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The #Revolution will be liked: an examination of civic expression among Hawaiian youth

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Content Running head: THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED

1

THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED:
AN EXAMINATION OF CIVIC EXPRESSION AMONG HAWAIIAN YOUTH

By

Clint Kuahiwi Pasalo Anderson

A Dissertation Proposal Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION

December 2014

Copyright 2014 Clint K. P. Anderson
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 2
Dedication
I dedicate this work to Teachers. Everywhere.

THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 3
Acknowledgements
3
rd
Tier Thanks: Thank you to my hero/best friend/wife, Tricia for
your unconditional love and support. Thank you to my wonderful
children, Kiana and Cole for bringing purpose to my life. Thank
you mom and dad; know that this accomplishment would not have
been attainable without your encouragement and continual love.
Monte and Cody – thank you bros! And to my in-laws, John and
Pat Macayan: I feel I will never be able to repay all you have done
for me – this achievement is for you.
2
nd
Tier Thanks: Mahalo to the faculty of the USC Rossier School of Education,
for crossing oceans to shift paradigms. And for showing me how to change the
world. To my committee chair, Dr. John Pascarella, thank you for accompanying
me on mental walks, through mists of uncertainty, and through forests of
enlightenment. To Dr. Julie Slayton and Dr. Brandon Martinez, many thanks for
pushing me to explore new avenues of thought and creativity. Dr. Melora Sundt,
Dr. Robert Rueda, Dr. Stu Gothold, Dr. Morgan Polikoff – I am appreciative of
your shared wisdom. To my braddah, Dr. Kawika Rose: Thank you my friend.
Mahalo nui also to the Rose and Towill families for providing hospitality, true
aloha, and a home away from home during the duration of my travels.
1
st
Tier Thanks: I would like to extend a special note of gratitude to the USC Hawaii Squad,
whose collective mana’o informed much of this work. Special thanks as well to my students,
who inspire me daily. It is my small hope that this dissertation is able to work in perpetuity to
enhance our island home and benefit all who reside here. And beyond.
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 4
Table of Contents

Dedication ........................................................................................................................................ 2
Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................... 3
List of Figures .................................................................................................................................. 6
Abstract ............................................................................................................................................ 7
EPIGRAPH ...................................................................................................................................... 9
PROLOGUE: In Which We Begin Our Journey to La Revolución .............................................. 14
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 18
Background of the Problem ....................................................................................................... 20
Isolation and the Decline of Civic Knowledge, Expression, and Engagement ..................... 24
Online Expression and the Rebirth of the Engaged Citizen .................................................. 26
Statement Of The Problem ........................................................................................................ 27
Purpose of the Study .................................................................................................................. 29
Research Questions ................................................................................................................... 32
Significance of the Study ........................................................................................................... 33
Methodology .............................................................................................................................. 35
Assumptions .............................................................................................................................. 35
Limitations ................................................................................................................................. 36
Delimitations ............................................................................................................................. 36
Definition of Terms ................................................................................................................... 37
CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ........................................................................ 40
Drawing a Cultural Context ....................................................................................................... 42
Civic Inequities ...................................................................................................................... 43
Informal Cultures of Learning ............................................................................................... 45
Social Network Sites: Civic Exploitation Or Civic Empowerment .......................................... 50
New Media: The Weapon, The Tool ..................................................................................... 53
Participatory Culture: The Battlefield, The Worksite ........................................................... 60
Not The Sharpest Tools in The Shed: The War on Social Media ............................................. 64
I “Like” That: Interest-Driven Networks and Civic Engagement ............................................. 67
Conceptual Framework ............................................................................................................. 77
1st Tier Engagement .............................................................................................................. 79
2nd Tier Engagement ............................................................................................................ 80
3rd Tier Engagement ............................................................................................................. 81
Framed-Work ........................................................................................................................ 81
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 82

THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 5
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................. 85
Research Design ........................................................................................................................ 86
Sample and Population .............................................................................................................. 88
Instrumentation .......................................................................................................................... 91
Surveys .................................................................................................................................. 91
Interviews .............................................................................................................................. 92
Documents ............................................................................................................................. 94
Data Collection .......................................................................................................................... 96
Data Analysis ............................................................................................................................. 99
Software ............................................................................................................................... 101
Coding ................................................................................................................................. 102
Validity and Reliability ........................................................................................................... 103
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 104
CHAPTER 4: RESULTS ............................................................................................................ 106
Case Description: Participant Characteristics and Demographics .......................................... 114
Table 1: Participant Coding: Pseudonyms and general demographic information ................ 116
Findings ................................................................................................................................... 119
Identity & Kuleana: Hawaiian Youth and the Development of Cultural Civic Agency ..... 123
Tiers of Civic Expression: Hawaiian Youth and the Manifestation of Civic Engagement . 133
Discussion: Blended Expression and the Potential of Civic Ubiquity ................................ 176
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION .................................................................................................... 182
Summary, Implications, and Recommendations for Future Research .................................... 183
Summary of the Findings .................................................................................................... 184
Limitations ........................................................................................................................... 185
Implications for Research on Online Civic Expression ...................................................... 186
Implications for Research on Youth Identity Formation ..................................................... 187
Implications for the Field of Education ............................................................................... 189
Recommendations for Future Research ............................................................................... 192
Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 193
References ................................................................................................................................... 195
APPENDICIES ............................................................................................................................ 211
Appendix A ............................................................................................................................. 211
Appendix B .............................................................................................................................. 212
Appendix C .............................................................................................................................. 216
Appendix D ............................................................................................................................. 218
Appendix E .............................................................................................................................. 222
Appendix F .............................................................................................................................. 223
Appendix G ............................................................................................................................. 224
Appendix H ............................................................................................................................. 225
Appendix I ............................................................................................................................... 226

THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 6
List of Figures
Figure 1. “Tagged” screenshot from researcher’s Facebook timeline ........................................... 11

Figure 2. Comments section of tagged screenshot from researcher’s Facebook timeline ........... 12

Figure 3. Conceptual Framework: Model of Blended Youth Civic Engagement ........................ 77

Figure 4. Six-step data analysis process (adapted from Cresswell, 2009) ................................. 100

Figure 5. Summation of the Findings ......................................................................................... 107

Figure 6. Substratal categories and themes of Native Hawaiian youth civic agency and
engagement .......................................................................................................................... 113

Figure 7. Self-selected screenshot from Pua’s Facebook timeline ............................................. 125

Figure 8. Screenshot from Kalani’s Facebook timeline ............................................................. 130

Figure 9. Model of 1
st
Tier Civic Expression ............................................................................. 134

Figure 10. Screenshots from James’ and Malia’s Facebook timelines ...................................... 139

Figure 11. Screenshot from Ulu’s Facebook timeline ................................................................ 140

Figure 12. Model of 2
nd
Tier Civic Expression .......................................................................... 145

Figure 13. Screenshot from Saul’s Facebook timeline ............................................................... 148

Figure 14. Self-selected Screenshot from Makana’s Facebook timeline ................................... 151

Figure 15. Screenshot from Tamara’s Facebook timeline .......................................................... 155

Figure 16. Model of 3
rd
Tier Civic Expression ........................................................................... 158

Figure 17. Self-selected Screenshot from Manu’s Facebook timeline ....................................... 164

Figure 18. Screenshot from Casey’s Facebook timeline ............................................................ 167

Figure 19. Shared status from Michael’s Facebook timeline ..................................................... 173

Figure 20. Shared status from community organization Facebook timeline .............................. 175

THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 7
Abstract
This study combined the concepts of new media and participatory culture, along with tenets of
U.S. education, citizenship practices, and indigenous epistemology, to apply a theoretical
framework to ascertain the issues, conditions, and circumstances that underlie individual and
collective civic thoughts and actions among Native Hawaiian youth (NHY). The purpose of the
study was to offer evidence of blended—online and offline—citizenship practices by youth, to be
used by those in the field of Education, to offer new ways to think about policy, pedagogy, and
teaching practices. The following research questions thus guided the study: (a) In an era of
heightened and immersive use of digital and social media by society, how and why is civic
engagement developed and expressed among native Hawaiian youth? (b) What influence does
indigenous culture have on the civic expression patterns of Native Hawaiian youth? To answer
these questions, qualitative data in the form of surveys, interviews, and documents were
collected from 14 (8 male and 6 female) civic-minded NHY, aged 16-18. Further exploratory
analyses were conducted using follow-up interviews and member-checks. Using the Computer
Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS) application, Dedoose, the findings from
this study indicated that indigenous paradigms impacted the types of civic agency that
participants developed, which directly influenced the types of civic engagement—objectives,
practices, and actions—that were manifested by youth, in online and offline communities.
Additionally, the findings suggested that for Hawaiian youth in the study, civic agency and the
manifestation of civic expression were intertwined with the values, beliefs, and practices that
constituted Hawaiian epistemology and culture, and therefore also illuminated the ways that
Hawaiian youth form civic identities. This study also showed that there were patterns in the
types of offline and online practices and activities that NHY participated in, which corresponded
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 8
to differing levels, or “tiers,” of civic engagement. The findings can therefore be used by those
in the field of Education to establish policies, practices, and pedagogies which engage students,
nurture their civic capacities, and provide authentic opportunities to engage in, and improve, the
myriad communities that Native Hawaiian students are a part of.

THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 9
EPIGRAPH

You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out….
Because the revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.

Gil Scott-Heron
The Revolution Will Not be Televised
1970

THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 10
Today’s revolutions and uprisings are captured not through television, but instead
through the pictures and conversations on smart phones, tablets, and other mobile computing
devices (Lenhart, Ling, Campbell, & Purcell, 2010; Smith, 2013). Likewise, for the youth of
today, pictures and conversations are thee means of expression on social media (boyd, 2008b).
For the over 80% of American youth (Madden, Lenhart, Cortesi, Smith, & Beaton, 2013) who
engage in Social Networking Sites (SNSs), life is a series of digitized pictures and conversations
(boyd, 2010; boyd & Ellison, 2007; Heverly, 2008). In any of the popular digital social
networks—Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest—pictures and conversations
dominate the media landscape at every level of interaction: from the ubiquitous and mundane
“picture-of-what-I-had-for-lunch-today-with-accompanying-smily-face-emoji,” to the
inspirational and civically-engaging, “picture-of-our-work-in-the-community-garden-today-with-
information-on-how-to-help-out.” Both examples are means of self-expression, but the latter is
demonstrative of the civic potential that participatory culture has come to represent, and which
social media is able to capture and share. It is the study of these pictures and conversations, like
the one below, that precipitated this very study, which examines why and how Native Hawaiian
Youth (NHY) express civic thoughts and actions—in blended ways—in offline and online
environments and communities.
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 11

Figure 1. “Tagged” screenshot from researcher’s Facebook timeline
The screenshot
1
above, taken from my Facebook timeline, is indicative of the types of
“tags” that I began receiving in 2010, when, after some initial hesitation, I decided to accept
friend requests from former students through the now ubiquitous SNS. The screen-capture
showed the book I gave the alumnus at her graduation – she tagged me, to communicate the fact
that she was “well equipped,” and using the material for a presentation in college; one that dealt
with one of the topic of colonialism and oppression of Hawaiians. The ensuing tags, posts, and
messages from former students, along with the examination of friendship-driven (FD) and
interest-driven (ID) networks that this study is centered around, led me to think about the ways
that learning and influence are extended and lengthen beyond the time students are in classrooms

1
Highlighting and arrows added for emphasis.
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 12
and in contact with teachers and their peers. The prominence of social media in participatory
culture also led me think about the ways that connectivity and discourse are enabled and
enhanced by communication technologies, in ways that were never possible in the past.
As friend requests and their resultant correspondences and interactions became more
common, I began to wonder about the ways that social media could supplement, and even
measure learning and engagement. Could social media also be used as an authentic means of
expressing civic thoughts and actions?
Figure 2. Comments section of tagged screenshot from researcher’s Facebook timeline

THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 13
The screen-captured image above (Figure 2), which shows the comments section of the
Facebook status portrayed in Figure 1, demonstrates just that; it captures the power of new media
and the communicative premise of participatory culture in action. The form of new media, in
this case, Facebook, allowed a critical dialogue—civic dialogue—to develop between youth, all
of which stemmed from a picture and conversation.
A brief analysis of the screenshot showed that the following emerged: Culture, History,
Language, Conflict, Resolution, Aloha, Sarcasm, A Joke, and even Learning. This is the essence
of what it means to communicate in a participatory culture, where everyone has the capacity to
produce and share media (Jenkins et al., 2009). This is the potentiality of the New Media
Literacies
2
(NMLs), to incur civic agency, to allow users to be both the informed consumer and
the producer of media, to practice the social skills that connect community members locally, and
across oceans. The tiny revolution (and evolution) expressed in the screenshot was commented
on and affirmed by youth – confirmation that this social message spoke to them in some way.
This revolution was not televised, but it was broadcast to screens across the state, nation, and
world, and it was, most notably, liked.

2
See Appendix A for list and description of Jenkins et al.’s (2009) 12 New Media Literacies
(NMLs) – these skills comprise the cultural competencies and social skills that are needed to
thrive in a participatory culture.
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 14
PROLOGUE: In Which We Begin Our Journey to La Revolución
First, A Word From the Teacher:

We seek to understand this: the true goal of education is liberation. It is time to move into
consciousness. The great divides of distance have been bridged, barriers removed. Technology
has allowed us opportunities to attain knowledge in ways, and at speeds, never before seen in
history. We are at a point in our lives where the availability of information is as it never was.
It’s time to communicate – time to speak, time to listen. We must realize that dualities are but
mere constructs. The ability to convey clear and effective messages is a necessity; as cultures
collide, our survival depends on it.

This course will seek to explore the fundamental idea of universality through specificity.
Through the words of individuals, the world will reveal itself in illuminating ways. The
implication here is simple: through the study of specific cultures and ideas, our understanding of
the world as a whole will increase. Through understanding, meaning is able to take root.
Through meaning we are able to engage – with each other and with our purposes. And together,
we will change the world.

Addendum to the English 11 Syllabus
Clint K. P. Anderson
2004

***
The preceding words were taken from my 2004 course syllabus – a message to my
students as they started the school year; a message that conveyed the importance of English in
fostering civic thoughts and actions. As a young teacher, these words revealed the zest I had for
my area of expertise; these words were meant to incite tiny riots and revolutions in the minds of
my students. These notations reflected the idealism, naiveté, and hope I had for my young
Padawans as they entered into, what I believed to be, new galaxies of learning. At this point in
time, Google had emerged as thee primary access point for instant information. Wikipedia
struggled to establish credibility in academia. Social media, in its current iteration, was in its
infancy – its exponential growth as yet unfathomable. Myspace—an anachronistic term at the
time of this writing—permeated through educational spheres and birthed discussions regarding
the ever-present dangers, as well as the potential promises of participation in an online culture, a
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 15
debate that still lingers today (boyd, 2008a). In the years that followed, Thomas Friedman’s
(2005) notion that The World Is Flat, became a reality; acknowledgement of life in a global
society was accepted by all social and economic sectors. Connectivity via technology was seen
as vital for success. Thus, a resounding hue and cry went out, and called for schools to do their
part to prepare students in the U. S. to compete with other nations who had surpassed America in
every measure of academic and civic achievement. The message was clear: educational
institutions needed to do more to promote student success in a new digitally-mediated-globally-
connected society. As an English teacher, my role was to teach students to communicate clearly
and effectively, using the most relevant, impactful, and appropriate tools available – digital or
otherwise.
In the nearly ten years that have elapsed since I included “A Word From the Teacher” in
my High School English syllabus, the global, national, and local debate on the merits and
corresponding pitfalls of technology has not changed much, with arguments falling into one of
two categories: (1) technology is good; or, (2) technology is bad. My central view on the impact
that technology can have on the world has remained somewhat optimistic. Recent events, such
as the people’s revolution in Tahrir Square in Egypt, and demonstrations in Bangkok, Thailand,
each brought millions to the street in protest against the oppressive forces, and each of the
movements utilized social media as the catalyst for social and political change – the idealistic
notion of the power of communication—the power of words—played out in grand fashion
(Herrera, 2012). Can humans harness the collective power of voice to enact change? Can media
also be used to challenge and democratize tyrannical ideology? The answer is clearly, yes.
Given the scale of these uprisings, I recognize, as did scholars and thinkers before me,
that technology can shape and redefine the way that information is received and internalized.
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 16
Because of the speed at which information now travels, and the scope of the audience these
thoughts and ideas can reach, there is a greater potentiality for digitalized words to affect change.
Varying communication technologies like email, texting, and SNSs, such as Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram, have fostered social and political change in sectors and institutions around the
world; however, I believe that my profession—Education—has yet to tap into the collective
power that participatory culture allows for, and which new media technologies provide.
I still believe, as I did 10 years ago, that education is liberation. My English teacher bias
aside, I still believe that communication is essential in helping students develop their identity and
place in the world. I still believe, wholeheartedly, that through a dialectical mode of dialogue,
meaning can take root in the minds of youth. I still believe, with a bit of idealism, naiveté, and
hope, that my work will lead people to find their purpose. The construction of this dissertation
was no different.
My purpose, my journey, to become a high school teacher has been one of reflexive-
rebellion. As a student classified as an ethnic minority, a “mixed-other,” I have lived through
the oppressive public school structures that critical and political scholars have theorized about,
and rallied against. I believe that I am the uproar of subjugated nations. Yet, as a teacher, I
believe that I may also be the subjugator. I am the colonized and the colonizer. As a teacher I
believe I have the ability to give voice to students. Or silence them. As a researcher, scholar,
and writer, I have the ability to do the same.
And as my students develop civic thoughts, actions, and responsibilities, and begin to
venture into communicative spheres that harness the power of media technologies, the question,
again, is: As a teacher, researcher, scholar, and writer, how will I do the same? The completion
of this dissertation documents my civic duty, to find my purpose, to engage with my community,
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 17
and engage in the consumer/producer role that participatory culture allows for, and which the
revolución demands.
***

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
Towards a Civic Paradigm
…The higher branches of education, of which the Legislature require the development,
give a free scope to the public industry; to develop the reasoning faculties of our youth,
enlarge their minds, cultivate their morals, and instill into them the precepts of virtue and
order; to enlighten them… and, generally, to form them to habits of reflection and correct
action, rendering them examples of virtue to others, and of happiness within themselves.
Thomas Jefferson
Report of the Commissioners for the University of Virginia
August 4, 1818

…[W]e’re inspired by technologies that have revolutionized how people spread and
consume information… They gave more people a voice. They encouraged progress. They
changed the way society was organized. They brought us closer together... There is a
huge need and a huge opportunity to get everyone in the world connected, to give
everyone a voice and to help transform society for the future… We hope to strengthen
how people relate to each other… Personal relationships are the fundamental unit of our
society. Relationships are how we discover new ideas, understand our world and
ultimately derive long-term happiness.

Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook IPO Letter
February 1, 2012

As two individuals whose revolutionary thoughts and ideologies have shaped and
reshaped American practices and paradigms, Thomas Jefferson and Mark Zuckerberg both
recognize that a fundamental tenet of citizenship is: participation in society, and that a
fundamental goal for all citizens is: happiness. Despite the simplicity of thought embedded in
these two humanistic directives, true attainment of civic involvement and personal happiness has
been, and has remained, a historic challenge, one which the institution of Education has
consistently sought to overcome.
From its inception, civic enlightenment has always been a fundamental part of
citizenship; consequently, it has been a core concept of education in the United States. Thomas
Jefferson believed whole-heartedly, as did his contemporaries, that tutelage in civics was
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 19
necessary to sustain a good and prosperous nation; in his argument for the establishment of the
University, he called for the inclusion of a formal civics education in the U. S. that not only
informed young people about their responsibilities as citizens, but also asserted the need for a
model of democratic education that taught people how to critically engage in political and social
issues. In the 1800s, the agency and application of civic knowledge and participation was
directly linked to one’s education. To be “educated” was to attain schooling in discourse,
namely reading and writing. In Jefferson’s time, rhetoric was confined to parchment and ink,
and participation in verbal communication was limited by physical distance. The ideology
behind the creation of the pinnacle of education that was to be the University of Virginia was
that an educated citizenry, equipped with the knowledge and means of civic discourse, was
essential to individual happiness and of the utmost import to a well-functioning and prosperous
society.
In contemporary times, the goal of a formal education has remained the same; however,
the means have transformed: advancements in digital communication technologies have provided
citizens with new forms of education, and new opportunities to develop civic thoughts, and
engage in civic action. Zuckerberg’s (2012) words thus hail the arrival of the Internet, new
media, and, more specifically, social media, as agents of civic change; tools, that if used
virtuously, have the ability to empower its citizens to tap into a digitized culture of participation,
and utilize new forms of media technologies to foster critical engagement in and around social
and political issues, to connect with others and strive for a joyful individual and communal
existence.
If the discipline of Education is to remain a purveyor of civic knowledge, it is paramount
that its institutions embrace the changing face of civic engagement and become cognizant of the
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 20
ways its youth have embraced digital forms of civic expression. The goal of this study is thus to
understand the precepts of youth social and civic interactions in an era of technological ubiquity,
which are key to a prosperous, engaged, enlightened and thriving citizenry.
Background of the Problem
Despite the tremendous potential that the Internet has in providing a medium to enlighten
minds, teach peaceful means of coexistence, and combat injustice and censorship throughout the
world (Banaji, 2013; Jenkins et al., 2009; Kahne & Middaugh, 2012), it also has the same power
that other forms of visual media have had in the past, to expound and spread subversive
messages, to employ propaganda, to enact censorship itself – to exploit the uninformed and
uneducated (De Tocqueville, Bradley, Reeve, & Bowen, 1972; Putnam, 1995; Putnam, 2000). In
response to this threat, educators and social researchers have become cognizant of the need to
focus on civic awareness and responsibility in an increasingly digitalized online world (Herrera,
2012; Kahne & Middaugh, 2012; Longford, 2009; Mossberger, 2008); thus the concept of digital
citizenship was born, which encompasses the “skills, access, [and] education needed for
participation in the information age” (Mossberger, 2008, p. 6).
At its core, Jeffersonian ideology embraces the notion that education works to combat the
potential civic abuses noted above, by enlarging the minds of students and cultivating their
morals. This belief also contends that civic knowledge, agency, and engagement are pillars of
citizenship, which are necessary to impart habits of reflection and correct action. Zuckerberg-
ian ideology embraces the notion that SNSs function much in the same manner that formal
educational structures work; that is to say, they foster social relationships and norms, and give
everyone a voice… to help transform society. The belief in the parchment-era, as it is now in the
digital-era, is that by establishing a solid foundation of civic responsibility during their youth, as
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 21
adults, citizens are civically engaged, not only because they were taught to do so, but because
they genuinely care, and are intrinsically virtuous enough to do so (U.S. Department of
Education, 2012). Citizens who are well versed in civic discourse can thus make better-informed
decisions, and make better lives for themselves and their communities. Zuckerberg’s opinion
that SNSs have the power to give more people a voice… and …encourage progress, coincides
with Jefferson’s ideal that a well-informed and connected populace can indeed combat
oppression and effect social and political change – in sum, both ideologies contend that
education, regardless of its form and mode, is an essential component in attaining civic
knowledge.
To contemporary scholars as well as the government, civics education in the United
States continues to be an important concept, if not in practice, at least in theory (Cohen, Kahne,
Bowyer, Middaugh, & Rogowski, 2012; Ito et al., 2013; Jenkins, Purushotma, Weigel, Clinton,
& Robison, 2009; Kahne & Middaugh, 2012; Kahne, Middaugh, Lee, & Feezell, 2012; Putnam,
1995; U.S. Department of Education, 2012). Civic knowledge brings life to the notion that the
true goal of education is liberation (Aluli-Meyer, 2006); that to be educated is to be liberated
from oppression; that civic agency is a precursor to civic engagement; that civic engagement is
the duty of all citizens.
In the Digital Age, all schools across the nation, public and private, are thus charged with
fostering a sense of civic responsibility amongst its youth. The U.S. Department of Education’s
(2012) report, Advancing Civic Learning and Engagement in Democracy: A Road Map and Call
to Action, heeds this call and proclaims that:
Now is a propitious time to advance civic learning and democratic engagement in
American education. The moment is ripe for reform because the state of civic knowledge
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 22
and engagement among Americans is poor, even as the interest in civic learning and
engagement among students, teachers, and faculty remains high. (p. 8)
It makes sense, then, that a reinvestment in civic learning takes place at national and local school
levels. Jefferson’s case for the development and implementation of civics training, as part of
compulsory education, echoes in contemporary times – in the mainland U. S. and across the
Pacific Ocean; both the United States Department of Education (2010) and the Hawaii
Department of Education (2011) vehemently assert that a basic premise of the contemporary
American public school system is to assure civic development for all students. In application,
however, civic practices have unfortunately shown a steady regression.
Scholars have long noted the decline in civic engagement in America and attribute much
of the blame to lapses in morality, the fragmentation of the family and community, and the
shifting nature of social networks (de Tocqueville et al., 1972; Putnam, 1995; Putnam, 2000).
Putnam (1995) argues that “civic virtue” (p. 144)—the social-capital, which is nurtured in family
structures and community systems—has eroded primarily because citizens have become
increasing isolated from social and communal groups. Putnam (1995) also contends that because
of isolation from the physical world, civic participation in politics has stagnated and deteriorated,
and cannot be amended by online forms of civic participation. Over the past decade, data on
civics education in the United States have supported Putnam’s (1995) assertions; statistics
suggest that, as a country, we have strayed from the enlightened path set forth by Jeffersonian
optimism (Gould, 2012; NCES, 2011; U.S. Department of Education, 2012). In an online press
release from the U.S. government, Gast (2012) reports that, “while America’s democratic ideals
remain a model for the world, civic knowledge and democratic participation in the United States
are far from exceptional” (n. p.). When compared to their international counterparts,
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 23
psychometric measures of civic knowledge—which include the ability to discern democratic
ideologies and practices, and the ability to be cognizant and critical of social and political
issues—show that American youth lag in demonstrating fundamental civic knowledge (Cohen et
al., 2012). Likewise, other measures of civic engagement, which include the frequency, depth,
and breadth of practices and activities that support individual and collective action towards social
and political objectives, have shown similar below-average results (Kligler-Vilenchik &
Shresthova, 2012). In their homeland, the Native Hawaiian population has fared no better, as the
subgroup is also reported to have the lowest civic participation rate in voter turnout and
volunteerism – two key measures of civic engagement (Meyer, 2003; Kanaiaupuni, Ledward, &
Keohokalole, 2011; Tharp & Dalton, 2007). The fear now is that with the deterioration of a
formal civics education, so too will be the precepts of virtue and order and the habits of
reflection and correct action of our country.
In response to the encroachment on American values and virtue, and as part of a
conscious effort to revitalize the nation’s discussion on civics education, on January 10, 2012
President Obama, the Secretary of State, along with other education officials published a report
that rallied for the importance of developing and improving civic learning; the report also
(re)emphasized a national agenda that focused on educating students to become well-informed
and engaged members of a 21
st
century society (Gast, 2012). The appeal for a revitalization of
civics education at the federal level, coupled with the shifting nature of an interconnected global
society, has forced those inside and outside of formal educational institutions to explore new
ways to measure civic participation and explore new avenues to actively engage citizens in the
political and social issues that are hallmarks of citizenship.
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 24
For many youth and adults alike, new media technologies such as Twitter, Facebook,
YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest have emerged as 21
st
century solutions to enhance and
promote civic engagement (Ito et al., 2013; Jenkins et al., 2009; Kahne & Lee, 2012 Rheingold,
2008). The fact that social networks (like Facebook and Twitter) have evolved to become
information networks provides a key juncture for educational institutions—schools—to leverage
new media technologies and the digitized culture of participation, and to impart civic knowledge
to the youth of the United States. As such, the general aim of this study is to explore the forms
of civic agency and engagement that are most prevalent in the interactions of Hawaiian youth
who utilize new media and take part in an a digital culture of participation. The intent of this
exploration is to extrapolate qualitative data that can aid educational policymakers, leaders,
practitioners, and students in enacting an approach to decision-making and curriculum design
that facilitates active citizenship in both the physical and digital worlds.
Isolation and the Decline of Civic Knowledge, Expression, and Engagement
Citizenship preparation has manifested itself most recently in the form of the Common
Core State Standards (CCSS) Initiative (2012), the online mission statement of which claims that
the “standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge
and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers.” De jure, the standards
are meant to inform a national curriculum that is designed to prepare all of America’s youth to
lead meaningful and productive adult lives, in the “real world.” De facto, however, the CCSS
Initiative’s (2012) focus has been on providing a revitalized framework for Math and English
Language Arts instruction and assessment, and, in practice, less emphasis has been placed
specifically on civics instruction. If the “real world” includes active participation in social and
political issues that are important to a populace, then a comprehensive and revamped national
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 25
civics curriculum, one that is cognizant and inclusive of the offline and online civic practices of
citizens, would serve and support the overarching goals of the CCSS Initiative, and would work
to address the noted gap in civic knowledge and participation amongst youth and adults.
A summary of major findings in The Nation’s Report Card show that in 2010 only 27%
of fourth-grade, 22% of eighth-grade, and 24% of twelfth-grade students who took the National
Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in civics performed at a “Proficient” level (NCES,
2011). Furthermore, the National Center for Education Statistics (2011) report indicates that
from 2006 to 2010, there has been a steady decline in the basic civic knowledge of democratic
principles amongst high school seniors; ironically, 97% of students who took the assessment
“reported studying civics or government in high school” (n. p.). In other words, the study
contends that although students took formal civics classes, knowledge was not retained, and
consequently may not been applied in real world contexts. Sadly, statistics on American adult
civic awareness mirrors that of the youth.
Using the measures of civic knowledge, noted above, it appears that grownups fare no
better than high school seniors in their civic prowess. For example, a recent Guardian of
Democracy: The Civic Mission of Schools report, Gould (2012) notes that “in 2006, in the midst
of both midterm elections and the Iraq war, fewer than half of Americans could name the three
branches of government, and only four in ten young people (aged 18 to 24) could find Iraq on the
map” (p. 14), which shows the disengagement that many adults have to the contemporary social
and political happenings of a supposed global society. In addition to the knowledge gap, low
levels of civic engagement are also prevalent amongst adults in the U.S.; for example, during the
2008 elections, despite the largest voter turnout in forty years, only 56.8% of eligible voters
actually voted – this equates to nearly one hundred million registered voters who did not
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 26
participate in the democratic process (Gould, 2012). It is no surprise, then, that in a McCormack
Tribune Conference Series (2008) report, the United States ranked 139
th
out of 172 international
democracies in voter participation. As these statistics suggest, despite, or perhaps, in spite of
civics education taking place in our institutions of learning, at some level, however, formalized
educational systems in the U.S. are proving to be ineffective in providing students—future
citizens—with the knowledge that is necessary to adequately prepare them for meaningful and
impactful participation and engagement in society (Gast, 2012; Gould, 2012; NCES, 2011; U.S.
Department of Education, 2012).
Online Expression and the Rebirth of the Engaged Citizen
The recent reports, noted above, beg the question: What can be done to do to rectify the
social deficiency of poor civic agency and engagement? Scholars propose that formal
educational entities can harness the informal conduits of learning provided by participatory
culture and new media (Bennett, 2008; Cohen et al., 2012; Ito et al., 2013; Jenkins et al., 2009;
Kahne & Middaugh, 2012). Participatory culture, as its name suggests, provides ubiquitous
engagement and interaction for the connected youth of today, and, coupled with new media
streams, which both collect and disperse ideas, have tremendous real world applications in terms
of civic engagement (Jenkins et al., 2009). Within the environment and ecology of participatory
culture, Rheingold (2008) notes that while new media on its own may not offer a solution
towards rectifying the lackluster results on standardized measures of youth civic knowledge, new
media may, under the right circumstances (read: through participatory culture, and by engaged,
informed, and educated youth), serve as a “powerful tool to be deployed toward helping [all
citizens] engage” (p. 99).
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 27
In examining the context of the problem surrounding the lack of civic knowledge and
engagement by American youth, and the influence that education, participatory culture, and new
media can have on shaping agency and engagement, this study makes the following assumptions:
(a) civic engagement has moved online, and is blended with offline practices; (b) new media and
participatory culture have the potential to foster youth civic engagement; (c) youth use new
media in myriad ways; and (d) although youth engage in informal learning environments
fostered by participatory culture, formalized education has the ability to influence student
learning, particularly in the realm of civic engagement.
Statement Of The Problem
Across the nation there have been limited strategies, which have been used by
educational institutions to promote and study youth civic engagement, including: specialized
curriculum, volunteerism, leadership training, and afterschool programs (Kahne, Crow, & Lee,
2013; Middaugh et al., 2012; Smith, 2013). Additionally, studies which measure youth civic
knowledge and engagement have primarily investigated the impact of service learning and
volunteerism in offline settings, and have yielded quantitative findings that merely scratch the
surface of understanding the ways that school can impact youth civic agency (Billig, Root, &
Jesse, 2005; Hart et al., 2007; Kahne & Sporte, 2008; Melchior, 1998; Metz & Youniss, 2005).
Furthermore, while previous research pertaining to civic engagement has been inclusive
of minorities in the United States, including Hispanic and Latino, Asian-American, and African-
American high school students, research that focuses predominantly on Hawaiian youth is
limited. Advanced searches in Google Scholar and ERIC using the Boolean operators:
“Hawaiian youth,” “civic engagement,” “high school,” and “study” returned six results, only one
of which was a true peer-reviewed study. The one study, conducted during the implementation
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 28
of a pilot Hawaiian studies program at Wai’anai High School, briefly discussed the advantages
of a culturally relevant approach to education, and only briefly noted anecdotal evidence that
civic engagement was increased amongst its native Hawaiian student population (Yamauchi,
Billig, Meyer, & Hofschire, 2006).
In addition, existing research on youth civic engagement has focused on the examination
of the impact of new media, primarily through the lens of communications experts (Jenkins,
2006; Jenkins et al., 2009, Ito et al., 2009); their work suggest that there is a need for context-
specific research in the field of education that employs the framework of participatory culture
and politics (Kahne, Crow, & Lee, 2013). Thus, some of the larger questions that are left
looming in the gaps and fissures in the research from the field of Communication, have seeped
into the discipline of Education, and include the following: What social and institutional ideas,
structures, processes, and protocols influence youth civic engagement? What is the role of
education, new media, and participatory culture in providing access, or creating barriers to civic
engagement? What does it mean for youth to express civic thoughts in an era of participatory
culture?
This study seeks to explore some of these unanswered questions, and attempts to
understand the forms of civic expression that are most prevalent in youth interactions in
participatory culture and through new media. A qualitative approach offered the researcher the
opportunity to discover why and how these issues and engagements are appealing to students.
Additionally, this study helps to explain the impact that education might have on influencing
Hawaiian students’ civic agency and engagement in both local and global civic issues. The
examination that follows focuses on the educational intersection of new media and participatory
culture as a cultivator of agency and, ultimately, engagement; thus, the development of a
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 29
conceptual framework that determines and distinguishes levels of civic engagement is articulated
as a basis for understanding the contemporary ecology of the civic practices of young people, as
they relate to and are informed by new media practices and a ubiquitous culture of digital
participation.
Purpose of the Study
Similar to other schools in the state and nation, Hawaii High School (HHS)
3
is also ripe
for civic education reform; although not a public institution, and thus not mandated to many of
the state and federal policies that seek to promote a nationalistic civics curriculum, the school’s
service is to the youth that will provide the next generation of leadership for a global society.
Therefore, a critical analysis of the forms of civic engagement that are predominant in Hawaiian
youth interactions with participatory culture and new media is important for a number of reasons.
First, the turbulent social and political history of Hawaii, its native and non-native peoples, and
its school systems provides a perfect storm for civic discourse to emerge, which utilizes the
benefits of participatory culture and new media. Second, as noted above, because native
Hawaiians are reported to have the lowest civic engagement of any racial and ethnic group in
Hawaii (Kanaiaupuni, Ledward, & Keohokalole, 2011), it makes sense that a concerted effort be
made to examine ways that formal school settings—institutions that are responsible for the
education of youth—can work to combat this deficiency. Furthermore, because the primary
stakeholders at HHS are those of part native Hawaiian ancestry, the school site provides a key
opportunity to conduct a study that examines the role that culture plays in developing civic
agency and promoting civic engagement. The homogenous ethnic population afforded by HHS
is also ideal in examining the role that new media plays in providing access, or creating barriers,

