our sociotechnical future.

Mizuko Ito

Cathy Davidson Henry Jenkins Carol Lee

Changing Citizenship in the Digital Age W. Lance Bennett

University of Washington, Seattle, Center for Communication and Civic Engagement

Democracy is not a sure thing. Governments and party systems often strain against changes in societies, and some fall prey to corruption and bad policies. Under the right conditions, people may reassert their rights to govern, and produce remarkable periods of creative reform, realignment, and change. In these times, politics becomes a focus of personal life itself, restoring the sense that participation makes a difference. The challenges of influencing the course of nations and addressing global issues may inspire creative solutions from the generations of young citizens who have access to digital communication tools. The cascading advance of media platforms and social software enables unprecedented levels of production and distribution of ideas, public deliberation, and network organization.

It is clear that many young citizens of this digital and global age have demonstrated interests in making contributions to society. Yet the challenge of engaging effectively with politics that are linked to spheres of government remains, for most, a daunting prospect. The reasons are numerous. A casual look at world democracies suggests that many of the most established ones are showing signs of wear. Parties are trying to reinvent themselves while awkwardly staying the course that keeps them in power. In the press, in everyday conversation, and often from the mouths of politicians, politics has become a dirty word rather than a commonly accepted vocabulary for personal expression.'! Perhaps most notably, younger generations have disconnected from conventional politics and government in alarming numbers. These trends in youth dissatisfaction with conventional political engagement are not just occurring in the United States, but have parallels in other democracies as well, including Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.” The pathways to disconnection from government are many: adults are frequently negative about politics, the tone of the press is often cynical, candidates seldom appeal directly to young voters on their own terms about their concerns, politicians have poisoned the public well (particularly in the United States) with vitriol and negative campaigning, and young people see the media filled with inauthentic performances from officials who are staged by professional communication managers.* Paralleling these developments has been a notable turning away from public life into online friendship networks, gaming and entertainment environments, and consumer

The author would like to thank Peter Levine, Alan Schussman, Cathy Davidson, and Chris Wells for their helpful comments on this chapter. In addition, the lively discussions both on- and offline among all the authors in this volume have informed and changed my thinking on many aspects of citizenship and digital learning. The online discussions with an impressive group of participants further added to the intellectual stimulation of this project. Thanks to everyone who so generously shared their time and creative spirits.

pursuits. Where political activity occurs, it is often related to lifestyle concerns that seem outside the realm of government.*

Many observers properly note that there are impressive signs of youth civic engagement in these nongovernmental areas, including increases in community volunteer work, high levels of consumer activism, and impressive involvement in social causes from the environment to economic injustice in local and global arenas.° Some even ascribe civic engagement qualities to many activities that occur in online social networking and entertainment communities. For example, Henry Jenkins, Cathy Davidson, Mimi Ito, and Jochai Benkler argue that many forms of shared activity online (from blogging, to conflict and protest behavior in gaming, fan and entertainment sites) represent forms of civic or media engagement.® The chapter by Earl and Schussman in this volume makes a good case that online petitions to entertainment and media corporations constitute a kind of social activism that displays skills mirroring social movement repertoires of action.

Many of the spontaneous and creative forms of collective expression online seem more appealing than the options typically offered in youth engagement sites sponsored by governments and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in efforts to invigorate public life for young people. In Coleman’s concluding chapter in this volume we learn that many well-intentioned youth engagement sites have clear ideas about what constitute proper citizen activities. As a result, these managed environments seem inauthentic and irrelevant to many young people. Indeed, Coleman’s survey of managed (government- and NGO-built and -operated) and autonomous (youth-built and -operated) sites in the U.K. suggests that young citizens find more authentic experiences in edgier political sites and in entertainment media and games. The dilemma is that many of the political sites that young people build and operate themselves may avoid formal government channels for communication and action and may lack the resources needed to sustain and grow them.

A key question thus becomes how to nurture the creative and expressive actions of a generation in change, while continuing to keep some positive engagement with government on their screens.

