Using Participatory Media and Public Voice to Encourage Civic Engagement

Part of the Volume on Civic Life Online: Learning How Digital Media Can Engage Youth. Teaching young people how to use digital media to convey their public voices could connect youthful interest in identity exploration and social interaction with direct experiences of civic engagement. Learning to use blogs ("web logs," web pages that are regularly updated with links and opinion), wikis (web pages that non-programmers can edit easily), podcasts (digital radio productions distributed through the Internet), and digital video as media of self-expression, with an emphasis on "public voice," should be considered a pillar -- not just a component -- of twenty-first-century civic curriculum. Participatory media that enable young people to create as well as consume media are popular among high school and college students. Introducing the use of these media in the context of the public sphere is an appropriate intervention for educators because the rhetoric of democratic participation is not necessarily learnable by self-guided point-and-click experimentation. The participatory characteristics of online digital media are described, examples briefly cited, the connection between individual expression and public opinion discussed, and specific exercises for developing a public voice through blogs, wikis, and podcasts are suggested. A companion wiki provides an open-ended collection of resources for educators: https://www.socialtext.net/medialiteracy

Entrepreneurial learning in the networked age: How new learning environments foster entrepreneurship and innovation

Authors reflect on the challenges and opportunities the age of the internet and digital technology pose for entrepreneurial learnin

Aprenentatge emprenedor a l'era de les xarxes: nous entorns d'aprenentatge per fomentar

Reflexió sobre els reptes i les oportunitats que l’era d’Internet i de la tecnologia digital presenten per a l’aprenentatge emprenedo

Should we pay for our social media/messenger applications? Preliminary data on the acceptance of an alternative to the current prevailing data business model

In the age of surveillance capitalism, the prevailing business model underlying the use of social media applications ("apps") foresees the exchange of personal data for the allowance to use an online service. Such a data business model comes with many potential negative side effects ranging from violation of privacy issues to election manipulation. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to think of alternatives to the current data business model. The present study investigated how strong the support would be for a monetary payment model among a sample of 210 participants. Participants were asked about their willingness to pay for social media, if in turn their data would be private and other problems concerning social media use would be tackled. Only one-fifth of participants (21.43%) supported such a model. From the Big Five personality traits, Agreeableness was positively associated with support of such a model. Finally, data are also provided on how much participants would be willing to pay for social media on a monthly basis. The present study’s findings are of a preliminary nature and will contribute to the start of an important discussion

Digital methods for ethnography: analytical concepts for ethnographers exploring social media environments

The aim of this article is to introduce some analytical concepts suitable for ethnographers dealing with social media environments. As a result of the growth of social media, the Internet structure has become a very complex, fluid, and fragmented space. Within this space, it is not always possible to consider the 'classical' online community as the privileged field site for the ethnographer, in which s/he immerses him/herself. Differently, taking inspiration from some methodological principles of the Digital Methods paradigm, I suggest that the main task for the ethnographer moving across social media environments should not be exclusively that of identifying an online community to delve into but of mapping the practices through which Internet users and digital devices structure social formations around a focal object (e.g., a brand). In order to support the ethnographer in the mapping of social formations within social media environments, I propose five analytical concepts: community, public, crowd, self-presentation as a tool, and user as a device

Analysis of Photo Sharing and Visual Social Relationships. Instagram as Case Study

This article discusses how visuality, through the mobility of Instagram, modifies individuals’ mediated lives. In particular, it examines how Instagram transforms individuals’ perceptions of their interpersonal relationships. It advances a critical re-reading of the concept of mobility (smart mobile devices) and the new approach to sociality. Conducting an empirical examination, this article delineates the changing dynamics that digitality determines within contemporary life experiences. Findings show that the ubiquitous use of smart mobile devices leads individuals towards the development of new forms and conceptions of mobile mediated visualities. In order to understand the rise of new visual practices based on Pink’s (2007) ethnographic work, this article considers how relationships develop among individuals, visual technologies, practices and images, society and culture. A qualitative approach informed by netnography (Kozinets, 2010), computer-mediated interviews and visual analysis (Rose, 2007) is employed in this study. The critical analysis of 44 participant interviews and their photo sharing behaviour presents the transformations that the mediation and mobility of Instagram bring into everyday relations between humans and technologies. The increased use of social media shows how sociality is affected and mediated by new mobile technologies. Although the social potentiality of (visual) social relationships itself does not offer a variety of verbal communication mechanisms, it encourages offline meetings or the relocation onto other social media. This shows that every alteration in the structure of societies has influence on individuals and on their means of expression