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183
of “cyberkids” or “The Electronic Generation,” the assumption of a natural acuity
with media and technology is problematic. Digital Natives are contrasted with
“Digital Immigrants,” older people who have adopted a similar stance toward media
and technology after spending part of their lives in a less mediated world. As John
Palfrey and Urs Gasser point out, not all young people are Digital Natives. It takes a
particular kind of person—one with particular motivation and resources—to be a
Digital Native2. Although the students I worked with at CMS were born well after
1980 and used digital media on a regular basis, they likely would not meet the
criteria for identification as Digital Natives because they lacked the money to buy
gadgets as well as the time and the literacy skills to devote themselves to mediated
lives.
It is the longevity of the construction of kids as either victims or savvy users
of technology that, in part, motivates the concerns about access I have discussed
throughout this dissertation and particularly in chapter five. At the same time that
kids recognized as having new media literacy skills (or, synonymously, as being
Digital Natives) are being recognized and empowered in ways similar to those with
which they have become familiar through other parts of the market, other kids are
marked as “illiterate,” not only in terms of alphabetic literacy, but also in terms of
the technological and social skills identified as essential to future success. Because of
the links that have been forged (both within discourse and institutions) between
media, technology, and consumer citizenship, being on the wrong side of the digital
divide or the participation gap--being neither a Digital Native nor a Digital
Object Description
| Title | Kids as cultural producers: consumption, literacy, and participation |
| Author | Stephenson, Rebecca Herr |
| Author email | rherr@usc.edu; bhs@hri.uci.edu |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Communication |
| School | Annenberg School for Communication |
| Date defended/completed | 2008-08-25 |
| Date submitted | 2008 |
| Restricted until | Unrestricted |
| Date published | 2008-10-17 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Banet-Weiser, Sarah |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Gross, Larry Seiter, Ellen |
| Abstract | This dissertation looks closely at the practice of digital media production within a group of special education students and their teachers. Using ethnographic methods of extended participant observation and semi-structured interviews with students, teachers, and parents, along with textual analysis of students' media projects, this work examines the types of learning that emerge from making media at school and the ways in which that learning relates to media and technology use in everyday life. Over the course of one school year (2005-2006), the students who are the focus of this dissertation undertook eight different multimedia production projects, ranging from designing PowerPoint presentations to digital video production and stop-motion animation. Through media production, the students found opportunities to practice traditional and digital literacy skills as well as to explore issues of identity and self-expression.; This dissertation provides empirical support for recommendations made by several media literacy scholars to include media production as part of critical media literacy curricula and contributes a unique case study -- one situated in special education -- to a growing body of work on digital literacy. Three interdisciplinary themes--consumption, literacy, and participation -- are used to organize the description and analysis of the students' media production activities. These themes connect the specific production that took place in the classroom to larger discourses about youth, media, technology, education, and access, working to complicate existing constructions of young people as either helpless victims of manipulative media or naturally savvy media and technology users. Instead, this research emphasizes that the relationships kids have with media and technology are complex, dynamic, intrinsically linked to their identities as consumers and participants in society. Media literacy is thus theorized as a tool for understanding and controlling consumption, participation, and the construction of young people as both current and future citizens. |
| Keyword | media literacy; media production; special education; middle school; digital media |
| Geographic subject (city or populated place) | Los Angeles |
| Coverage date | 2005/2006 |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m1674 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | Stephenson, Rebecca Herr |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Filename | etd-Stephenson-2393 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume29/etd-Stephenson-2393.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 188 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Full text | 183 of “cyberkids” or “The Electronic Generation,” the assumption of a natural acuity with media and technology is problematic. Digital Natives are contrasted with “Digital Immigrants,” older people who have adopted a similar stance toward media and technology after spending part of their lives in a less mediated world. As John Palfrey and Urs Gasser point out, not all young people are Digital Natives. It takes a particular kind of person—one with particular motivation and resources—to be a Digital Native2. Although the students I worked with at CMS were born well after 1980 and used digital media on a regular basis, they likely would not meet the criteria for identification as Digital Natives because they lacked the money to buy gadgets as well as the time and the literacy skills to devote themselves to mediated lives. It is the longevity of the construction of kids as either victims or savvy users of technology that, in part, motivates the concerns about access I have discussed throughout this dissertation and particularly in chapter five. At the same time that kids recognized as having new media literacy skills (or, synonymously, as being Digital Natives) are being recognized and empowered in ways similar to those with which they have become familiar through other parts of the market, other kids are marked as “illiterate,” not only in terms of alphabetic literacy, but also in terms of the technological and social skills identified as essential to future success. Because of the links that have been forged (both within discourse and institutions) between media, technology, and consumer citizenship, being on the wrong side of the digital divide or the participation gap--being neither a Digital Native nor a Digital |