Two Paradigms of Youth Engagement

One goal of this chapter is to note and explore the sharply differing views of what constitutes civic engagement and citizenship for young people both on and off line. Indeed, there seem to be two different paradigms that contrast young citizens (roughly in the fifteen to twenty-five age range) as either reasonably active and engaged or relatively passive and disengaged. Like all paradigms, each foregrounds different core organizing values and principles, prompting proponents to weigh and select different sets of supporting facts and reasons. Each paradigm thus comes equipped with its own arguments and evidence, making it convincing to adherents and elusive and often maddening to those operating from the other constructed reality.’

The engaged youth paradigm implicitly emphasizes generational changes in social identity that have resulted in the growing importance of peer networks and online communities. In this view, if there is an attendant decline in the credibility or authenticity of many public institutions and discourses that define conventional political life, the fault lies more with the government performances and news narratives than with citizens who cannot engage with them.® In an important sense, this paradigm emphasizes the empowerment of youth as expressive individuals and symbolically frees young people to make their own creative choices. In the bargain, the engaged youth paradigm also eases the overriding duty to participate in conventional government-centered activities. In many cases, researchers in this school are only dimly aware of (and may tend to discount) research on declines and deficits in more conventional political participation among young citizens. As a result, the engaged youth paradigm opens the door to a new spectrum of civic actions in online arenas from MySpace to World of Warcraft. By contrast, the disengaged youth paradigm may acknowledge the rise of more autonomous forms of public expression such as consumer politics, or the occasional protest in MySpace, while keeping the focus on the generational decline in connections to government (e.g., voting patterns) and general civic involvement (e.g., following public affairs in the news) as threats to the health of democracy itself.

A typical exchange in a series of online discussions that accompanied the development of this volume found Jochai Benkler listing a variety of sites as examples of engaged youth, including the Harry Potter fan publication of the fictional wizard newspaper, the Daily Prophet. He also offered as evidence a Pew study showing that a majority of bloggers are under thirty, and roughly one third of them think of what they are doing as journalism. In his view, a faculty-student network for providing medicines to poor countries “must have missed the memo about lack of political engagement in today’s youth.”” In response, Ulises Mejias acknowledged the existence of some forms of civic life on the Web but expressed the following concerns: “If voting and reading the newspaper are deemed antiquated forms of civic participation, what kind of public sphere is being created by new forms of participation such as blogging, news aggregating, etc.?...the question is: what participant interests mold democracy’s new architecture of participation? ... Yes, there are important alternative spaces, but as the Pew study that Yochai cites points out, while a minority is interested in exploiting these uses for pro-social political action, the majority of users are content to view the technologies as means for individual expression (articulated through consumer choices).”!°

This exchange, along with many others, show that the same evidence can be interpreted differently when placed in different paradigm frames. One root of the difference is that the two paradigms reflect different normative views of what the good citizen ought to do when she grows up. The engaged youth viewpoint, in a sense, empowers young people by recognizing personal expression and their capacity to project identities in collective spaces. As Cathy Davidson noted in the online discussions, “. . . I think we have a unique opportunity to take advantage of peer-to-peer sites for creative, imaginative, activist learning purposes. That is a lot harder mission than critiquing the young.... I want to be attuned to what youth themselves say about the alternative forms of learning and social networking afforded by Web 2.0.”11

By contrast, those who lean toward the disengaged youth perspective often worry about this very personalization or privatization of the political sphere and focus more on how to promote public actions that link to government as the center of democratic politics, and to other social groups and institutions as the foundations of civic life. As David Buckingham (editor of the MacArthur series volume on identity) put it:

Part of me would agree that we do need to be worried, although I would accept that disengagement is a fairly understandable response to what currently seems to count as “public affairs.” Yes, new media may be offering new possibilities for civic participation, at least for some—although we need to know if this is just for the “usual suspects.” ...

But the point that worries me a little is the Harry Potter anecdote. OK, young people may well be participating and engaging in all sorts of very active and interesting ways online; and we could probably think of many other examples. But in what ways is this CIVIC engagement? ... “media engagement” is not necessarily the same as “civic engagement.” I would accept other people’s comments to the effect that this term “civic” is a little worthy and moralistic... but how, in the end, are we defining what counts as “civic,” and what doesn’t?