3
For confidentiality purposes the name of the site under investigation has been masked, and the
pseudonym: Hawaii High School (HHS) is used as an identifier.
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 30
to civic engagement for Hawaiian youth. Third, at the time of this writing, the school site
implemented a one-to-one laptop program, which equipped every student and teacher at the high
school with a laptop; in addition wireless broadband access was also provided, which fosters the
potential for youth to participate in online political and social arenas, which Kahne and
Middaugh (2012) contend are often the only mode of civic participation that youth may
experience. It is also of note that the one-to-one laptop program has essentially eliminated the
“participation gap” that Jenkins et al. (2009) claim is a major barrier to equity and engagement
with online cultures and new media. Fourth, in the midst of this study, HHS embarked on the
preliminary stages of a planning process, which includes a vision that is devoted to a attaining a
successful and vibrant future for Native Hawaiians, one that embraces the need for students to be
critically aware of key socio-economic and political issues affecting their immediate
communities, and those that extend beyond their shores and out into global public spaces.
The mission of the school is thus to fulfill the ancestral and communal desire to create
educational opportunities in perpetuity to improve the capability and well-being of people of
Hawaiian ancestry; to guide the mission, the school’s vision statement strives to develop people
who are: responsible, ethical, contributing members of their multi-cultural and diverse
communities. Furthermore, the vision statement of the Po’okula
4
for the school indicates that:
“[HHS] is a dynamic and nurturing, K-12 educational environment where haumāna
5
learn
Hawaiian worldviews, various global perspectives and 21st century skills which prepare them to
thrive, lead successful and fulfilling lives, and engage and compete in ways that contribute to and
enrich humankind” [underlining added for emphasis] (H. Stender, personal communication,
August 21, 2013). In short, one of the primary goals of HHS is to promote civic virtue. The

4
Headmaster
5
Students
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 31
context- and culture-specific language of the vision and mission of the institution mirrors closely
the larger national and global civic discourse that Jefferson spoke of nearly 200 years ago, and
reaffirms the recent message that Zuckerberg delivered regarding the influence that technology
and digital media have on shaping local and global paradigms.
As echoes of the past seep into the present, the oft-noted pendulum swings of education
have, once again, refocused the international, national, and local conversations on civic
education. By pointing out the deficits in civic engagement, and opening avenues to discussions
on how best to prepare youth for a digitally connected future, the dialogue continues as 21
st

century educators interact with 21
st
century learners. The dilemma of how to engage, or
reengage, the youth of today is one that has been met with answers from researchers who
propose that recent advancements in technology may allow educators to employ a pedagogy that
utilizes the reach, breadth and speed which typify new media communication technologies (Ito et
al., 2009; Jenkins et al., 2009; Kahne, Crow, & Lee, 2013; Kligler-Vilenchik & Shresthova,
2012; Middaugh & Kahne, 2011; Rheingold, 2008). Indeed, many of the studies conducted by
these researchers conclude that the Internet and other forms of communication, including social
networks, and information networks, are able to entice youth, because of their ease of use, and
their promise of nearly unlimited access to information. The intersection of research on new
media, participatory culture, and civic engagement thus provides a conceptual framework that
may prove beneficial to institutions within formal educational structures. As such, this study will
focus on analyzing the experiences of HHS students within this framework, and work to provide
an understanding of the presence of new media and participatory culture to evoke civic agency,
expression, and engagement in the lives of young people.
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 32
While there has been considerable literature on the practices of youth civic knowledge
and engagement by scholars in the field of Communication, less research has focused on creating
a reflexive framework that is able to embrace and utilize myriad forms of interactive
technologies, to promote student voice and foster civic engagement in the discipline of
Education (Kahne, Crow, & Lee, 2013). Building on the review of literature discussed in
Chapter 2, a conceptual framework is established, which examines the intersection of education,
participatory culture, and new media, and illuminates the emergent civic dynamics and potential
benefits and limitations to engagement, that are formed in an environment where every student
has access to the networks that technology provides, and thus actualizes the precepts of
participatory culture. The conceptual framework thus provides a roadmap to explore the avenues
through which civic agency is fostered, and civic engagement is practiced by youth who have a
propensity towards civic involvement.
Research Questions
Using a conceptual framework rooted in friendship-driven (FD) and interest-driven (ID)
networks, the purpose of this study is to develop a critical understanding of Hawaiian youths’
concepts of civic issues, agency, and engagement, in an age of participatory culture, which
blends offline and online expressions. Thus, two overarching questions guide this study: What
online and offline social and institutional ideas, structures, processes, and protocols influence
youth civic agency, engagement, and expression? What role can education play in the context of
participatory culture and new media, in cultivating civic thinking and action amongst Native
Hawaiian Youth (NHY)? More specifically, this study asks the following research questions:
1. In an era of heightened and immersive use of digital and social media by society, how
and why is civic engagement developed and expressed among native Hawaiian youth?
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 33
2. What influence does indigenous culture have on the civic expression patterns of Native
Hawaiian youth?
Significance of the Study
The primary purpose of this study is to add to the body of literature regarding the ways in
which educators can leverage culture and students’ use of new media literacies skills, gleaned
from participatory culture, to facilitate civic knowledge and engagement in online and offline
communities; a secondary aim is to explore the conditions under which civic agency is
developed and civic activities and actions take place. Furthermore, this study provides an
understanding of the ways in which new media and participatory culture are utilized by youth to
enact civic engagement, action, and mobilization for civic causes in Hawaii – a place fraught
with a turbulent political and social history.
The findings from this study also hope to inform the practices and policies of teachers
and leaders that support and intersect with the Vision and Mission of Hawaii High School – all
of which seek to create a vibrant path for the future of education in the state of Hawaii.
Moreover, the data gleaned from this study will provide HHS with important information
regarding student civic engagement and the use of technology, which will support future
strategic planning processes. In regards to shaping future policy, the data gathered promises to
inform funding and resource allocation, to support tools and training for areas that show potential
for increased student achievement and alignment to the mission and vision. Furthermore, this
study hopes to articulate the ways that a secondary institution of education can support and
enhance civic engagement for minority students, and other historically marginalized youth
populations.
A tertiary goal of this study is to explore the ways that student voice and action are
dialogically employed across technological streams to impact lives. The outcome of the study
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 34
proposes to illuminate the ways that new media and civic engagement can be fostered by, and
utilized within, a secondary education curriculum, to increase minority student achievement,
participation, purpose, and most importantly: happiness.
Educators and policymakers assume that students can develop the capacity and skills
necessary to engage in democratic processes and participate in civic discourse; it is also assumed
that schools can provide instruction and practice in these areas. These suppositions beg the
following questions: Can an educational model, rooted in participatory culture and new media be
used to foster civic agency and engagement, and thus the development of the new media
literacies that participatory culture and civic expression demands? Can the development of these
skills be transferred to adulthood? Because of the shifting nature of technology and new media,
will the skills that Jenkins (2009) and others (Ito et al., 2009; 2013; Kahne, Crow, & Lee, 2013)
propose, be applicable and relevant to future civic participation? Only time will truly tell.
However, the meteoric rise of social media has shown that FD/ID networks have the potential to
expand public spheres of discourse, and allow divergent voices to permeate through the thick
clouds of oppressive propaganda. As cultures collide, the need to be civically informed and
active, on both a local and global level, is of the utmost import. Thus, continued research on
youth civic expression is necessary to ensure that those responsible for the education of students
in the U.S., are equipped with the means to uphold the social contract, and the promise
to develop the reasoning faculties of our youth, enlarge their minds, cultivate their
morals, and instill into them the precepts of virtue and order; to enlighten them… and,
generally, to form them to habits of reflection and correct action, rendering them
examples of virtue to others, and of happiness within themselves. (Jefferson, 1818)

THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 35
Methodology
The design of this research study employs that of a qualitative case study. A qualitative
approach was chosen to best capture the experiences and interactions that Hawaiian youth have
in offline and online environments, such as SNSs, where friendship-driven and interest-driven
networks abound. Because this study is interested in the convergence of the spheres of new
media, participatory culture, and education, the use of qualitative data collection procedures was
deemed appropriate, as a means of clarifying student thoughts, ideas, understandings, and
experiences within a digitally mediated culture of interaction and expression. The primary
research approach taken in this dissertation is considered a case study in that it focused on a
single bounded subject: HHS students; it also sought to understand a single phenomenon: the
civic expression of Hawaiian youth. Thus, a within-case analysis was used to determine
emergent themes and patterns from the data.
Data collection consisted of collecting surveys, narratives, interviews, and online
documents, from Native Hawaiian students, in grades 11 and 12, who attended a private school
on one of the islands of Hawaii. Participants were selected as a purposive sample, targeted for
their civic work in offline contexts. In the study, all participants also had access to, and
involvement, participation, and/or membership in, an offline and online community or social
network. To triangulate data, document analysis was also conducted using popular SNSs, and
recorded using search queries and a screen capture application tool.
Assumptions
There are two key assumptions that are made in regards to this study. First, it is assumed
that all of the student responses that were reported in written narratives and recorded in the
interviews were truthful. Second, it is assumed that the behaviors and actions which were
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 36
captured through online documents and artifacts were typical of the actions of youth, and would
also occur regardless of formal searches and inquires conducted by the author.
Limitations
The use of a case study in qualitative research “offers insights and illuminates meanings
that expand its readers’ experiences” (Merriam, 2009, p. 51); however, it is not without its
limitations. First, as is the case with most qualitative research, limitations of reliability, validity,
and generalizability emerge. While the attempts to address reliability and validity are expounded
upon in Chapter 3, the uniqueness of the site and its participants (Native Hawaiian Youth), make
it difficult to conclude whether or not the results of this study would be able to be replicated at
other sites and under different contexts. A second limitation is that of researcher bias, as the
inferences that I draw from the interviews, narratives, and document analyses are subject to
interpretation, and may not concur with the participants’ understandings and perceptions.
Another limitation pertains specifically to document analysis; the concern centers on determining
the authenticity and accuracy of the data that is reported. Merriam (2009) purports that
documents that claim to be objective and accurate can contain biases that the researcher may not
be aware of. This is certainly the case in online SNSs, where bias is often prevalent. In
instances where possible bias or misinterpretation were present, follow-up interviews, and
member checks were implemented to ascertain correctness.
Delimitations
There are several delimitations that bound the depth and breadth of this study. The
research investigates the understandings and experiences of youth who are representative of a
particular community and school – Hawaii, and HHS students, respectively. As such, the
purposeful selection of the site and participants set delimitations on the case study. Due to the
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 37
time allotted for this study to be completed, a secondary delimitation pertains to the timeline that
was established for data collection; research was conducted over a two month period, which
allowed for an inductive approach to capture and document thick, rich descriptive data, as
expounded upon in Chapter 3. Additionally, expedited IRB approval delimited the scope of
SNSs that were available for data collection purposes; thus data was narrowed to participant
accounts that were in the public domain only. Lastly, researcher-created instruments and
measures delimited this study; subsequently, an interview protocol was established and
employed by the author.
Definition of Terms
Civics – Civics is used as a broad term in this study, and is meant to represent the
thoughts and actions regarding civic discourse and activities such as: critical dialogue, charity
work, community service or activism, as well as electoral activities like voting or campaign work
(Kahne & Lee, 2012; Rheingold, 2008; Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 1995; Youniss et al. 2002;
Zukin et al., 2006). As used in this study, civics also embodies the application of “the theoretical
and practical aspects of citizenship, its rights and duties; the duties of citizens to each other as
members of a political body and to the government” (Beach & Rines, 1912, p. 1).
Civic Agency – Civic Agency is represented as the capacity—knowledge, skills,
motivations, and wisdom—for citizens and groups of people to come together, to work
collaboratively to address common challenges, solve problems, and create common ground
(American Association of State Colleges and Universities, 2013). According to Boyte (2005),
civic agency can also be understood “in cultural terms, as practices, habits, norms, symbols and
ways of life that enhance or diminish capacities for collective action” (43).
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 38
Civic Engagement – Civic engagement is taken as “the practices and activities that
support organized collective action towards civic goals” (Kligler-Vilenchik & Shresthova, 2012,
p. 5). In reference to the conceptual framework in Chapter 3, civic engagement includes
participation in critical dialogue that takes a social or political stance, and is also indicative of
mobilization or action towards a social or political cause or belief.
New Media / New Digital Media (NDM) – Scholars who make reference to new media
in their work agree that in order for a media to be considered “new,” it must have some for of
digitalism or digitalization (Altman, 2008; Buckingham, 2008; Gee, 2010; Gitelman & Pingree,
2006 Jenkins, 2006; Ito et al., 2013); thus, the literature herein ascribes to the notion that new
media is any form of media that is digitalized and/or digitized. New media is also referred to as
New Digital Media (NDM) by James et al. (2009), and is used to describe the “actual
technologies that people use to connect with one another” (p. 6); as used in in this context, new
media is thus considered both a digital medium and a technological delivery system.
Participatory Culture – is a form of cultural activities and experiences that have “low
barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one’s
digital productions, … strong social connections, … and a belief that contributions matter”
(Jenkins, 2009, p. 3). Key tenets of participatory culture are that everyone takes media into their
own hands, and that everyone has the capacity to produce and share media (Jenkins, 2006; 2009).
Youth – Within this study, the participants are referred to by a variety of age-related
names. In the literature review, “youth” and “young people” are taken to mean those aged 14 to
21. Ito et al. (2009) uses the term “youth” to “describe the general category of youth culture that
is not clearly age demarcated but centers on the late teenage years” (p. 8). Also, in chapters 3 to
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 39
5, the term “youth” is used to describe the participants at the high school in which this study is
situated, and thus represent those aged 16 to 18.

THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 40
CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.

Gil Scott-Heron
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
1970

The purpose of this study was to illuminate the ways that that participatory culture is
employed in online communities, including SNSs, and how new media has provided avenues for
youth to plug in, and cop in, to civic issues, and become part of revolutions – large and small.
Therefore, this study sought to understand how civic expression is manifested and developed; it
also explored the issues, which Native Hawaiian Youth (NHY) deem important. Furthermore,
this study sought to explain the extent to which indigenous culture influences civic expression.
Because this study focused on the educational intersection of new media and participatory
culture as a cultivator of engagement, it is important to develop a conceptual framework for
understanding the contemporary ecology of the offline and online practices of young people, as
they relate to, and are informed by, new media practices and a ubiquitous culture of digital
participation. As such, the following discourse presents a review of the literature in these areas.
The focus on NHY necessitates a brief contextualization of the culture(s) of learning, and
therefore, Chapter 2 begins by framing a local, Hawaiian, context, with a discussion on the
theoretical underpinnings of culturally relevant pedagogy, multicultural education, and Hawaiian
epistemology. This section then distinguishes among the various understandings of, and
conversations surrounding, new media and participatory culture, which are the primary conduits
and antecedents to civic engagement and expression. The review of literature then delves into
the critiques and criticisms of youth interactions with new media and discusses the unwarranted
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 41
fears surrounding participatory culture. Next, the online practices of youth, with a particular
focus on the spaces and exercises that encourage civic expression and engagement are explored.
A discussion of civic agency, within the realm of new media and participatory culture is also
included, the purpose of which is to underscore the important role that formal education has in
supporting youth through the processes associated with civic expression. Lastly, this chapter
offers a conceptual framework that serves as the foundation for this study’s exploration. The
framework presented shows the intersection points of participatory culture and new media that
form friendship- and interest-driven (FD/ID) networks, which are the foundation of civic
expression, and proposes that the inclusion of school-based education can foster ideal forms of
civic engagement. From these intersections, it is also suggested that civic agency can be
developed, and that varying levels of expression and engagement can be determined; thus,
student interactions, in the form of interviews, written narratives, and documents are culled from
these intersection points, and form the crux of investigation.

THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 42
Drawing a Cultural Context

