Investigating the presence, form and behavior of virtual possessions in the context of a teen bedroom

Over the past several years, people have acquired more and more virtual possessions. While virtual possessions have become ubiquitous, little work exists to inform designers on how these growing collections should be displayed and how they should behave. We generated four design concepts that changed the form and behavior of these digital things, making them more present within a teen bedroom. We then conducted speed dating sessions [9] to investigate how these new forms and behaviors influence perceptions of value. Sessions revealed how new technologies might better support self-exploration and reflection, as well as how they could complicate identity construction processes. Findings are interpreted to detail opportunities and tensions that can guide future research and practice in this emerging space

A fieldwork of the future with user enactments

Designing radically new technology systems that people will want to use is complex. Design teams must draw on knowledge related to people’s current values and desires to envision a preferred yet plausible future. However, the introduction of new technology can shape people’s values and practices, and what-we-know-now about them does not always translate to an effective guess of what the future could, or should, be. New products and systems typically exist outside of current understandings of technology and use paradigms; they often have few interaction and social conventions to guide the design process, making efforts to pursue them complex and risky. User Enactments (UEs) have been developed as a design approach that aids design teams in more successfully investigate radical alterations to technologies ’ roles, forms, and behaviors in uncharted design spaces. In this paper, we reflect on our repeated use of UE over the past five years to unpack lessons learned and further specify how and when to use it. We conclude with a reflection on how UE can function as a boundary object and implications for future work

"Working with Teenagers within HCI Research: Understanding Teen-Computer Interaction"

There has been limited consideration of teenagers (defined as 12-19 year olds in this work) as participants and end-users in Child-Computer Interaction and mainstream HCI communities. Teenagers reside in a fascinating and dynamic space between childhood and adulthood, and working more closely with teenagers within HCI may bring great insights and benefits. This paper provides an overview of teenage development from a psychological perspective, and then reviews existing work considering teenagers within HCI. Teenagers have long been identified as unique and studied within the field of developmental psychology, and the overview we provide in this paper highlights key understandings that should be carefully considered when working with teen participants. The paper concludes by presenting a set of key research questions that need to be explored in order to effectively work with teenagers within the field of HCI and provide a roadmap for future research within the Teen-Computer Interaction area

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Master of Fine Arts (MFA)Art and DesignUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156111/1/DeepBlue_Fitzgerald_2018_MFA_Thesis.pd

Global Transmission and Local Consumption: Navajo Resistance to Mainstream American Television

A common assumption maintains that the global outreach of mass media inevitably leads to deleterious consequences for native communities. Indeed, different scholars have argued that awareness of the outside world from television results in the homogenization of local cultures. However, images viewed through the electronic peephole radically transform not only an understanding of the outside world, but the way indigenes define themselves and their relationship to each other. By presenting subaltern audiences with an idealized other, television compels the emergence of an objectified self. “Who are ‘we’?” would not have been asked—or asked in the same way—were it not for the “Who are ‘they’?” necessitated by the introduction of television. In this article, I examine a particular group of subaltern viewers who reassign the roles of “self” and “other” in order to preserve, defend, and construct their own selfhood. Because they look and act differently from those in the mediated mainstream, Navajo television viewers create oppositional identities by understanding themselves first in relation to and then against standardized models. Resisting mainstream American television is a way of articulating experiences of powerlessness in a white-dominated society as well as a means of communicating a discourse of resistance to the dominant ideology

Screening Male Crisis: A Comparative Analysis of the Alternative Coming-of-Age Motion Picture

This thesis will identify how the principle male character in select film narratives transforms from childhood through his adolescence in multiple locations and historical eras. The primary film narratives include Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy: Pather Panchali (1955), Aparajito (1956), and Apur Sansar (1959), François Truffaut’s Antoine Doinel cycle: Les Quatre cents coups (1959), Antoine et Colette (1962), Baisers volés (1968), Domicile conjugal (1970), and L’Amour en fuite (1979), and Richard Linklater’s Boyhood (2014). These images of experience/maturation in motion are all intended to exemplify how the boy physically and psychologically changes over an extended period of time. The concept of the time-image will be shown to be an essential principal in passages from innocence to experience. I will establish how traditional characterizations of the young male as aggressive, unruly, and power-oriented individuals are refuted in alternative “takes” in these coming-of-age films, as a counter- genre cinema

Teen playlist: music discovery, production, and sharing among a group of high school students

The purpose of this investigation was to determine if a select group of adolescents exhibited behaviors and practices regarding digital music discovery, production, and sharing that influenced their classroom music instruction. The qualitative study focused on ways in which a group of adolescents informally engaged with digital music in relationship to learning music in their classroom. A constructivist–interpretivist viewpoint framed the theoretical perspective that a person’s knowledge constructions take place within the context of social interaction. In the early 21st century, young people interacting via digital social networking can experience and share music in ways previous generations could not imagine. Peer learning and exchange occur when adolescents share musical ideas and digital artifacts. In addition, autonomous learning takes place while interacting with a digital device. I used Mayer’s (2002) cognitive theory of multimedia learning to support an understanding of the learning effects associated with content-rich digital experiences. Linking social-constructivist and multimedia educational theories provided the conceptual framework needed to extrapolate meaning from adolescents’ preferences, influences, and feelings regarding digital musicking. In an instrumental case study, I followed four high school participants and their music teacher over the course of 6 months. The data consisted of participants’ detailed reflections and perspectives regarding digital music media discovery, production, and sharing. Detailed accounts collected from interviews and observations illustrated the behaviors of the participants, building a thick description. Although the research focused on adolescents, viewpoints of others emerged throughout the study, including those of peers, colleagues, and family members. Consequently, the investigation also considered what music teachers understood about their students’ out of school digital music discovery, production, and sharing. Findings show the convergence and divergence of digital music engagement in a high school music setting. Themes of experiencing music for personal identity, creativity, and popular culture intermix in classroom and informal learning environments. I present outcomes indicating direct implications for music curriculum development and suggest paths to connect in school and out of school music learning via digital music experiences. This study might help contemporary music teachers take advantage of students’ out of school digital music media practices to strengthen in school music programs