I would suggest that “civic” implies some notion of the public (the polis or the public sphere, even)— by which I suppose I mean an open debate about issues of general social concern between people who may not agree with each other. In this respect, there are certainly tendences in the internet towards an individualisation, or at least a fragmentation, of social/political debate (a settling into established niche groups). So there may be ways in which the internet promotes participation, but undermines the “civic.”... 12

And so the debate goes, often with real consequences in the worlds in which young people work, play, learn, and vote. As Cathy Davidson, Peter Levine, Howard Rheingold, and Henry Jenkins, among others, have pointed out, the disengaged youth viewpoint leads to something of a narrative of despair or decline about young citizens, one that travels all to easily in the news and leads to overlooking the many innovations that young people have brought to our public communication spaces.'? At the same time, Lew Friedland, Michael Delli Carpini, Zephyr Teachout, Peter Levine, and others have noted that traditional activities such as voting continue to matter, and young people hold the future of our democratic life insofar as citizens can still shape their political institutions. Some of these observers, including this author, straddle the two perspectives while seeking to bridge and transcend them. For example, Peter Levine has contrasted the core elements of the two narratives about young people, beginning with what the decline story often leaves out:

1 The narrative of decline overlooks creative developments, often led by youth, that may be building the foundations of civil society in the twenty-first century.

2 The decline story overlooks ways that various subpopulations engage on issues of special concern to them. For example, African American youth may be well informed about Katrina. (... African American youth are generally more politically engaged than White American youth, across the board).

3 It overlooks certain positive trends in youth engagement, such as a steep rise in the volunteering rate in the United States.

4 It focuses narrowly on youth, without recognizing that many declines in participation are evident among all age groups.

5 It treats a withdrawal from major institutions (such as elections and the press) as a decline, when these trends may actually reflect growing sophistication. Perhaps youth are deliberately and wisely choosing not to endorse forms of participation that are flawed.

The last point underlines the fact that “civic engagement” is a deeply normative concept. It is impossible to decide whether recent trends in engagement are good or bad—or important or meaningless—without developing a full-blown political theory.

I think that there is a problem with youth civic engagement, but it is not located inside young people’s heads. Institutions are also at fault. Telling young people to participate in bad institutions is mere propaganda. On the other hand, young people need to be taught and encouraged to take part in reform efforts and other aspects of politics. Political participation does not come naturally, nor do powerful institutions have incentives to encourage it. In short, we must not only prepare citizens for politics but also improve politics for citizens.

From my perspective, several trends in youth civic engagement are troubling. These trends are symptoms of institutional failure, poor civic education, and cultural forces that work against democratic participation. Selected survey results (see box for details) for U.S. residents, age eighteen to twenty-five show:

1 A decline in face-to-face, local participation—except volunteering. This decline precedes the rise of the Internet. The increase in volunteering is often attributed to service programs and requirements in high schools and colleges.

2 A big decline in all forms of election-related participation and protest until 2004, when there was a substantial increase.

3 A big decline in interest in the news and public affairs, accompanied by falling trust in the press—both of which occurred before the rise of the Internet. (I would blame the press, rather than youth, for this trend.)

4 A big decline in trust for other people, but no change in beliefs about government’s responsiveness. (Also, young adults are somewhat more confident in the government than their elders.)!4

These divergent views of youth engagement shape the thinking of policymakers and educators concerned about getting young people involved in civic life. When set side by side, the broader picture seems to point to changing the institutional and communication environments in which young people encounter politics, rather than somehow fixing the attitudes of youth themselves. Yet the institutional and communication environments themselves are politically contested, and often produce anemic and restricted (what Coleman would call heavily managed) experiences with credible or authentic politics. How many textbooks (or classroom teachers, who are monitored by school officials and parents) acknowledge that it makes sense for young people to follow the political lead of a rock star, such as Coldplay’s Chris Martin, who encouraged concert goers to join Oxfam’s Make Trade Fair campaign? Yet many Coldplay fans actually connected with government on their own: the band’s 2003 U.S. tour included Oxfam workers at concerts gathering some 10,000 postcards to send to President Bush, asking him to stop dumping subsidized exports such as rice on poor countries where farmers could no longer profit from growing the same crops.!> For those who were not at the concerts, a visit to the band’s Web site contained a link off the home page to the fair trade campaign materials.