While an argument can be made that the civic practices of youths share some similarities
across America because of teenage and online cultures (boyd, 2007), the unique history of
Hawaii and the diverse racial and social make-up of the its people necessitate a brief
contextualization in which to situate the discussion of new media and participatory culture within
ethnic and cultural contexts. As an example of the way that “old” media can be used to spark
civic discourse, the political cartoon above—titled: School Begins—paints a quintessential
picture of minority students in an American educational setting. In the piece, colored students
from the Philippines, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and Cuba are illustrated as defiant and out-of-place; an
Indian sits alone with an upside-down book in his hands; a Chinese student waits outside the
classroom; a Black individual, deprived of any education, is relegated to cleaning windows; in
contrast, White students appear in their archetypal forms: engaged, on-task and obedient. The
caption to the lithograph reads:
Uncle Sam (to his new class in Civilization): Now, children, you've got to learn these
lessons whether you want to or not! But just take a look at the class ahead of you, and
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 43
remember that, in a little while, you will feel as glad to be here as they are! (Dalrymple,
1899)
In short, the cartoon conveys the oppressive nature of school systems, and offers an antithetical
view of true civic participation in the late 1800s. This is nothing new; minority groups in the
United States have always struggled for social and academic equity. In examining past
immigrant populations in America, Garcia (2002) concludes that the diverse minority population
in the U.S. has historically been one of underachievement; that is to say, an achievement gap has
always existed, in some form or another, due to myriad time-bound social variances.
Civic Inequities
There have been numerous reports on the causes for inequity in the education of
historically underserved minority groups, all of which pointed to a common obstacle to academic
achievement: a culturally unresponsive educational system (Bennett, 2001; Bensimon, 2005;
Garcia, 2002; Ogbu, 1990). Ogbu (1990) attributes the continued problem of educational equity
between minority groups and the dominant group of their society to an inconsistent, and in some
cases a nonexistent, approach to using minority student culture in education, which has led to
poor academic achievement, a lack of cognitive skills, and diminished civic knowledge and
participation. As Singh and Espinoza-Herold (2014) note, “the challenges facing Indigenous and
other multicultural people today extend well beyond the classroom walls” (p. 3).
There is a strong body of research within field of multicultural education, which indicates
that the development and implementation of culturally relevant pedagogies (CRPs) help to
combat the disparities that ethnic minorities and low-income students have traditionally faced in
public schools (Brown-Jeffy & Cooper, 2011; Kanaiaupuni, et al., 2011; Ladson-Billings, 1995;
Ogbu, 1992; Tharp, et al., 2007; Yamauchi, Wyatt, & Carroll, 2005). In response to improving
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 44
education, Ladson-Billings (1995), coined the term, culturally relevant pedagogy; she contends
that it was created as a “theoretical model that not only addresses student achievement but also
helps students to accept and affirm their cultural identity while developing critical perspectives
that challenge inequities that schools (and other institutions) perpetuate” (p. 469).
Additionally, Singh and Espinoza-Herold (2014) argue that a culture-based education
(CBE), which incorporates the language and traditional epistemological practices of native peoples,
have been found to work “as an antidote to the myriad social and educational challenges faced by
Indigenous youth” (p. 5). Paramount to the purpose of this study is the notion that an indigenous
pedagogy and corresponding education, can, indeed, help racial minorities achieve equity in a
system that has predominantly promoted a Eurocentric culture of education. Equally as
important is the idea that the development and understanding of cultural identity in the realm of
Education, and the development and understanding of civic participation in society, reinforce
each other.
Despite the tremendous progress that the U.S. made in terms of educational equity during
the 100 years since School Begins was published, research shows that an abundance of minority
students in the American-Eurocentric educational model have still waited to feel as “glad” as
their White counterparts to be in school (Aluli-Meyer, 2006; Bennett, 2001; Bensimon, 2005;
Ogbu, 1990; Smith & McLaren, 2010; United States Department of Education, 2010). Across
the Pacific Ocean, Hawaiian students also continued to wait, with anticipation, for the blissful
educational experience promised by Uncle Sam.
The ideals imparted by Jefferson are supported by both the United States Department of
Education (2010) and the Hawaii Department of Education (2011); they attest that a primary goal
of the American public school system is to ensure educational equity and civic development for
every student, regardless of race. As generations of Native Hawaiian students have waited, the
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 45
truth of the present status of civic education in Hawaii became glaringly apparent; Kanaiaupuni
& Ishibashi (2003) report that “Hawaiian students rank among the lowest of all major ethnic
groups… by nearly every measure of educational engagement and success” (p. 3), civic
education and development included. How then, is social equity to be achieved through
education?
Because of the disparate learning outcomes for native Hawaiians, theories have emerged,
which place culture at the center of discussions about relevance, relationships, and rigor in
learning processes (Kanaiaupuni, Ledward, & Keohokalole, 2011); this culturally responsive and
relevant pedagogy recognizes cultural gaps between home and school as part of the larger
achievement gap and calls for cultural relevancy in education in order for learners to attain social
and educational equity that allows for opportunities for all students to reach their civic potential
(Bennett, 2001, Ogbu, 1990).
Informal Cultures of Learning
In response to the inequities that minorities have experienced in an Anglo-Eurocentric-
educational model, and as a direct result of the Civil Right Movement of the 1950s and 1960s,
the field of multicultural education was born (Bennett, 2001). Multicultural education, as its
name suggests, is undergirded by the notion that a conceptual framework that embodies and
embraces the value of a multitude of cultures at its pedagogical core, is successful in educating
the diverse population of the United States of America (Bennett, 2001). Research has shown that
implementation of multicultural education has helped to bridge achievement gaps for minority
students (Bennett, 2001; Brown-Jeffy & Cooper, 2011). The advent of multicultural education in
the United States created a plethora of theories—including CRP and CBE—and sub-genres that
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 46
challenged the hegemonic practices of the aforementioned Eurocentric ideology that traditionally
dominated educational systems across the country.
The initial impetus behind the creation of CRP was to confront the lack of research
regarding the impact that teaching and culture had on student achievement. After studying eight
“exemplary” female teachers in Northern California, Ladson-Billings (1995), concluded that one
commonly shared trait was that all of the teachers incorporated student culture into their
classroom. From her observations, Ladson-Billings (1995) noted that the teachers who seemed
to positively impact student well-being and subsequent achievement met the criteria of: helping
their students to be academically successful, culturally competent, and socio-politically critical.
Essential to student success was the second criteria of cultural competency.
Bennett (2001) further expounds on the notion, claiming that “through culturally relevant
pedagogy, students maintain or develop cultural competence, as their culture becomes a vehicle
for learning, and they experience genuine academic success and a strong sense of self-esteem”
(p. 186), which can lead to greater inclusion and participation in civic discourse.
In Hawaii, the implementation of a CRP-like model was implemented. In the 1970s and
1980s Kamehameha Schools authorized an initiative known as Kamehameha Early Education
Program (KEEP). While the term CRP had not yet been invented, KEEP researchers concluded
that pedagogy steeped in native culture, that is to say, a pedagogy that takes into account and
embraces the student’s home culture, is successful in fostering student identity, achievement, and
civic awareness (Tharp, et al., 2007). The KEEP model of using culturally relevant contexts in
education continued to be used in northern Arizona, at the Navajo nation; and in New Mexico, in
the schools of the Zuni Pueblo; and elsewhere in African American studies (Tharp, et al., 2007).
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 47
The research done in KEEP centered around early education, and was found to be
successful in many different arenas; but, could the idea of a cultural pedagogical approach to
early education, be applied to a secondary institution? In 1995, the question was answered when
Wai’anae High School started a Hawaiian Studies Program (HSP), whose goal was to improve
academic outcomes and make school more engaging and relevant for students (Yamauchi et al.,
2006). At Wai’anae High School, over half of the student population was Hawaiian or part-
Hawaiian; so, it followed that the pedagogy of the program centered around Hawaiian culture, in
order to promote student self-worth and cultural connections.
Yamauchi et al. (2006) report that the HSP at Wai’anae High School was effective in
increasing student attendance, GPAs, standardized test scores; students also more likely to agree
that they had a greater connectedness to their school and to their community. In short, the HSP
program—which was essentially founded upon the principles of CRP—was found to decrease
the achievement gap amongst underachieving minority students in Hawaii, and alluded to a
greater potential for civic agency and engagement amongst students.
Central to bridging the gap in civic agency and engagement, for Hawaiian students, as
well as for other minorities across the United States, is understanding the ways in which culture
influences learning. Due to socioeconomic factors, and a lost sense-of-self, minority students
have been relegated to caricatures that do not fit in, and often feel out-of-place. The beauty of
America’s and Hawaii’s diversity can be reclaimed through the use of a culturally relevant
pedagogy – one that seeks to strengthen students’ perceptions of themselves and embraces
individuals for what they are: citizens waiting for the promise of knowledge.
In Meyer’s (2003) research on Hawaiian epistemology, she found that in interviews,
knowledge descriptors, which were given by native Hawaiians, often had a “distinct ring to
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 48
them” (p. 188), whereby they spoke in in spiritual terms infused with an often moral undertone.
For example, native Hawaiians
[A]cknowledged the influence of elders… who continue to convey wisdom. They
brought forth the animism of the natural world and how that, too, informed them. They
spoke in story from, they pointed to things beyond them, they used metaphors to convey
deep ideas, and they were unflinching in their descriptors of feelings as they linked to
intellect. It was indeed a cultural exchange imbued with emotion, discovery, and a
shared world view. (p.188-189)
This study, therefore, builds on traditional forms of Hawaiian intelligence, and adds a critical
contemporary understanding on the ways that Hawaiian culture influences civic knowledge and
expression in Hawaii, in an era of technological ubiquity.
Studies on Native Hawaiian achievement and engagement conducted by Tharp and
Dalton (2007) do, indeed, show there are great benefits for inclusion of students’ culture in
educational practices. Sefton-Green (2013) echoes this sentiment, and found that educators who
incorporate the beliefs, habits, values, and protocols that students bring with them from “not-
school settings,” establish “learning that goes to the heart of supporting capabilities and learning-
to-learn outcomes” (p. 57). In other words, learning inside the classroom is enhanced and
increased by the acknowledgement and utilization of the personal knowledge and experiences
that youth bring from outside the classroom. Culture, labeled: “Hawaiian,” or “American,” or
“teenage,” or “online,” or “participatory,” helps to establish the types of networks and
interactions that individuals engage in and with; this is essential in determining the potential
ways that educators can use technologies, like the new media literacies, to bolster their
pedagogies and accompanying instructional practices, to encourage a culture of inclusion.
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 49
Youth access to new media, via digital technologies, has reached the highest levels in
recorded history (Madden et al., 2013), and, in the process augments the traditional
understanding of the classroom and of the culture of learning itself. In other words, cultural
interactions and experiences have transcended physical locations, and have moved into the
digital and virtual spaces that youth now occupy. Thus, an expanded definition of culture, for
most contemporary U.S. youth, has come to encompass what Jenkins et al. (2009) describe as a
participatory culture – one
with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support
for creating and sharing one’s creations, and some type of informal mentorship… [and
where] members believe their contributions matter, and feel some degree of social
connection with one another. (p. 3)
The changing nature of social spaces, especially those of SNSs, forever altered traditional forms
of knowledge acquisition and expression, and, in turn, forced formalized institutions of education
to evaluate the informal learning spaces where youth engage in participatory cultural practices,
the ultimate goal of which is to bridge in-school and out-of-school learning.
Paramount to the idea that education can indeed help racial minorities achieve equity in a
system that has predominantly promoted a culture of inequity, is the notion that student civic
engagement can be fostered by the convergence of informal and formal educational. SNSs
combine the power of new media and participatory culture to enact online civic expression,
which Rheingold (2012) notes can take the form of a like, a tweet, a status update, a post, or a
shared picture or image. The development of these social skills and cultural competencies allows
for connectivity and interaction among youth in ways that were impossible before the advent of
new media. Thus, the following section deconstructs the ways in which social media is
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understood in the context of participatory culture, and how they inform the shifting civic, social,
and cultural practices of youth.
Social Network Sites: Civic Exploitation Or Civic Empowerment
In order to contextualize the conversation regarding civic participation and engagement
in the digital age, it is important to first deconstruct the spheres in which education now takes
place. Despite the penchant for the current generation of adults to bemoan the cultural practices
of its youth, the consistent role of education has been to direct its citizens towards a
participatory, engaged, and productive future – one that is informed, in some part, by the social
and cultural practices of its individuals, youth included (Putnam, 1995). Educational entities, as
formalized institutions of learning, have sought to harness the innate and developed interests of
their pupils and guide them towards pathways that are beneficial at both the individual and
societal levels. Community organizations and other social networks form what Putnam (1995)
refers to as “social capital,” which is representative of “civic virtue,” and works as both a
“private good and public good” (p. 163). Putnam (1995) further contends that, “civic virtue is
most powerful when imbedded in a dense network of reciprocal social relations…” and that “[a]
society of many virtuous but isolated individuals is not necessarily rich in social capital” (p.
143); his point is that collective action is key to true civic participation. Putnam’s (1995)
argument was that technology, and the changing terrain of suburban developments, was to blame
for the lapse in collective civic thoughts and actions. History shows, however, that technology
has not isolated individuals, but, instead allowed for the emergence of social pathways that foster
civic expression (Bennett, Wells, & Rank, 2009).
It follows that, in theory, individual interests and educational interests such as
pedagogies, curriculum, and practices, work in tandem to foster meaningful and productive
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 51
communal learning experiences. However, in practice, the friendship-driven and interest-driven
activities of youth often conflict with the curriculum and (standardized) goals of formal
education (Ito, Horst, & Bittanti, 2009). As such, past research focused on ways that schools
engage students in the learning process via their interests and personal activities, and thus
stimulated a dialogue regarding the ways those public spheres affect student learning (Kuh,
2003; Kuh, Kinzie, Buckley, Bridges, & Hayek, 2007; Marks, 2000; Newmann, 1992; Zhao &
Kuh, 2004). In an era of ubiquitous technology, scholarship on new media and participatory
culture has renewed and redirected the discussion surrounding the very nature of the networked
public sphere and its impact on formal education (boyd, 2008b; Jenkins et al., 2009). At the
heart of this conversation is the way in which educational institutions can unlock the potential of
connecting in-school and out-of-school learning. Over the past decade, new media and
participatory culture converged in the form of Social Network Sites (SNSs), which are the
preeminent means of youth communication, learning, and consequently: civic expression (boyd,
2008b; Kahne & Lee, 2012).
The challenge to educators, then, is to leverage student interest in online environments,
and harness the power of collective knowledge and action. One of the noted barriers that
educators encounter is a generational gap between themselves and their students, in
understanding the value of engagement in online activities; it is an impediment that also inhibits
teachers from building bridges between formal and informal learning experiences (Ito et al.,
2009; Ito et al., 2013). There is no doubt that the Internet has an increased presence in the lives
of young people in the United States, and, while digital youth value their online activities,
researchers found that a majority of adults—educators included—generally view these practices
as potentially dangerous, and see them as a waste of productive time and energy (Ito et al., 2009;
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 52
Jenkins, 2006; Jenkins et al., 2009; Kahne, Middaugh, Lee, & Feezell, 2011; Kahne, Middaugh,
Lee, & Feezell, 2012). This misalignment of ideology hinders the ability of schools systems to
support student engagement at interest-driven levels. Thus, a deeper understanding of new
media, participatory culture, and their convergence in SNSs, is crucial in unraveling the
complexity of the blended civic practices of youth, and may offer insight into the ways that civic
agency—the skills and literacies necessary for civic expression and engagement—can also be
brought into the educational process.
A review of the scholarship regarding the online practices and technological trends of
youth in the disciplines of Education, Communications, Sociology, Psychology, and Information
Technology, found that a number of the works made reference to two key compendiums of
literature: (a) The Pew Internet and American Life Project; and (b) The Digital Media and
Learning Research Hub, which is supported by John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning Initiative. Nearly all research, including statistics
regarding youth online activities and demographics, stem from work by scholars affiliated with
these two non-partisan entities. Despite the differences in approaches, a common theme amongst
researchers of the Internet, who explore online practices, habits, and trends, is the contention that
educators must find ways to support youth engagement with new media, through the teaching of
the new media literacies that participatory culture evokes. As such, this dissertation investigated
the ways educators can harness the established digital networks and accompanying digital tools
that are the hallmarks of SNSs, to inform theory, pedagogy, policy, and, most importantly,
practice.

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New Media: The Weapon, The Tool

Revolution (2014)
Revolutions call for weapons and tools – physical and mental in nature. In combating
tyranny, weapons are appropriate; in building peace, tools are most fitting; media takes the shape
of both. Media, in its myriad forms, is indeed a powerful force in the United States; it extends to
nearly every aspect of society; it seeps into homes, schools, cars, computers, mobile devices, and
influences the thoughts, ideas, values, and habits of its citizens. Media has the ability to extend a
virtual hand in friendship, and can thus shape civic consciousness and empower people to action
(Jenkins, et al., 2009; Kahne & Lee, 2012). Or, media can take the form of the closed fist, and
crush and oppress any semblance of collective agency (de Tocqueville et al., 1972; Putnam,
1995). This study acknowledges Putnam’s (1995; 2000) contention that civic life has shifted,
due in large part to the movement of individuals away from participation in the physical world.
However, it also acknowledges that civic participation and engagement indeed take place in the
digital world; exposure to divergent views and civic expression of these views is fostered by the
technology that is new media (Wojcieszak & Mutz, 2009). As noted earlier, there is a clear lapse
in civic knowledge and participation amongst youth and adults in the United States. However,
this study also acknowledges the civic potential of social media and networks, and argues that
the shift in civic participation, and the role of the citizen have transformed because of the fluid
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 54
nature of new media. The intent of this study, then, was not to debate whether or not the
Internet, digital media, or technology itself is responsible for the civic decline, but, instead to
argue that notions of citizenship and civic expression are influenced by, and carried out through
new media, most notably through the use of Social Networking Sites (Madden, Lenhart, Cortesi,
Smith, & Beaton, 2013).
Both Jenkins et al. (2009) and Putnam (1995) agree that a participatory culture is one in
which citizens have the capacity to create and share media for the benefit, and betterment, of the
community. Before the dawn of the Internet, participation meant engaging in the physical world
– in community meetings held in town halls and recreation centers; or in face-to-face political
discourse with a neighbor (Putnam, 1995). In the digital age, however, new media blurred the
line of what constitutes civic participation – community meetings can be held virtually, and
political discourse can occur in and through text messages, or Tweets, or Facebook statuses. In a
contemporary context, the use of new media is ubiquitous across all forms of communication.
Therefore, any attempt to traverse a discussion regarding ways to bridge civic engagement,
agency, and learning in the 21
st
Century, needs to consider the implications that various forms of
media collectively impose.
Throughout the history of the United States, media, as a broad term, has represented and
shaped cultural meanings and understanding – this has not changed. What has changed is what
new media represents, and how new media is understood. According to media scholar, Lev
Manovich (2001), new media is essentially “a convergence of two separate historical trajectories:
computing and media technologies” (p.44). Additionally, Manovich (2001) notes that,
in the middle of the twentieth century, a modern digital computer [was] developed to
perform calculations on numerical data more efficiently; it [took] over from numerous
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 55
mechanical tabulators and calculators already widely employed by companies and
governments since the turn of the century. In parallel, we witness[ed] the rise of modern
media technologies which allow[ed] the storage of images, image sequences, sounds and
text using different material forms: a photographic plate, a film stock, a gramophone
record, etc. The synthesis of these two histories… [is] the translation of all existing media
into numerical data accessible for computers. The result is new media: graphics, moving
images, sounds, shapes, spaces and text which become computable, i.e. simply another
set of computer data. (p. 44)
In short, while Manovich (2001) and Jenkins et al. (2009) admit some ambiguity in applying the
word, “digital” as a marker of new media, most contemporary scholars who make reference to
new media in their work agree that in order for a media to be considered “new,” it must have
some form of digitalism or digitalization, and be accessible by some type of computing device
(Altman, 2008; Boyd, 2010; Buckingham, 2008; Gee, 2010; Gitelman & Pingree, 2003; Ito et al.,
2013), whether it is a computer, tablet, smart phone, or gaming system. Regardless of the
conduit through which it passes, the digitalization of information has two key ramifications:
speed and access. New media can be created, dispersed, circulated and consumed
instantaneously throughout the world. Youth in the continental U.S. and in Hawaii are immersed
in this world of continuous streams of information, and are caught in the midst of producer and
consumer relationships that define and redefine citizenship and social responsibilities.
The digitization of media, as well as the portability of computing devices, has had a
profound effect on the way that youth communicate and are engaged in contemporary public
spheres. Gitelman and Pingree (2003) contend that any media system creates its own culture,
and that communication technologies spawn social norms, protocols, and practices that are
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 56
associated with that technology; it is in this way that new media is inextricably linked to the
culture of youth. Consequently, youth are now absorbed in a culture where true participation is
not only possible, but commonplace. These youth are armed with powerful tools; however, as
Jenkins et al., (2009) declare, “it matters what tools are available to a culture, but it matters more
what that culture chooses to do with those tools” (p. 8). Equipped with the tools for civic
engagement and expression, the question then, is, whether or not youth use the new media
literacies, which include the social skills and cultural competencies accumulated through
practice, in truly meaningful and productive ways.
In one of the largest, and most comprehensive research efforts conducted in the U.S., the
Digital Youth Project (DYP) undertook a three-year ethnographic study that examined the new
media practices of youth, to see exactly what it was they did with the aforementioned tools. The
study ranged from examining everyday behavior on sites like MySpace and Facebook, to
interactions via text messaging, and Instant Messaging (IM-ing), to more specialized kinds of
participation, such as making YouTube videos, re-mixing myriad forms of visual content,
streaming podcasts, engaging in fan fiction, and other forms digital production (Ito et al., 2009).
The major finding of Ito et al.’s (2009) seminal work showed, not surprisingly, that there
is tremendous diversity regarding what young people do online and, of note to educators, what
youth learn online. However, within the variety of practices that were reported, one poignant
top-level finding revealed that there were two distinct online networks that youth gravitated
towards in their use of new media: friendship-driven (FD) and interest-driven (ID) interactions
(Ito et al., 2009). Gee (2004) refers to these informal online learning environments as affinity
spaces – zones that youth choose to engage in, on, and around, based on preference and choice.
Of the two types of affinity space interactions, the most common was friendship-driven
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engagements, the practice of which researchers from the Digital Youth Project term, “hanging
out” — which, to a large extent, can be described simply as an extension of existing offline
relationships (Ito et al., 2009). This sociocultural occurrence is essentially no different than what
previous generations have done in the past, in using physical social spaces such as hallways,
parks, or the mall to mingle, and virtual spaces like letter writing, or talking on the phone, for
communicative purposes (Jenkins, 2006). Additionally, various SNSs, as well as messaging
service networks, were found to facilitate synchronous and asynchronous conversations and
communications between friends and peers (Ito et al., 2009). It can, therefore, be concluded that
“hanging out” is indeed an important site of learning in terms of developing the social behaviors
needed for life in a digital world, one that would bode well for educators to consider when
thinking about ways to engage youth in subject matter, including civic participation.
Similar studies have shown that skills such as posting, linking, commenting, forwarding,
and remixing, are essential to digitally immersed youth, and are cultivated in friendship-driven
spaces (boyd, 2007; boyd & Marwick, 2013; Buckingham, 2008; Davidson & Goldberg, 2009;
Williamson, 2013). Jenkins et al. (2009) describe these skills as “the new media literacies,” or
NMLs
6
, which are “a set of cultural competencies and social skills that young people need in the
new media landscape” (p. 4). Indeed, Williamson (2013) adds that “young people today are
sophisticated cultural producers of digital media, actively creating, remixing, and circulating
content online in complex ways that far outstrip anything demanded of them by the traditional
subject curriculum” (p. 6); therefore it stands that if educators are to foster civic agency and
engagement in the current technological landscape, they must be cognizant of the new media

