Introducing Identity

This chapter provides an introductory overview of theories of identity and indicates some of the broad ways in which they might be applied to young people's interactions with digital media. The first part of the chapter offers a brief account of five major areas of theory: social-psychological theories of adolescence; sociological theories of youth culture; theories of social identity, and the relations between individuals and groups; notions of identity politics; and theories of subjectivity and modernity. The second part of the chapter covers three major themes that are at stake in the analysis of young people and digital media: theories of technology; the notion of young people as a "digital generation"; and the place of learning, both in and beyond schools. In this course of this broad-ranging overview, the chapter also prefigures some of the more specific themes addressed in the chapters that make up the remainder of the volume

'Scrapbooks' as a resource in media research with young people

[About the book]: Visual media offer powerful communication opportunities. Doing Visual Research with Children and Young People explores the methodological, ethical, representational and theoretical issues surrounding image-based research with children and young people. It provides well-argued and illustrated resources to guide novice and experienced researchers through the challenges and benefits of visual research. Because new digital technologies have made it easier and cheaper to work with visual media, Pat Thomson brings together an international body of leading researchers who use a range of media to produce research data and communicate findings. Situating their discussions of visual research approaches within the context of actual research projects in communities and schools, and discussing a range of media from drawings, painting, collage and montages to film, video, photographs and new media, the book offers practical pointers for conducting research. These include: - why visual research is used - how to involve children and young people as co–researchers - complexities in analysis of images and the ethics of working visually - institutional difficulties that can arise when working with a 'visual voice' - how to manage resources in research projects Doing Visual Research with Children and Young People will be an ideal guide for researchers both at undergraduate and postgraduate level across disciplines, including education, youth and social work, health and nursing, criminology and community studies. It will also act as an up-to-date resource on this rapidly changing approach for practitioners working in the field

[Epilogue] Rethinking digital literacy: Media education in the age of digital capitalism

Advocates of digital education have increasingly recognized the need for young people to acquire digital media literacy. However, this idea is often seen in instrumental terms, and is rarely implemented in any coherent or comprehensive way. This paper suggests that we need to move beyond a binary view of digital media as offering risks and opportunities for young people, and the narrow ideas of digital skills and internet safety to which it gives rise. The article propose that we should take a broader and more critical approach to the rise of ‘digital capitalism’, and to the ubiquity of digital media in everyday life. In this sense, the paper argue that the well-established conceptual framework and pedagogical strategies of media education can and should be extended to meet the new challenges posed by digital and social media.This article presents some reflections as an epigraph of the special issue "Digital learning: distraction or default for the future", whose final result has allowed us to group a set of critical research and analysis on the inclusion of digital technologies in educational contexts. The points of view presented in this epigraph is also developed in more detail in the book "The Media Education Manifesto" (Buckingham, 2019).Advocates of digital education have increasingly recognized the need for young people to acquire digital media literacy. However, this idea is often seen in instrumental terms, and is rarely implemented in any coherent or comprehensive way. This paper suggests that we need to move beyond a binary view of digital media as offering risks and opportunities for young people, and the narrow ideas of digital skills and internet safety to which it gives rise. The article propose that we should take a broader and more critical approach to the rise of ‘digital capitalism’, and to the ubiquity of digital media in everyday life. In this sense, the paper argue that the well-established conceptual framework and pedagogical strategies of media education can and should be extended to meet the new challenges posed by digital and social media.This article presents some reflections as an epigraph of the special issue "Digital learning: distraction or default for the future", whose final result has allowed us to group a set of critical research and analysis on the inclusion of digital technologies in educational contexts. The points of view presented in this epigraph is also developed in more detail in the book "The Media Education Manifesto" (Buckingham, 2019)

CoAKTinG: Collaborative Advanced Knowledge Technologies in the Grid

Grid infrastructures coupled with semantic web linkage and reasoning open up intriguing new possibilities for scientific collaboration. In this short paper, we outline the research agenda and collaboration technologies under development within the CoAKTinG project: Collaborative Advanced Knowledge Technologies in the Grid. CoAKTinG will provide tools to assist scientific collaboration by integrating intelligent meeting spaces, ontologically annotated media streams from online meetings, decision rationale and group memory capture, meeting facilitation, issue handling, planning and coordination support, constraint satisfaction, and instant messaging/presence. Their integration is illustrated through an extended use scenario