Such pathways to political engagement are often not accommodated in traditional civic education and or government sponsored e-citizen sites, leaving many young citizens at odds with brittle conceptions of proper citizenship imposed upon them by educators, public officials, and other institutional authorities. Even when more creative civic education and engagement approaches enable young people to trace their own personal concerns through the governmental process, the end result may crash against the palpable failure of governments, parties, and candidates to recognize the communication and identity preferences of young citizens, as illustrated so clearly in the chapter by Xenos and Foot in this volume.

An important task of this chapter and the volume as a whole is to clarify the different assumptions about citizenship and engagement that underlie the often-competing views of the political and civic lives of young citizens. Clarifying and building bridges between the paradigms is necessary in order to better promote constructive dialogue among researchers and clearer policy and practice among educators, youth workers, parties, campaigns, and public officials.

Engagement Patterns of Young Citizens, Age 18-25 l. Participation in civil society, mostly local

Attend a club meeting (DDB Life Style survey): down from 49 percent in 1976 to 23 percent in 2005, with most of the decline in the 1980s.

Member of at least one organization (General Social Survey [GSS]): down from 63.5 percent in 1976 to 54 percent in 2004.

Work on a community project (DDB) down from 29 percent in 1976 to 21 percent in 2005. (The decline among older people is much steeper.)

Volunteer (DDB): up from 39 percent in 1976 to 41 percent in 2005.

Membership in extracurricular school groups such as student governments, school newspapers, and music clubs: down between 1972 and 1992, according to four waves of federal adolescent longitudinal studies.

Il. Social trust

Believe that other people are generally honest (DDB): down from 64 percent in 1976 to 38 percent in 2005, with most of the decline in the 1980s.

Believe that most people can be trusted (GSS): down from 37 percent in 1976 to 25 percent in 2004.

Ill. News consumption/interest

Follow what’s going on in government and public affairs most of the time (National Election Survey [NES]): down from 24 percent in 1976 to seven percent in 2000, then slightly up to 10 percent in 2004.

Read a daily newspaper (GSS): down from 44 percent in 1975 to 19 percent in 2002, but then back up to 28 percent in 2004.

Watch the TV news at least twice a week (NES): down from 79 percent in 1980 to 44 percent in 2004.

IV. Knowledge about government (or confidence in one’s knowledge)

Feel that you can understand government (NES): up from 26 percent in 1976 to 34 percent in 2004.

Able to identify Republicans as the more conservative national party (NES): up from 49 percent in 1976 to 78 percent in 2004 (all the increase is recent).

Know the name of your own candidates for U.S. House (NES): down from 25 percent in 1978 to 16 percent in 2000.

V. Political participation Vote in presidential election (Census surveys, self-report): basically unchanged from 43 percent in 1976 to 42 percent in 2004, but there was a deep decline in the 1980s and 1990s.

Been contacted by a party or candidate (NES): up from 49.5 percent in 1984 to 66 percent in 2004.

Persuade other people to vote a certain way (NES): up from 37 percent in 1976 to 56 percent in 2004, but the big increase in 2004 followed decades of modest decline.

Protests involving young people: down by about 50 percent according to Soule and Condo, using a database of news articles.

VI. Efficacy/trust in institutions

My vote matters (NES): basically unchanged from 88 percent in 1976 to 84 percent in 2000.

People like me have a say in government (NES): basically unchanged from 58 percent in 1976 to 55 percent in 2004 (with modest changes in between).

Trust the government in Washington to do the right thing most of the time (NES): basically unchanged from 42 percent in 1976 to 36 percent in 2004, with 45 percent recorded in 2000.

Confidence in the press (GSS): down from 32 percent in 1976 to 13 percent in 2004. VII. New media

In 2005, according to the DDB Life Style survey, 20 percent of 18-25s had read a blog at least several times during the past year, compared to 32 percent of the whole population.