6
See Appendix A for a detailed list and accompanying descriptions of the 12 New Media
Literacies (NMLs).
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literacies that students are equipped and not equipped with as they enter into, and intersect with,
formal institutions of education.
As noted above, engagement with, and utilization of, new media is primarily due to
friendship-driven interactions (Ito et al., 2009); in addition however, studies have found that
there is a segment of the youth population who use the baseline technical and media literacies
developed while online, as a jumping off point to start developing a more sophisticated set of
skills, based on interest-driven interactions (Buckingham, 2008; Drotner, 2008; Heverly, 2008;
Ito et al., 2009; Ito et al., 2013; Kahne et al., 2011; Sefton-Green, 2013; Willett, 2008). The
digital media systems that Gitelman and Pingree (2003) claim support existing forms of mass
media distribution, also work to support these interest-driven efforts, which Buckingham (2008)
notes, center on more specialized and focused niche interests of youth as well. Thus, young
people who are engaged in interest-driven networks “enter the universe of digital production
because they want to communicate on a simultaneous and ongoing basis with others… [and]
because they want to find out about things” (Drotner, 2008, p. 169). In a sense, these youth have
become pro-ams – amateurs who have become “professionals” and “experts” in the interest-
driven and passion-driven spaces the Internet provides (Gee, 2010; Leadbeater & Miller, 2004).
Youth who veer toward the interest-driven spectrum of new media practices are also engaged in
what many researchers, including those in the Digital Youth Project, call “geeking out” – a term
used to describe
an intense commitment to or engagement with media or technology, often one particular
media property, genre, or type of technology. Geeking out involves learning to navigate
esoteric domains of knowledge and practice and participating in communities that traffic
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 59
in these forms of expertise. It is a mode of learning that is peer-driven, but focused on
gaining deep knowledge and expertise in specific areas of interest. (Ito et al., 2009, p. 28)
In other words, geeking out can be interpreted as participation in an informal learning
environment, whereby youth are involved in more intellectual and creative types of endeavors
surrounding new media, endeavors which foster specialization and expertise. Gee (2010)
supports this assertion, and contends that today’s online youth “are using the Internet and other
digital tools outside of school to learn and even become experts in a variety of domains” (p. 35).
In short, these youth have strong interest-driven orientations and are using the online world and
new media production tools as environments to develop sophisticated forms of technical media
literacies, which have the potential for greater educational and social possibilities, including
those surrounding civic agency, and ultimately, engagement and expression. This study sought
to explore the potential of new media to affect civic agency and engagement in the lives of
youth, and examine why and how they choose to engage in particular social and political issues.
In a time where of heightened usage of digital media by society in general, the blended weapon
and tool of choice for expression has been social media.

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Participatory Culture: The Battlefield, The Worksite

Berkeley (2013)
If new media is the weapon/tool of expression, then participatory culture is the ecology
and environment of the battlefield/worksite. Because participatory culture has grown around the
instrument of new media, it includes the institutions, protocols, and actions that exemplify modes
of creative expression. In short, participatory culture is revolutionary and evolutionary, in that it
describes a world where everyone participates, where people take media into their own hands,
and where a citizenry has the capacity to produce media and share media (Jenkins et al., 2009;
Jenkins, 2012). Participatory culture disrupts the producer-consumer relationship, and instead
allows a means for the consumer to also become the producer. This study adds to the
conversation regarding what this blended relationship means to those in education who are
responsible for conveying the skills youth need in order to interact and thrive in ever-expanding
social spheres of communication.
Conceptually, participatory culture is not a new idea; Henry Jenkins (2009), a prominent
scholar in the discipline of Communication, traces its origins to the 19
th
Century, when social
causes incited movements, and thus brought individuals together to create early underground
interest-driven networks. The Amateur Press Association was one such grass-roots organization;
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this group of like-minded, civic individuals created pamphlets and documents for mass
distribution, going against the formal means of mass media, which, at the time, were newspapers.
Other earlier practitioners of participatory culture include science fiction writers, amateur radio
enthusiasts, independent magazine and music movements, and most pertinent to this study, the
rise of digital media. Throughout history, social and political action also facilitated the coming
together of communities to produce media to share amongst members (Jenkins, 2012). This
sharing of knowledge and participation in community mirrors very closely the notions of
citizenship that Putnam (1995) describes as hallmarks of civic duty. Jenkins et al. (2009) further
emphasize that, historically, participatory culture shares many of the same practices associated
with past folk cultures, in which people gathered to exchange knowledge and expertise. In these
folk cultures, community members made media, not for money or profit, but instead they created
media simply to share it with people. In a sense, participatory culture is a social mode of
production where people learn from each other, and whereby expertise is shared by the
individuals of the community; any media—the intangible products (e.g. knowledge, skills,
protocols) and the tangible product (e.g. a sword, book, or instrument)—that is produced is thus
seen as a gift to the community (Jenkins, 2009). These same cultural practices have manifested
themselves in the digitized culture of the Internet and, most notably, have become part of the
framework of online social networks as well.
In many respects, online publics mirror the practices found in offline cultures, which are
centered on the idea of community-building and support. Moreover, the media networks of the
Internet share many of the gift-giving attributes associated with the exchange of knowledge and
participation in offline networks and associations. For example, fan communities like those
found on YouTube, love telling stories and sharing knowledge with each other (Ito et al., 2009).
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These online practices are what Jenkins et al. (2009) specifically define as a “participatory
culture,” a culture “with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement,
strong support for creating and sharing one's creations, and some type of formal mentorship
whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices” (p. 3). In a
participatory culture, one would, as the name implies, “participate” in some form, with the direct
purpose of knowledge sharing and acquisition. In this light, participatory culture is equivalent to
the idealistic culture of civic engagement that Jefferson (1818) and Zuckerberg (2012) hoped for,
where people come together for the good of the community, and for the good of the individual.
It can be assumed, then, that the youth of today, who are immersed in a participatory culture, are
indeed practicing civic skills; if this is true, then conventional measures of civic knowledge and
engagement do not accurately capture the reality of youth practices.
Indeed, in contrast to standard civic measurements, which gauge democratic and
governmental knowledge, actual participation levels amongst youth are at the highest recorded
levels in recent history (Jenkins et al., 2009). Youth produce content, share ideas, and join
conversations in ways that were never possible at any point in history. For example, a recent
nationally representative phone survey of 802 parents and their 802 teens, ages 12 to 17,
conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, showed that 95% of teens are online
and use the Internet (Madden & Lenhart, 2013); a similar study found that 91% of teens
uploaded some type of media content in the previous year (Madden et al., 2013). These statistics
suggest that participatory activities are ubiquitous in the lives on online youth. It follows, then,
that the field of Education would best be served by investigating the ways that interest-driven
spaces—where new media and participatory culture flourish—support formal civic goals, and
vice versa.
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Scholars suggest that interest-driven networks allowed for the development of social
skills and literacies, which prepared youth to mobilize on behalf of civic objectives (Jenkins et
al., 2009; Kahne et al., 2011; Kligler-Vilenchik & Shresthova, 2012). The goal now, then, is to
direct young people towards efforts that work to effect change on a societal level. There is
evidence that every day, there are myriad phenomenal events, activities, and learning
experiences occur online, and outside the bounds of formal school structures; examples include
the mobilization of youth-led social entities, such as clubs and community associations, and the
noted work of humanitarian organizations across the globe (Kahne et al., 2011). However, this is
not to say that the “feral children of the Internet, raised by the Web 2.0 wolves” (Jenkins, 2007,
n. p.) have, and will develop the skills, competencies, and agency necessary to be fully
functioning and contributing members of a participatory culture or society. Nonetheless,
scholars argue that a common misconception amongst adults and educators is the belief that
youth are “digital natives,” who are technologically savvy, and thus need no guidance and
structure (Burnett, 2000; Gee, 2010; Howe & Strauss, 2000; Palfrey & Gasser 2008; Prensky,
2001). This ideology runs counter to the notion of a participatory culture, one that, by definition,
is guided by mentors and experts in the community. In addition, while the online influence of
peers may precipitate involvement in a civic issue, this is also where the role of adults and
educators is most important, in shaping, steering, developing, acknowledging, and validating the
thoughts and actions of youth. In short, as Jenkins (2007) notes, when it comes to online civic
contexts, “youth don’t need adults looking over their shoulders, but they do need them to watch
their backs” (n. p.).
Jenkins et al. (2009) showed that there are individual teachers in the field, and in
institutions, who indeed watch the backs of their students. These educators recognize the
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importance of new media and participatory culture, and make small strides in their classrooms to
embrace the potential for learning that FD/ID networks facilitate. While long-term educational
goals seek to change the structure of school systems, short-term aims seek to provide educators
with tools to tap into the power of the new media literacies and participatory culture, and
embrace SNSs as resources where critical conversations can emerge and collective civic action
can take place. By illuminating the various understandings of new media and participatory
culture, the aim of this study was to facilitate and support this potential.
Not The Sharpest Tools in The Shed: The War on Social Media

[Untitled image of “Weapons of Mass Distraction”]
Through SNSs and other forms of communication technologies, new media and
participatory culture offer tremendous benefits to society; however, their effects have not come
without critique. In the blended world of social media, opponents postulate that: (a) corporate
interests dominate online public interactions; (b) there is a threat to the safety of youth who
participate in online activities; (c) the potential for privacy violations in an online environment
are increased; and (c) there are health-related risks to spending too much time in an online
environment. Research shows that while there are examples to warrant the criticisms of online
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social participation and expression by youth, for the most part, these reproaches regarding social
media are often overblown and overrepresented.
Ito et al. (2009) claim that educators need to work against a general perception that
associates any type of media with entertainment media, and other forms of pop culture activities,
all of which are assumed to be spaces that are inherently hostile to learning. James et al. (2009)
further explicate this point, in noting that, in regards to SNSs and other forms of social media, for
years “scholars, educators, policymakers, and parents have been debating their implications for
young people’s literacy, attention spans, social tolerance, and propensity for aggression” (p. 4).
The adult world, including educational institutions, have shown that they are well aware of these
concerns and issues, and have been responsive in dealing with the myriad risks associated with
online activities. While a discussion of the full scope of these threats is beyond the extent of this
study, it is of note to mention that these negotiations have been well documented in scholarship
pertaining to online privacy (Lenhart & Madden, 2009; Madden et al., 2013), identity
development (Buckingham, 2008; Jenkins et al., 2009; McKenna & Bargh, 2000; Shah, Cho,
Eveland, & Kwak, 2005), programs and reports concerning potential online threats (boyd, 2007;
boyd & Marwick, 2013), and cyber-bullying (Anderson & Sturm, 2007; Belsey, 2005).
In the midst of these multiple threats, and of central concern regarding the trends and
habits of online youth practices, is the way that researchers and educators look at privacy issues
in friendship-driven and interest-driven spaces. Research on online privacy concludes that adults
are generally not welcomed in the friendship-driven spaces inhabited by youth; ironically
however, adults believe they have had a distinct “protective” and participatory role in the way
they approach youth online activities (Grant 2006; Herring 2008; Ito et al. 2009; Livingstone
2006). To youth, the involvement and intervention of adults—and especially parents and
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educators—in online social spaces, is often seen as “awkward” and profoundly “creepy” (Ito et
al., 2009, p. 18). In examining ethnographic studies on youth who engage in online activities at
home, Livingston (2006) found that most research on Internet usage by youth focuses on external
threats to privacy, rather than children’s own conceptions of privacy. A parallel study titled,
Teens, Social Media and Privacy, conducted recently by the Pew Internet and American Life
Project, surveyed 802 teens and found that, despite high levels of parental concern, most youth
who shared information about themselves on social media sites also took a variety of technical
and non-technical steps to manage the privacy of their information (Madden et al., 2013).
Directly concerning popular social network sites like Facebook, the researchers note that youth
“are cognizant of their online reputations, and take steps to curate the content and appearance of
their social media presence” (Madden, et al., 2013, p. 8). It would seem, then, that the concerns
of the adults regarding privacy are somewhat over exaggerated when it comes to the actual
online practices of youth.
Aside from safety and privacy issues, another general concern is that when youth are in
front of a screen, or engaged in online activities, such as participation in gaming activities or
discourse on SNSs, it takes away from healthier activities and more productive forms of
engagement (Rideout, Foehr, & Roberts, 2010). In contrast, however, youth ascribe much more
value to their online undertakings (Ito et al., 2013; Jenkins et al., 2009). Indeed, Madden et al.
(2013) report that for “many teens who were interviewed in focus groups for [their] report,
Facebook was seen as an extension of offline interactions and the social negotiation and
maneuvering inherent to teenage life” (p. 8). The implication from this finding is that SNSs are a
means of building social skills and cultural competencies, which are hallmarks of participatory
culture. By missing this point, educators miss the recognition of the baseline learning that takes
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place within friendship-driven and interest-driven social spaces; for within these spaces there is a
place for adults and educators to provide youth with opportunities to think critically about
privacy, identity, safety, and civic engagement.
In sum, the literature suggests that the research on youth interactions in online arenas
allays any assumed threats to safety, privacy, and subversion. Instead, it has been shown that
youth navigate social media in many of the same ways that they navigate media in general, and
use these experiences to mature, grow, and communicate in a blended—offline and online—
world. Educators, therefore, should not view informal learning spaces in contrast to formal
learning spaces, but instead should facilitate a concerted effort to understand how the two
networks come together in coordinated ways; the benefits of such a venture would no doubt
work towards achieving a truly participatory culture, one that promotes dialogue, learning, and
facilitates agency, and enacts civic expression.
I “Like” That: Interest-Driven Networks and Civic Engagement

[Untitled image of thumbs up silhouette]
Research showed that educational entities can support youth engagement in the affinity
spaces where teens “geek-out” and deeply interact with specific topics (Ito et al., 2009); in
essence, youth thrive in environments they “like” being in. This is of great import, as these
spaces have the potential to foster ingenuity, intellectual development, and personal social
development, and, as is the focus of this study: civic agency, engagement, and expression.
Research that involved interviewing high school-aged students around the country found that in
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every case, young people had a much richer and creative life outside of school, as compared to
that inside of school (Jenkins et al., 2009). That is to say, the subjects and topics, which students
liked to learn about, were part of an informal curriculum that was taught when the school day
was over. Likewise, Drotner (2008) notes that out-of-school media practices, in contrast to in-
school practices, “are more focused on processes and problems or interests, and not so much
driven by systematic studies of particular facts or general issues” (p. 169). In other words,
passion and a “like” (or love) of subject matter, combined with a genuine connection to others,
trumps the traditional school curriculum in almost any circumstance.
In regards to engagement, this is important because, in society, there are many complex
issues and challenges that youth care deeply about, and which they must face in offline contexts;
however, many of these issues cannot be solved individually. Many challenges can only be
overcome by collective action, and this is where the precepts of participatory culture can be
enacted. Traditionally, social and political problems have been addressed through offline
conduits; they have been undertaken governmentally and publically through political means,
sometimes through community organizations, or mediated through actions at a local or grass-
roots level (Khane & Middaugh, 2012). Ultimately though, like adults, if youth work as
individuals in isolation, they cannot solve all the problems they face, or achieve the potential
they, along with society, hope for (Putnam, 1995). Because isolation is not the answer, this is
where new media and participatory culture and school can work in conjunction with one another,
to provide environments where civic and political engagement can emerge, and where youth can
practice critical dialogue using new media literacies. Researchers contend that the knowledge
and opportunity for discourse that each social sphere facilitates, theoretically provides youth a
way to deal with some of the larger social issues they inevitably encounter in their interactions
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with new media, and their engagement in participatory culture (Bakker & deVreese, 2011;
Cohen, Kahne, Bowyer, Middaugh, & Rogowski, 2012). The challenge to educators, then, is to
figure out how to turn a “like” of something, into a vehicle to think politically, or civically – to
have an impact on society and the world.
Undoubtedly, there are ways in which new media can be helpful in a democracy, and, as
noted earlier, there are also risks and problems involved. Today, young people—and all people
for that matter—receive a majority of their information from new media and through online
sources; studies showed that more and more of the global, national, and local news that people
receive and respond to, indeed, come from online sources (Kahne et al., 2012; Khane &
Middaugh, 2012). The current online generation has more access than at any previous point in
history to varying perspectives and information; however, it is not entirely clear that they are
better informed (Cohen et al., 2012). Thus, it stands to reason that, if educators are to prepare
young people to be active participants in society, they must strive to understand the ways that
youth use new media and also think about the ways education can support civic agency-building,
to equip youth with both the critical weapon of defense against oppression, and to become the
critical tool of communication for social change.
Because so much of civic and political life is connected to media, it is important to think
about the ways that digital media may be relevant, both in helping educators to prepare young
people to become involved in those ways and in figuring out whether they are assuredly
preparing young people to use digital media productively when they have a chance for
engagement. Kahne and Lee (2012) contend that understanding the civic potential for new
media is important for two central reasons: first, many of the forms of participation that young
people enact, are enacted via new media. Furthermore, the researchers note that, “digital media
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provide[s] many ways for youths to voice their perspectives, share information, contact officials,
create artistic statements related to civic and political issues, and mobilize others” (Kahne & Lee,
2012, p. 3). Additionally, Kahne and Lee (2012) argue that it is also essential to consider the
quality of youth participation. For instance, when youth interact with people who disagree with
them, will they respond in a way that is productive, or not? That is to say, will disagreements
turn into series of rant-laden status posts, or will youth have the agency—knowledge, skills, and
motivations—to be able to offer logical contrarian points of view, supported by the myriad forms
of credible sources available to them through the Internet? The latter has the potential to lead to
real understanding and growth, and perhaps even some recognition of the value of other
viewpoints. Kahne et al. (2012) agree, and note that, “when youth are given structured
opportunities to develop online skills and enact desired practices (like finding multiple
perspectives on an issue), they may become more likely to do these things on their own” (p.
497). In their study of civic education among 5505 high school juniors and seniors from 21
schools across California in the springs of 2005-2009, Kahne et al. (2012) also found that forms
of online participatory activity, digital media literacy activities, and political interest are in fact
related to increased reports of exposure to diverse perspectives. This finding is important
because it provides a possible entry point for educational institutions to be active in providing
opportunities for youth to engage with perceptions that differ from their own, which is a crucial
component of the well-informed civic education that Jefferson (1818) hoped for in the creation
of the University.
A few other interesting findings emerged from the research that Kahne et al. (2012)
conducted; the first is that participation in formal politics is one way in which people learn about
politics in general. The researchers also found that young people who participate in protests or
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work on campaigns—issues that youth feel are important to them—report learning a great deal,
and a significant number of those participants continue to engage in social issues in the future.
However, another finding showed that the interests and passions of youth, which have nothing to
do with formal politics, are also able to facilitate engagement in civic and political life in very
powerful ways. More often than not, critics contend that these interests are distractions. That is
to say, there is an argument that those young people who play online games or participate in
other aforementioned interest-driven activities are less likely to be involved civically and socially
because they are, as Putnam (1995) argues, isolated from the real world. A common
misconception, noted by researchers, is that individuals who play an online game repeatedly, or
spend countless hours on a SNS, or pursue a hobby or follow some special interest that they
have, are so focused and geeked-out on these things that they never get involved in the
community or are aware of issues connected to the broader community (Kahne et al., 2012;
Kahne, Middaugh & Evans, 2008).
What Kahne et al. (2011) found, however, is the complete opposite – they discovered that
youth who engaged in interest-driven activities, such as hobbies, clubs, or online multi-player
gaming—what Ito et al. (2009) refer to as interest-driven networks and Jenkins (2009) refers to
as engagement in a participatory culture—they were found to build bridges to a great deal of
civic, and sometimes political, engagement, even when these forms of interest are non-political.
Kahne et al. (2011) suggest that the interest-driven online activities in which youth engage, may
“serve as a gateway to participation in important aspects of civic and, at times, political life
ranging from volunteer activity, to engagement in community problem solving, to protest
activities, to political voice” (p. 15). In other words, their research suggest that youth who
participate in these activities are more likely to volunteer in their communities and are more
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likely to be part of collective activities that work towards solving social issues – all of which
constitute the actions that Putnam (1995) contends define civic participation and citizenship.
Kligler-Vilenchik and Shresthova (2012) see social participation in a similar manner;
they define civic practices as “activities that support organized collective action towards civic
goals” (p. 5). As such, one of the key goals for those responsible for the education of U.S. youth
is to find ways that facilitate and support a movement from participation in culture—in whatever
form that may be—to participation in political and civic structures. Middaugh et al. (2012) echo
this point, and assert that “civic educators must now not only consider how youth might use
digital tools and practices in service of civic and political activity, but how online life is a context
for civic and political activity” (p. i). Indeed, as the digital divide shrinks, and more and more
young people from all walks of life gain access to online tools and practices, education and thus
educators, must seek ways to tap into and support productive blended practices for youth.
In an evaluation of the ways that schools have typically approached civic education,
Livingstone (2009) found that new media pertaining specifically to civics and participatory
culture often takes “the civic education approach,” which views youth as “citizens-in-the-
making,” and focuses primarily on preparing them for their future adult responsibilities; in these
contexts, to become proficient in civic knowledge, young people simply learn civic skills and
share ideas with others (pp. 140-141). However, as Kligler-Vilenchik and Shresthova (2012)
note, “this approach pays limited attention to youth’s present rights and responsibilities, [and]
their ability to bring about actual change” (p. 6). Understanding the distinction, between
developing civic agency, where knowledge, skills, motivations, and dialogue are practiced, and
civic expression, in which group members participate in critical dialogue, and organize and
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 73
mobilize to effect social change, is important to educators who must move beyond conventional
means of civic instruction and assessment.
As with other contemporary scholars of digital media practices, Kahne et al. (2012)
believe that the intersection of new media and participatory culture teaches youth the skills that
matter, that it gives them connections to issues that they would not have heard about, and that it
gives them a sense of the power of collective action. All of these things lead to greater potential
for involvement in social and political issues, which educators can utilize within the context of
learning. Ito (2009) and her colleagues at the Digital Youth Project agree that young peoples’
interests can be leveraged, to teach new media literacy skills, and to build bridges, both by
connecting civic and political life directly to their interests, and showing youth why they matter.
In short, educators must be sure that youth interests are considered when thinking about how to
educate young people about civic expression, and thus must also be cognizant of the curricular
opportunities they provide in an ever-expanding culture of ubiquitous participation. This study
sought to illuminate the issues that are important to youth, and bring them to light, to support a
compendium of civics knowledge that recognizes online networks, including SNSs, as spaces of
formal and informal educational potential, and at the very least, as starting-points to engage in
the civic discussions in which students are already participate.
Researchers know the way that young people participate with new media is likely to
change many aspects of their social, civic, and political life; however, exactly how this will play
out remains uncertain (Kahne, 2013; Rheingold, 2008). While educators have begun to learn
some things about these issues, there is, indeed, much more to discover. Educators may be able
to use structures, like those imbedded in forms of social media for example, which are
compelling to young people, to help them reach levels of expertise, which is connected to the
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content that both parties care about; however, this will require an openness about what it means
to teach and to learn, and to interact with the multifaceted nuisances of digital cultures (Khane,
2013). These interactions have periodically taken place through what Reingold (2008) refers to
as “participatory media,” which is essentially a “social media whose value and power derives
from the active participation of many people” (p. 100). The collective power that denotes
Jeffersonian notions of civics, and which plays out in Zuckerberg’s civic vision of what social
media networks can do for society, mirrors the potentiality that Benkler (2007) claims can act “to
foster a more critical and self-reflective culture; and, in an increasingly information-dependent
global economy, as a mechanism to achieve improvements in human development everywhere”
(p. 2). Indeed, despite the slow pace with which schools embrace new forms of media, there are
many examples outside of education, where corporate entities, private institutions, and political
organizations recognized the civic potential of SNSs, and used them as conduits of influence.
A recent example, which showcases the collective power of social media networks, is the
2008 U.S. presidential election. The election saw an outpouring of amateur political videos in
support of the Obama campaign, and also saw then candidate Obama, himself, actively using
social media outlets like YouTube and Twitter to engage those in and outside of his political
base. In the words of Tapscott (2009), Obama “employed Net Gen-style collaboration in
campaign videos showing him speaking amid a mix of volunteers’ music and commentary” (p.
5). In this instance, new media and participatory culture offered the medium and the opportunity
for individuals to connect directly to a political cause in a way never before available.
While Obama relied on his campaign advisors and staff to create his social media
network, many of the young adults who supported him acquired their skill while playing with
various forms of new media. Using the terms of the Digital Youth Project (Ito et al., 2009), the
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young adults engaged in “messing around” with media, and in doing so, were developing the
skills and competencies needed to produce online videos and podcasts. In short, youth
eventually became “geeked-out” around a particular set of social-political subject matter, in this
case the presidential election. This is one primary example of how interest-driven engagement
can lead to civic dialogue and forms of engagement through the outlet that SNSs provide.
The example above demonstrates the potential that new media offers in terms of
providing youth with a venue and a voice for participation in the social sphere (Kahne &
Middaugh, 2012; Reingold, 2008). If youth can engage in the national conversations regarding
democracy, the next logical question becomes: What would it mean to geek-out for civic
practices that extend beyond the online sphere? In other words, can educators guide youth to be
as passionate about the future of their society, as they are about books, games, social media, and
other liked forms of popular culture which young people are involved with?
The Harry Potter Alliance (HPA), which was established in 2005, is one such example of
an entity that successfully harnessed online civic agency and turned it into offline engagement,
which served the greater good of humanity. The organization managed to tap into the interest-
driven Harry Potter fan community to mobilize young people to take civic action towards issues
they care about, and which work to advance society. Kligler-Vilenchik and Shresthova (2012)
report that the organization mobilized over one hundred thousand young people from around the
world to deal with social issues, such as human rights violations in other parts of the globe,
workers’ rights issues in the U.S., and, more recently, on gay marriage rights in many states
across the country. In their study, Kligler-Vilenchik and Shresthova (2012) also report that the
HPA has
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run a diverse set of campaigns, such as… an annual book drive, in which members have
donated over 87,000 books to local and international communities; Wizard Rock the
Vote, registering 1100 voters in Wizard Rock concerts across the nation; and Rock 4
Equality, a phone-banking campaign to protect marriage equality rights in Maine. The
HPA has also partnered up with other organizations, for instance, to raise over $123,000
for Partners in Health in two weeks, as part of the Helping Haiti Heal campaign. (pp. 10-
11)
By all accounts, this is an impressive feat for a fan-based, grass-roots organization. Part of the
reason for the success of the HPA, is that its members had interest-driven backgrounds, and thus
used the skills and competencies from their interaction with new media in online communities as
a vehicle to participate and think politically about real-world issues in contemporary society
(Kligler-Vilenchik & Shresthova, 2012). This example shows the pinnacle of civic expression in
a participatory culture, where new media literacies were enacted for civic causes that were
“liked”– the result was real engagement, participation, and civic virtue that extended well
beyond online environments and interactions.
The convergence of new media and participatory culture, thus create the perfect
conditions for participation in FD/ID networks to grow, mature, and prosper. This convergence
also brings to light new inquiries into the ways that offline civic participation is manifested and
developed in online environments such as SNSs. Thus, the conceptual framework that follows,
attempts to bring together the ideas and concepts expounded upon throughout the literature
review, and offers a model through which to explore youth civic expression.

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Conceptual Framework
The preceding sections of this chapter: (a) presented a contextualization of the culture(s)
of learning; (b) distinguished between the various understandings of, and conversations
surrounding new media and participatory culture; (c) allayed the critical concerns regarding the
online practices of youth; (d) focused on the online spaces and practices that encourage
engagement amongst youth; (e) discussed the civic applicability of new media and participatory
culture, and underscored the important role that formal education has in supporting youth in this
process. The bodies of literature herein formed the basis of the conceptual framework (see
Figure 3 below), which embraces the idea that youth civic agency and engagement are
influenced by the issues that arise from interaction and experiences in varying social networks,
and by the conditions imparted by participatory culture, in a period of heightened and immersive
use of digital and social media by society in general.

Figure 3. Conceptual Framework: Model of Blended Youth Civic Engagement
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 78
Drawing from the literature on new media, participatory culture, civic engagement, and
informal and formal learning spaces, there exists a notion that there is, indeed, an intersection of
the use of new media, and its application in participatory culture, which facilitates different types
of networked social interactions. The sphere of school represents the emergent theme from the
review of the literature, which contends that formal institutions of education have a crucial part
in teaching and fostering the skills and competencies needed for youth civic engagement and
development. The literature presumes that at these critical junctions, friendship-driven and
interest-driven networks emerged, primarily in the form of Social Network Sites (SNSs).
Additionally, from these junctures, civic agency is developed and civic engagement is enacted
through varying levels of experiences and interactions, termed Tiers of Civic Engagement. The
horizontal dashed lines separate the different tiers, and imply that there are different experiences
and interactions that occur at each level of civic engagement. Furthermore, the dashed lines
represent the fluid nature of blended civic interactions, where movement among tiers,
experiences, and interactions is possible. Civic Agency is situated, in every sense of the word, at
the core of the Venn diagram, and thus suggests that the manifestation of civic expression is
dependent first on civic knowledge and accompanying motivations, and further implies that in
every networked social interaction agency can be created. Likewise, at the center of this study is
the question of: “what specifically influences civic agency, and how it is expressed?” The
arrows that extend from Civic Agency, and which pass through the varying FD/ID Networks,
represent the notion that agency is an antecedent to realized civic engagement and that youth
must develop the knowledge, skills, and motivations comprising civic agency first, before civic
expression can be manifested through different media outlets. Per the literature, the inclusion of
interest-driven networks in the 2
nd
Tier also implies that interactions have the potential to foster a
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 79
higher form of civic engagement (Ito et al., 2009; Khane, 2013; Kahne & Middaugh, 2012;
Reingold, 2008). The arrow that extends upward from Civic Agency, through the sphere of
School illustrates the idea that educational institutions can foster agency, which, in-turn, can lead
to 3
rd
Tier Civic Engagement. Thus, the 3
rd
Tier is considered to be the pinnacle, the ideal form
of engagement where mobilization towards civic action, based on informed and careful
consideration, is present. Likewise, the 1
st
Tier is considered the lowest form of engagement,
and is the starting point for youth civic involvement, which is rooted predominantly in
friendship-driven interactions. While it is acknowledged that it is possible for youth to
participate in civic engagement and civic expression with or without the influence of SNSs and
formal school settings, the goal of this study was to determine how contemporary online
environments work to affect the civic knowledge and action of youth. Therefore, the study
assumes that both SNSs and the school environment are important factors influencing the civic
behaviors and activities of youth. The framework communicates the notion that the interactions
that occur in in FD/ID networks, like those in SNSs, do constitute online civic agency, and result
in different modes of civic expression; therefore, the manifestation of civic thoughts and actions
within these intersection points are the objects under investigation, and thus make up the bulk of
the data analyzed in Chapter 4. A detailed description of each tier follows.
1st Tier Engagement
Drawing on the work of Ito et al. (2009) and Jenkins et al. (2009), 1
st
Tier Civic
Engagement describes the intersection of new media and participatory culture in friendship-
driven networks and spaces. The resultant interaction is considered to be a type of civic
engagement that is indicative of low-level, low-stakes participation. That is to say, youth in this
1
st
Tier may and have experiences and experiments with familiar forms of new media (like those
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 80
in popular culture), and utilize some of the media literacy skills associated with participatory
culture. Within this tier, it is theorized that youth are also more apt to facilitate online and
digitally mediated interactions with those primarily in existing friendship groups. Particular to
the 1
st
Tier, youth typically navigate through participatory culture independently and use new
media outside the bounds of formal school structures.
2nd Tier Engagement
Also drawing on the work of Ito et al. (2009) and Jenkins et al. (2009), 2
nd
Tier Civic
Engagement describes the intersection of new media and participatory culture in friendship-
driven and interest-driven networks and spaces, where youth congregate around shared interests
while simultaneously forming friendships through participation, and vice versa; the resultant
interaction produces a higher form of civic engagement, which has the possibility (in rare
instances) of also enacting 3
rd
Tier Engagement. Similar to the 3
rd
Tier, youth who demonstrate
2
nd
Tier practices have experiences, and experiment, with familiar forms of new media; however,
they are also exposed to, and learn about, new and unfamiliar forms of media and technologies
through interest-driven endeavors. Furthermore, it is theorized that youth utilize an array of the
media literacy skills associated with participatory culture. Youth in this tier have online and
digitally mediated interactions with those in extended peer-groups, which go beyond existing
friendships. As the literature suggests, the influence of formal school entities is a defining
feature of the 2
nd
Tier; it is assumed that participatory thoughts and actions are enacted
voluntarily by youth, but that they can also be infused into existing educational policies,
pedagogies, and curriculum (Ito et al., 2009; Khane, 2013).

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3rd Tier Engagement
Blending the seminal communicative works of Ito et al. (2009), Jenkins et al. (2009),
Kahne et al. (2011; 2012), and Kligler-Vilenchik and Shresthova (2012), 3
rd
Tier Civic
Engagement describes the intersection of new media and participatory culture, with a focus on
the interest-driven networks and spaces that promote civic actions, circulated in offline and
online social networks. Additionally, it is theorized that youth in this tier have online and
digitally mediated interactions that have the potential to extend well beyond existing friendship
and peer groups. The resultant interaction produces a high-level, high-stakes form of civic
engagement, where multiple new media literacies are employed in mobilization efforts, which
support social and political causes. Youth in this tier also utilize agency in the form of critical
thinking skills, which take multiple perspectives into consideration and also employ higher-order
cognitive abilities to make decisions. Youth in the 3
rd
Tier are theorized to use their experiences
and experimentations with familiar and unfamiliar forms of new media and technologies,
including SNSs, to think about, communicate, organize, and mobilize efforts to express social
and political ideas, to enact societal change. It is implied that within this tier, educational entities
have the potential to provide the mentorships, tools, dialogue, cognitive skills, and resources to
affect agency and provide well-informed paths to civic engagement and expression.
Framed-Work
Within the preceding framework, gleaned from the review of the literature, there are
critical intersection points among new media, participatory culture, and school, where online
civic agency and expression dwell. As such, it is through these intersections where SNSs
emerge, and through which educators can find ways to support new media literacy skills,
productive participation regarding civic issues, and, ultimately, civic engagement and expression.
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 82
Friendship-driven networks provide spaces for social learning and development of critical
thought processes, the benefits of which have been noted in the review of the literature. Interest-
driven networks, however, provide an untapped area for research in education. By examining
these areas within the context of a formal educational structure, this study hopes to illuminate the
ways that schools can utilize the social skills and cultural competencies in the ecologies of SNSs,
to work together with students to provide the myriad perspectives needed for agency, as well as
the conditions, spaces, resources, and impetuses for civic engagement, and resultant civic
expressions. This study explored these areas, to discover the forms of media, in and out of
school, that shape civic ideas within the multicultural and multiracial context of Hawaii. It also
identified the concepts and issues that form the locus of participatory civic engagement for
Hawaiian youth, and explored the ways that participation in social and political issues may work
to improve the capability and well-being of the people of Hawaii, through education. In short,
this study adds to the body of literature regarding the ways in which new forms of media and
participatory culture are employed in offline and online civic contexts; it also explicates possible
ways that the field of education may be able to function, in new and profound ways, to leverage
SNSs, to foster civic agency and enact civic engagement amongst its youth.
Conclusion
As this review of the literature showed, a disentanglement of the online social and
institutional ideas, structures, processes, and protocols that influence youth civic engagement is
one that involves a deconstruction of the concepts that permeate throughout the scholarship on
new media and participatory culture – entities that form the crux of SNSs. It also involves a
parallel discussion of the relationship between informal and formal sites of learning, as well as
an examination of the types of meaningful interactions that online networks facilitate. While a
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 83
review of the literature offers some insight on the research pertaining to the online practices of
youth, the Youth and Participatory Politics Research Group (Kahne, 2013) notes that scholars
have yet to investigate how subgroups of youth engage in participatory politics and civic
activities. Additionally, scholarship needs to examine the civic implications and uses of the new
media literacies in an era of ubiquitous participatory culture, and how various forms of social and
political engagement are enacted through this usage (Khane, 2013; Ito et al., 2009). Thus, the
most essential question that comes from the literature review is: “What can educators do to
leverage the civic power and potentiality of popular online networks, like SNSs, to promote a
core premise of education in the continental United States and Hawaii?” In response, this study
sought to shed light on the issues and conditions that have an impact on student civic agency and
expression.
Educators and educational scholars alike know that the learning that occurs outside of
school matters tremendously to the learning that happens in school (Ito et al., 2009; Jenkins,
2006; Jenkins et al., 2009; Kahne, Middaugh, Lee, & Feezell, 2011; Kahne, Middaugh, Lee, &
Feezell, 2012). This is a fact. Part of the discussion regarding informal online learning spaces
and the way they blended into offline learning spaces, is one that is linked to an ongoing
educational conversation regarding the benefits of bridging the home, peer, and community
environments, with that of a formal school environment. Thus, the question arises again: how
can educators be more active in linking the in-school and out-of-school environments in a way
that facilitates reciprocal engagement in both spheres?
The literature indicates that part of the answer lies in a recognition of the literacies and
expectations regarding the new media skills necessary to participate in contemporary society.
This study recognizes that educational entities have the power to provide safe, sanctioned, and
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 84
nurturing spaces to allow youth an opportunity to be reflective and critical of their online
practices, instead of being solely immersed in them. This study also points out that formal
institutions of learning can provide youth with mentorships, guidance, and the myriad
perspectives necessary for providing critical expression and engagement (Jenkins et al., 2009).
As Buckingham (2008) notes, “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” (p. ix). As such, this study sought to embrace and understand the cultural ideas,
processes, and protocols practiced by today’s youth. To better understand these practices,
Chapter 3 expounds upon the research methodologies used to capture the ways that youth civic
expression is developed and manifested in a participatory world where new media seeks to spark
the revolution that will be liked.

THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 85
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
…The revolution will not be televised…
…The revolution will not be right back / after a message…

Gil Scott-Heron
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
1970

In the quest to determine means by which youth express revolutionary ideas and actions
in blended—online and offline—contexts, it was determined that the data in this study would
best be collected through the qualitative methods of surveys, interviews and document analysis.
Their purpose was meant to explore and triangulate the civic interactions of youth within online
SNSs and offline interactions in order to extrapolate larger patterns in the knowledge and
motivations that shaped agency and the conditions and practices that shaped civic engagement
and expression. Using the case study method, this dissertation views the blended civic
expression of Hawaiian youth as a unit of analysis and examines the connection between student
beliefs and practices in online and offline social networks. The following research questions
specifically guided the analysis:
Research Questions:
1. In an era of heightened and immersive use of digital and social media by society, how
and why is civic engagement developed and expressed among native Hawaiian
youth?
2. What influence does indigenous culture have on the civic expression patterns of
Native Hawaiian youth?
The research for this study relied primarily on the case study design, which, according to
Merriam (2009), is ideal for understanding and interpreting the observation of a particular
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 86
phenomenon. Case study research is also heuristic in approach and is best applied when
illuminating “complex social units consisting of multiple variables of potential importance”
(Merriam, 2009, p. 50), which, in this study, was youth civic expression and agency in offline
and online social spaces. Merriam (2009) also notes that some of the assumptions that undergird
the case study method are researcher bias and subjectivity in the interpretation of data. Attempts
were made to eliminate threats to validity and reliability by triangulating data, providing thick,
rich description, and continually member-checking during each phase of the research process.
Because this study was interested in understanding the ecology and culture of youth civic
expression, a qualitative approach also deemed appropriate as a means of clarifying student
thoughts, ideas, understandings, and experiences within a digitally mediated culture of
interaction and engagement. Thus, student interviews and written narratives were examined in
conjunction with screenshots from the SNS, Facebook, to uncover online elements, such as the
“beliefs, values, and attitudes that structure the behavior patterns of a specific group of people”
(Merriam, 2009, p. 27), which in this case were NHY, aged 16-18 who were active on the SNS,
Facebook. In sum, this chapter elaborates on the conceptual framework set forth in Chapter 2,
and reviews the study’s research design, site, sample and population selection, instrumentation,
and the processes and procedures for data collection and analysis.
Research Design
The purpose of this study was to explain why and how offline and online civic
expressions are manifested and developed by native Hawaiian youth in an era of actualized
participatory culture. This study also sought to explore the affective, social, cultural, and
educational factors that contribute to the civic agency and engagement of high school students
who are of part native Hawaiian ancestry. Thus, the methodology of this study employs that of a
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 87
qualitative case study. Qualitative researchers “are interested in understanding how people
interpret their experiences, how they construct their worlds, and what meaning they attribute to
their experiences” (Merriam, 2009, p. 5). Therefore, because this study explicitly seeks to
conceptualize and understand youths’ experiences and interactions in online networks, a
qualitative approach was deemed most appropriate as a means of capturing data pertinent to the
research questions. The study’s research design is also rooted in an interpretative paradigm,
which “assumes that reality is socially constructed” (Merriam, 2009, p. 8), and that it is the
researcher’s task to navigate and construct knowledge from data that is gleaned. This research is
interested particularly in answering “how” and “why” questions, and accordingly utilize a
heuristic approach, in which the “case stud[y] illuminate[s] the reader’s understanding of the
phenomenon under study” (Merriam, 2009, p. 44).
Merriam (2009) further notes that a case study is “an in-depth description and analysis of
a bounded system” (p. 40). The primary unit of analysis is the blended manifestations of civic
expression and agency of Hawaiian youth at a private high school located in Hawaii; therefore it
can be considered a bounded system, in that the unit of study is the phenomenon of civic
expression, as coalesced through agency and engagement. This study also utilized the qualitative
case study approach as a means of investigating a bounded system over time, which included in-
depth data collection from multiple sources, and the exploration the values, beliefs, and practices
that comprise culture (Creswell, 2009; Patton, 2002). Additionally, this study specifically
incorporated data that was captured by multiple sources, through the use of surveys, interviews,
written narratives, documents, member-checks, as well as other digitalized forms of new media
that were produced and consumed by students in and around the friendship-driven and interest-
driven networks that were represented in popular SNSs frequented by the participants. These
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 88
SNSs were also assumed to be an element of the bounded site of investigation. Thus, because
SNSs were a part of the ecology and culture of youth interactions, qualitative data collection
methods used to capture the immersive cultural habits, practices and actions of NHY who were
active on Facebook. Additionally, researcher field notes were employed as a means of reflecting
on the digital practices of youth, as they were observed in online social media networks. This
methodology, and its accompanying theoretical perspectives and approaches, combined with the
conceptual framework of the study, allowed for a purposive sample and population to be
investigated; one, which addressed a goal of the research, which was to extrapolate a Hawaiian
aesthetic.
Sample and Population
This study, which examines the understandings and experiences of highly engaged
Hawaiian civic youth in blended social networks, and the ways that these interactions facilitate
agency and influence varying levels of civic engagement and expression, took place at Hawaii
High School
7
(HHS), a high school which is located in a rural area on one of the islands of
Hawaii. The total student enrollment at HHS for school year 2013-2014 was approximately 570
students. Existing literature found that youth in their latter teenage years were more likely to use
new media and SNSs as sites of learning, and for civic and political discourse (boyd, 2008b,
Cohen et al., 2012; Ito et al., 2009, Khane & Lee, 2012); thus, in order to glean a rich
understanding of online civic expression amongst Hawaiian youth, the decision was made to
collect data from a stratified, purposeful, sample of convenience, of students in their late teenage
years – 16 to 18. The “purposeful,” (or purposive) and “unique” (Merriam, 2009, p. 78) group of
youth in the 11
th
and 12
th
grades, was also deemed ideal in examining the role that new media

7
Pseudonym used for confidentiality purposes.
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 89
and participatory culture play in providing access or creating barriers to civic engagement for
Hawaiian youth, primarily because the racial preference policy of the school ensures that every
student is of part-Hawaiian ancestry. In addition, at the time of the study, HHS recently
instituted a one-to-one laptop initiative, which provided every student with a laptop for use in
and out of school, as well as broadband access during school hours. In this regard, the
environment afforded a site that was suitable for an exploration of the ways in which students
may be using their laptops and other mobile devices to build civic agency and partake in some
form of civic engagement and expression while on and off campus grounds.
Because “two levels of sampling are often necessary in qualitative case studies”
(Merriam, 2009, p. 81), criteria needed to be established to select the many participants from
which rich and thick descriptive data could be attained (Creswell, 2009). In the first phase of
data collection, the online survey was used to glean a broad understanding of HHS students’ use
of new media and their participation in SNSs; the following criteria was thus used to narrow the
sample, and determine which students would be eligible to participate in the interview phase of
the study:
1. Enrollment in the 11
th
and 12
th
grades at Hawaii High School.
2. Access to online networks outside of the physical school boundaries.
3. Involvement/Participation/Membership in an online community and/or online
social networking site
4. Willingness to share information on involvement/participation in online
community and/or social networking site
5. Willingness to participate in the interview process.
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 90
As such, participants were selected based on “convenience sampling,” which is a non-probability
sampling technique where subjects are selected because of their convenient accessibility and
proximity to the researcher (Maxwell, 2013; Merriam, 2009). In this case, all 11
th
and 12
th
grade
students, which equated to approximately 280 individuals at the school site, were invited to
participate in the study. A student assent and consent form (see Appendix B) was sent home
with students, and a link to an electronic survey (see Appendix C) was distributed via email, to
all high school students whose parents/guardians signed the consent form. The preliminary
survey was designed as an exploratory means of looking for “individuals who [were]
knowledgeable about a topic or process” (Sue & Ritter, 2007, p. 2), and to probe the following:
basic demographic data, civic propensity, membership in an online and offline network, and
access to electronic communication technologies. This phase of data collection drew from a
voluntary pool of students, and also worked to provide an initial understanding of: (a) how
participatory culture was enacted by students at the school site; (b) the types of new media that
students were using, and to what extent they were using it to engage in various forms of social
interactions; and (c) commonalities in responses, specific to Hawaiian culture. The first phase of
data collection also worked to inform the second round of data collection, where more specific
information regarding civic thoughts and actions of students were gathered through written
narratives and in-depth interviews.
The unit of analysis in this study is the occurrence of civic thought and action among
NHY; that is to say, the topic of inquiry was to understand the affective, social, environmental,
and educational factors that contributed to the civic agency and engagement, which constituted
civic expression. To study this phenomenon, interviews were conducted as the primary method
of data collection. Participant-selected screenshots with accompanying written narratives,
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 91
document analysis, follow-up interviews, and member-checks, were also employed to triangulate
data regarding civic agency, engagement, and expression, to ascertain correctness of the data.
In all, 167 students responded to the preliminary online survey. Of the 167 respondents,
34 met the criteria for interviews. Due to scheduling conflicts and/or a desire to not participate
further in the study, the number of participants was reduced to 14. These 14, civically engaged
students, comprised of 8 females and 6 males, aged 16-18, provided the rich core data, in the
form of interviews, written narratives, and documents, which shaped the analysis.
Instrumentation
Merriam (2009) states that, “the product of qualitative inquiry is richly descriptive” [sic]
(p. 16); therefore there are a few primary data collection strategies that prove useful in attaining
these information-rich descriptions: surveys, interviews, and document (also known as “artifact”)
analysis (p. 139). In the process of investigating the experiences of youth civic expression in
online networks, surveys, interviews, and an examination of documents was chosen as means of
employing deductive and inductive approaches to collecting data. Data collection for this study
specifically utilized: (a) a preliminary survey; (b) interviews; (c) written narratives; (d) document
analysis using the screen capture application, Snagit; (e) follow-up interviews; and (f)
researcher’s field notes and memos.
Surveys
Surveys are useful in providing a description of “trends, attitudes, and opinions of a
population by studying a sample of that population;” furthermore, they are advantageous in that
they provide a “rapid turnaround in data collection” (Creswell, 2009, p. 145, 146). As Sue and
Ritter (2007) note, the survey process should “increase the likelihood of collecting data that
adequately addresses the study’s objectives while balancing time constraints” (p. 3). As such, the
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 92
preliminary survey, noted in Appendix B, served as an “exploratory” (Sue & Ritter, 2007, p. 2)
means of quickly ascertaining which students would have the propensity to provide data that was
pertinent to the study’s research questions. Sue and Ritter (2007) also contend that it is “most
efficient to conduct an Internet survey when a large number of participants are to be contacted”
(p.10); therefore, because the preliminary survey was to be distributed to all students in the 11
th

and 12
th
grades at HHS, the large number of recruits—273—necessitated the use of an online
survey format was deemed most appropriate and feasible for data collection.
Specifically, an electronic survey, “created using software and accessed by respondents
through a link in an email invitation” (Sue & Ritter, 2007, p. 14), was chosen as a means of
gathering data, and was thus used because of its economy in creation and ease of deployment.
While many forms of survey software were available (e.g. Surveymonkey, Zoomerang,
SurveyGizmo, to name a few), Google Forms was used, due to: (a) its low cost (at the time of
this writing there was no charge to use the software); (b) student familiarity with the format (at
the time of this writing, HHS was a Google-Sites School); and (c) the myriad options for data
analysis (responses were automatically added to a spreadsheet, and the Forms feature of Google
offered many ways to visualize data, including summary charts).
Interviews
While surveys serve as a quick and easy way to collect data, one of the qualitative
researcher’s most useful inductive tools is the interview (Maxwell, 2013; Merriam, 2009). In the
quest to understand how people interpret their experiences, interviewing is a valuable way, and
in some instances the only way, of attaining descriptions and experiences of a phenomenon
(Maxwell, 2013). Thus, an interview protocol (Appendix D) was created as a means of
specifically eliciting useful information from participants. One of the main reasons interviews
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 93
were used in this qualitative study was to “provide some knowledge of the context or to provide
specific incidents, behaviors and so on that can be used as a reference point for subsequent
interviews” (Merriam, 2009, p. 119), as well as for future document and artifact analysis. To
capture the phenomenon of civic expression, the development of the interview protocol thus
began with a selection of structure. The choice was made to use a semi-structured format
because it allowed for a balance between the specificity of a highly structured interview, and that
of the informal nature of the unstructured interview. As Merriam (2009) notes, “the [semi-
structured] format allows the researcher to respond to the situation at hand, to the emerging
worldview of the respondent, and to new ideas on the topic” (p. 90). Because the research
questions hoped to ascertain emergent understanding of students’ experiences with new media
and participatory culture, and the ways that these spheres were used to express civic thoughts and
actions, a semi-structured interview protocol assured that a focused line of questioning was
followed, yet it also allowed for the flexibility to be responsive to new lines of questioning and
topics as the interview progressed.
In this study, interviews were used to address the research questions, which sought to
ascertain the extent to which the blended offline and online social environments, which youths
were immersed in, influenced civic agency and civic engagement in Hawaiian issues, and if
applicable, vice versa. The conceptual framework was also used in conjunction with the
objectives of the research questions, to create a protocol that would best capture youth civic
expression ad agency. Thus, interview questions began with general demographic information
and uses of media, and then led into an inquiry regarding the social and political conversations,
activities, and thoughts that students engaged in. The line of questioning then moved to the
feelings and motivations that undergird these engagements. Interviews also were helpful in
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 94
opening the door for further discussion into why and how these interactions generated
friendship-driven and interest-driven networks. Additional interview questions focused on the
types of online social and informational networks that students participated in, and delved into
how, why, and under what circumstances students participated in the networks, with a specific
focus on civic issues. Furthermore, interview questions were used to determine the critical and
cultural concepts and issues that students perceived were important to them, which further served
to answer the second research question, which focused on understanding the extent to which
Hawaiian culture influences civic expression.
Documents
Interviews are indeed ideal in garnering qualitative data from youth immersed in social
structures, such as SNSs; however, of equal import in today’s digital age of qualitative research
is that of the analysis of what Merriam (2009) refers to as documents, which are convenient,
“ready-made source of data easily accessible to the imaginative and resourceful investigator” (p.
139). In addition to their ease of accessibility, another strength of examining digital online
documents is that they are the best source of data for information that cannot be directly
observed (Merriam, 2009). In the case of this study, document analysis took the form of
examining participant-created written narratives, which commented on the self-selected
screenshots that participants felt exemplified their own civic expressions. This collection of
online data proved to be one of the ways to gain insight into the new media practices of youth,
where participatory civic engagement and thus civic expression, primarily took place
synchronously and asynchronously, in virtual environments. The documents that were analyzed
came in the form of digitalized screenshots, comprised of pictures, conversations, likes, and
comments, and statuses that were created and shared. These documents were accessed by the
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researcher through the public domain of the Internet, and were screen-captured for analysis using
the application: Snagit.
In a recent Pew Internet and American Life Project study on teens and social media,
Madden et al. (2013) report that the primary forms of social media being used by teenagers are:
Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. A pilot study, conducted in the Spring of 2013, concurred
with these findings; therefore, Snagit, a screen-capture software program, was used to record and
collect information from these frequently visited social media sites, and thus provided visual data
that focused on civic discourse, which included social and political issues raised by students and
their peers. Subsequently, in the second phase of data collection—the interview process—during
the line of questioning pertaining to participation in online social networks, such as Facebook,
Twitter, and Instagram, an inquiry was made as to whether or not participant expressions were
indeed in the public realm; if so, usernames were asked for, so that the SNSs could be searched
and analyzed for data which corresponded to civic agency, engagement, and other forms of
expression. All identifying information in screen shots was redacted. In this respect, document
analysis involved looking at the data, to see if participants posted things that aligned with civic
discourse and/or action, within the public domain, and an attempt was made to extrapolate the
major consistencies and emergent themes in the responses, to triangulate responses from the
interview phase.
The social media sites, which youth frequent, are also considered “social resource sharing
systems, [which] are web-based systems that allow users to upload their resources, and to label
them with arbitrary words, so-called tags” (Jaschke et al., 2007, p. 1). These tagging systems
allow users to assign keywords—“tags”—to resources and are used for navigation, finding
resources and thus provide immediate benefit for users, including researchers (Jaschke et al.,
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2007). Therefore, this study also employed the use of the categorical tagging system known as
the hashtag, represented as: #, which is imbedded in Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook
vernacular. Each of these social media networks formally incorporate the hashtag as a means of
categorizing topics, discussions, as well as in the facilitation of meta-data searches for their users
– and were thus also used as a means of locating archived information from SNSs, and were
additionally taken into consideration in the analysis of screenshots which represented civic
thoughts and actions.
Data Collection
Data was collected over the course of one month, using the strategies noted above:
survey, interview, narrative analysis, and document analysis. Data collection occurred in three
general phases. The first phase involved the recruitment of participants via online survey. Those
students who responded were then “purposefully selected” (Creswell, 2009, p. 178) and were
culled to those who were “civic-minded,” and considered to be “civically engaged” in offline
contexts, and thus would be able to provide information-rich data on civic thoughts and actions
of youth (Peterson, 2013; Weinstein, 2014) in blended social contexts. The second phase
included in-depth student interviews, collection of written narratives and participant-selected
civic screen captures, as well as electronic document analysis (which stemmed from the
interviews). The third phase was comprised of follow-up interviews and additional member-
checks to triangulate emergent findings and to ensure internal validity.
After administrative approval was secured from the school site, and parental consent was
attained (Appendix B), the preliminary online survey (Appendix C) was distributed to all
recruited participants in the 11
th
and 12
th
grades at HHS, via their school email accounts. The
email contained a brief message outlining the purpose of the study, the guidelines and option to
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participate, and a link to the Google Forms survey. Students were given a one-week timetable to
complete the survey. Survey results were collected, sorted and analyzed over the course of a
weekend, and students who met the criteria for interviews were contacted via email. Upon
confirming participation in the second phase of the study, interviews were scheduled with
participants, and took place over a two-week period.
Interviews with students took place on school premises, during free periods, and before
or after school, and off of school grounds – at coffee shops, parks, the beach, or other public
space – wherever was convenient and conducive for the participant. The interviews were
scheduled to last approximately 45-60 minutes, with the initial interviews being conducted
during a two-week period, and follow-up interviews occurring the following week, to clarify
and/or elaborate on prior discussions, and to discuss forms of civic expression (e.g. posts and
status updates, liked images, shared links, etc.), when necessary.
One of the most common ways to collect basic interview data is by tape recording it
(Merriam, 2009); therefore, a contemporary “tape,” was used to digitally record the audio from
the interviews. During all interviews, an iPhone with built-in audio-recording software was used
in conjunction with a Sony digital recorder to document researcher questions and participant
responses and commentary. All digital files were backed-up on a password-protected MacBook
Pro laptop, immediately following each interview. An electronic interview transcript was also
created, as Merriam (2009) suggests, with identifying information at the top, listing “when,
where, and with whom the interview was conducted” (p. 110). Furthermore, line numbering was
included down the left margin, and a space left in the right margin for analysis, researcher
comments, and coding (Merriam, 2009).
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 98
The interviews began with broader questions that asked about student backgrounds and
communities in which they lived, as this is generally a good way to make the respondent feel
comfortable and gain basic demographic information; in addition, demographic questions were
also used as a means to ease into a more direct line of questioning (Bogdan & Biklen, 2003). I
then moved to questions that pertained to understanding of new media, participatory culture and
civic engagement in school and affinity spaces, and concluded with specific questions that asked
about the ways in which students and specifically engage or could engage in civic discourse and
participation using new media. At the end of the interview, an inquiry was made to determine
whether or not the participant would be willing to share information that pertained to civic forms
of expression, from one of the SNSs that they were members of. In the event of agreement—all
participants did indeed agree—and if participants had their mobile electronic devices available
(e.g. cell phone, laptop, tablet), I asked them to show me an instance where they believed that
they were participating (commenting, liking, linking, sharing, etc.) in civic engagement, or
commenting on a civic issue. Participants were then asked to take a screenshot of their
interaction(s) and send them, via email, along with a brief written narrative explaining how
and/or why the screenshot captured civic expression or engagement. In the event that
participants did not have immediate access to their SNS, arrangements were made for them to
send their screenshots and narratives within a 24-hour time span.
Furthermore, an inquiry was made to search participant Facebook timelines for additional
evidence of civic expression; once approval was given, and username secured, Snagit was used
to take screenshots of the SNS, and field notes were employed as a means of capturing the
culture of online interactions, in the form of posted pictures, comments, and conversations. As
with the interview transcripts, all screenshots and written narratives were uploaded to Dedoose,
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 99
tagged and aligned to the pseudonym for which the participant was assigned, and analyzed
immediately, using researcher memos.
Follow-up interviews were held the week following the initial interviews, and were used
to clarify the early understandings of participants’ answers and written narratives. A formal
protocol for the follow-up interview was not established beforehand, as its primary purpose was
to serve as an additional member check, to rule out the possibility of misinterpreting the meaning
of what the participants had to say in the interviews themselves (Maxwell, 2013), and what they
also said in the written narratives about their “civic” screenshots, and to clarify documents and
interpretations of the data that were collected from Facebook timelines.
As informed by the conceptual framework, interviews, written narratives, and document
analysis aided in answering the research questions, and allowed for a deeper understanding of the
forms of civic engagement and agency that are most prevalent in online youth interactions
throughout the different tiers of civic engagement. Furthermore, the data that was gleaned
offered an in-depth understanding of the critical dialogue that occurs in friendship-driven and
interest-driven spaces, which may promote civic thoughts and actions amongst the participant
youth population, and also helps to illuminate the cultural patterns that emerged.
Data Analysis
While this study drew from different plans for analyzing data (e.g. Corbin & Strauss,
1996; Creswell, 2009; Maxwell, 2013; Merriam, 2009), the primary framework for data analysis
followed Creswell’s (2009) multiple level analysis, comprised of six interactive steps, which
move from the analysis of specific raw data, to general interpretations that seek to determine the
meaning of themes and descriptions. Figure 4, below, represents Creswell’s (2009, p. 185) data
analysis process.
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 100

Figure 4. Six-step data analysis process (adapted from Cresswell, 2009)
The use of various strategies to capture data in this study necessitated the bringing
together of all of the information about the case. After collecting the raw data, reviewing the
research questions, and conceptual framework, like Creswell (2009), Maxwell (2013) also notes
that the next step in qualitative analysis is “reading the interview transcripts, observational notes,
Themes
Step 1: Raw Data (survey responses, interview
transcripts, field notes, images, etc.)
Description
Step 2: Organize and Prepare Data for Analysis
Step 3: Read Through All Data
Step 4: Code Data (Through the Use of CAQDAS)
Step 5: Interrelate Themes/Descriptions
(Case Study Approach)
Step 6: Interpret the Meaning of Themes/Descriptions
Validate the
Accuracy of the
Information
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 101
or documents to be analyzed” (p. 105). Creswell (2009) adds that data analysis “is an ongoing
process involving continual reflection about the data, asking analytic questions, and writing
memos throughout the study,” in which qualitative researchers should see the analysis as
“following steps from the specific to the general” and which involves “multiple levels of
analysis” (p. 184). Computer-aided data analysis software offers qualitative researchers
powerful tools, which help in the organization, sorting, and coding of data linking, and retrieval
of information (Richards, 2005). Thus, to aid in the reading of data and to foster a liner,
hierarchical approach to the process of analysis, an investigation into the different Computer
Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS) and applications that were available to
qualitative researchers revealed two useful tools: Dedoose and Snagit.
Software
Many of the other qualitative software options were for PC users only, and offered
limited user options for researchers using Mac computers. Because the primary tool for data
analysis was a MacBook Pro, Dedoose was found to be one of the few compatible applications
for Mac users for qualitative analysis. Furthermore, Dedoose allowed for easy importing of
interview transcripts, pictures and documents in myriad formats. The application also
“facilitate[ed] the exploration of data from multiple perspectives and dramatically increase[d] the
efficiency, reliability, validity, interpretability, and presentation of… data management, analysis,
and research findings” (Discover Dedoose, 2013), and proved to be invaluable in managing large
qualitative data sets. The use of this particular CAQDAS was thus chosen, and proved beneficial
in that it was web-based, which also allowed for easy accessibility, and was compatible with
Mac operating systems. A password-protected personal laptop was used to record all data for the
duration of the study.
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 102
To collect online data, I used the advanced search features of the SNSs under
investigation, and used usernames and hashtags as a starting point. I also used the Snagit
application, as a screen-capture tool, which allowed for easy redacting, editing, uploading, and
storage of visual online information. As with the transcribed interview data, I was able to upload
the images that were capture, to the Dedoose application. Once uploaded, I was able to tag,
assign codes, and categorize screenshots, as if they were written texts.
Coding
One of the primary categorizing strategies in qualitative research is coding (Corbin &
Strauss, 1996; Creswell, 2009; Maxwell, 2013; Merriam, 2009). As such, I began the process of
coding by looking for similarities and relationships in the participant responses, field notes, and
in the screen-captured images shared by students. As noted earlier, I used the social media sites
themselves as “search engines” to comb through the categorized information that students
posted, commented on, liked, and/or shared. To start, I used “in-vivo” coding (Corbin & Strauss,
1996), whereby I noted words, phrases, ideas, and concepts that repeated themselves within the
text. Because this stage focused on conceptualizing terms, a specific form of categorizing
analysis was employed, using what Maxwell (2013) refers to as “substantive categories” (p.
107), “categories which [are] primarily descriptive, in a broad sense that includes description of
participants’ concepts and beliefs, [and which] stay close to the data categorized” (p. 108).
Using the Dedoose software, I ascertained the most commonly used in-vivo words and phrases,
and grouped them into broader categories that represented themes that characterized responses to
the research questions.
Because the analysis of data occurred in several stages, a deductive method was first
utilized to code the forms of agency and expression that corresponded to the working definitions
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 103
of civics. Next, an inductive method was employed to codify consistent patterns and emergent
themes in and across data sets.
Validity and Reliability
Merriam (2009) notes that, “because human beings are the primary instrument of data
collection and analysis in qualitative research, interpretations of reality are accessed directly
through their observations and interviews” (p. 214). In this sense, the human mind is both a gift
and a curse in research; human nature allows internal validity to serve as an inherent strength in
qualitative research, yet the subjectivity of human nature is also what conjures points of
contention amongst researchers (Merriam, 2009). To address these threats to data validity, a
combination of methods was used, and included: triangulation, member checks, and reflexivity.
By using multiple sources of data – surveys, student interviews, follow-up interviews,
documents, and also by crosschecking data collected throughout the study, triangulation was
employed on dual levels, and thus increased internal validity. To further ensure internal validity,
member checks were used as a means of getting feedback on emerging findings from the
participants who were interviewed; this was done to rule out the possibility of misinterpretation
of the data (Maxwell, 2013; Merriam, 2009). This process involved going back to the
participants that were interviewed, and confirming that their perceptions match what was
recorded and collected. Reflexivity was also employed at the onset of the dissertation, as a means
of exposing the researcher’s biases, predispositions, assumptions, and worldview (Merriam,
2009). As such, my personal background was expounded upon in the prologue, and is alluded to
throughout the first three chapters.
To ensure the reliability of this study, two strategies were employed: creating an audit
trail and including rich, thick description (Creswell, 2009; Merriam, 2009). By providing an
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 104
audit trail, in the form of researcher memos, field notes, reflections and accompanying
supplemental information, I was able to document, in detail, how the data was collected,
categorized, and analyzed. In other words, to strengthen the reliability of this study, a record of
my data procedures and analysis was included in my methodology, as well as in the supporting
appendices. Furthermore, to bolster the transferability of the findings of the study, the use of
rich, thick description from a purposive sample was used. According to Merriam (2009), it is a
strategy that refers to “a description of the setting and participants of the study, as well as a
detailed description of the findings with adequate evidence presented in the form of quotes from
participant interviews, field notes, and documents” (p. 227). As with the audit trail, detailed
quotes, field notes, memos and documents are included within chapters 4 and 5, as well as in the
appendices.
Conclusion
Understanding the cultural conditions, means, and influences through which
revolutionary ideas and actions are expressed by the youth of today, is an important area of study
for a society who is immersed in an era of heightened digital and social media usage. The social
contract in the U.S. contends that those in Education have a role to play in teaching and fostering
civic knowledge and expression, to ensure that its citizens are equipped with the contemporary
skills necessary to fight tyranny and promote happiness at individual and communal levels. As
such, this study hopes to illuminate and facilitate the ways that policy-makers, administrators,
and teachers can do just that. Through the use of a qualitative case study approach, this study
attempts to understand the phenomenon of youth civic expression, and seeks to find the ways
that new media literacies are used in a participatory culture, to enact varying levels of civic
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 105
engagement among Native Hawaiian Youth. However, boyd (2008b) captures the difficulty of
such an attempt, by noting that
approaching a field site as a network involves finding different entry points into a
phenomenon, following different relationships between people and practices, and making
sense of different types of networks and their relation to one another. Most important, it
requires considering relationships among people, spaces, and objects, as opposed to
studying these in isolation. (p. 56)
In response, this study utilized many different points of entry to understand the myriad
relationships—the blended friendship-driven and interest-driven social networks—that youth
participated in. Surveys, interviews, and document analysis were used in conjunction with the
conceptual framework noted in Chapter 2 to determine relationships, patterns in the data, and to
investigate the phenomena of civic agency, engagement, and expression in the amalgamated
culture of youth. Together they form the methodology of this study, and seek to understand: (a)
how and why Native Hawaiian Youth, who are immersed in an amplified and omnipresent
culture of digital and social participation, both manifest and develop civic expression; and (b) the
role that indigenous culture plays in civic agency and engagement for these youth.

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CHAPTER 4: RESULTS
…The revolution will put you in the driver's seat.

Gil Scott-Heron
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
1970

The early drivers of social and political justice in America relied on the in-person,
physical manifestation of civic engagement, consisting of sit-ins, protests, and demonstrations by
community members. These communal civic endeavors, which once defined civic participation
in the 21
st
century (Putnam, 1995) shifted, due in large part to new forms of digital media
(Jenkins et al., 2009; Kahne & Middaugh, 2012). What this means is that in an age of
participatory culture, where Social Networking Sites (SNSs) are ubiquitous, civic involvement
has come to include “likes,” comments, posts, status updates, and calls to action (Rheingold,
2012), which exemplify the various forms of civic engagement that scholars theorized about
(Herrera, 2012; Ito et al., 2009; Jenkins et al., 2009; Kahne & Middaugh, 2012; Smith, 2013).
The contemporary conversation on youth involvement in civic activities recognizes that past
measures of civic engagement—voter turnout, social activism, and volunteerism—do not capture
the comprehensive and complicated nature of participatory culture, where, as this study found,
civic thoughts and actions are being developed and are taking place through blended—online
and offline—forms of expression, all of which have the potential to enact revolutions, big and
small, which put youth firmly in the driver’s seat of social and political change.
The aim of this study was to explore the issues, conditions, and circumstances that
underlie individual and collective revolutionary thoughts and actions; to offer evidence of
blended citizenship practices by youth to be used by those in the field of Education; and to offer
new ways to think about policy, pedagogy, and teaching practices. To assist in this endeavor, an
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 107
examination of the civic expressions of Native Hawaiian Youth (NHY) immersed in an era of
participatory culture was conducted, for the purpose of gleaning an understanding of how and
why youth utilize blended forms of citizenship practices, and also to gain an understanding of the
agency—knowledge, skills, and motivations—that encouraged such expressions. Furthermore,
because this study was conducted in Hawaii, and focused on NHY, a secondary aim was to
explore the function of culture, as it pertained to civic agency, engagement, and expression.
Meyer (2003) notes that Hawaiian epistemology, and corresponding paradigms include “the
experiencing and influence of place, purpose and otherness… [and] family and schooling” (p.
188); thus, the findings were coded and analyzed in accordance with these guiding principles
which constituted elements of culture..
The main analysis of offline and online responses, interactions, and use of media by NHY
identified patterns in the ways that civic agency was developed and ultimately manifested across
different types of interactions. Figure 5 represents a visual summation of the findings, and
demonstrates the emergent themes of blended citizenship practices of youth in the study.

Figure 5. Summation of the Findings
Participant responses showed that school and family nurtured a sense of identity and
kuleana
8
, which were overwhelmingly the most common contributing factors of civic agency

Kuleana is the Hawaiian value of responsibility. According to Say (2004), “kuleana drives self-
motivation and self-reliance, for the desire to act comes from accepting our responsibility with
deliberance and with diligence. Responsibility seeks opportunity. Opportunity creates energy
CULTURE
CIVIC AGENCY CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
NML
PRACTICES
ACTIVITIES
TIERS OF
CIVIC
EXPRESSION
OBJECTIVES
SCHOOL
&
FAMILY
IDENTITY
&
KULEANA
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 108
among NHY. The capacity for civic cooperation that these forms of agency brought forth, in
turn, birthed various forms of civic engagement. The two-way arrow between civic agency and
civic engagement shows that the act of engagement in and around SNS, often spurs agency as
well; this reciprocal process illuminated the fluid nature of civic knowledge and practice and
expounded upon the ways in which youth influence, and are influenced by, new media. As an
element of civic engagement, civic objectives were developed; these goals worked in conjunction
with, and often fostered the use of different new media literacy (NML) practices across tiers, and
thus interacted with, influenced, and often dictated the types of civic activities that were
undertaken, en route to different modes of social interactions, labeled below as Tiers of Civic
Expression. Further analysis of the data determined that Hawaiian culture (denoted by the box
encompassing the emergent themes) had a significant function in every aspect of civic
expression, in both the development of agency and the manifestation of engagement.
The intent of the preceding chapters, therefore, was to introduce key ideas and concepts
surrounding the history of civics education in America and the ways in which the nature of civic
interaction shifted over time. The dialogue that was constructed contextualized the ideas of
citizenship and digital citizenship, and the ways in which youth chose to express themselves
through popular online social networks. The first chapter introduced the problem of declining
civic knowledge and practices amongst U.S. citizens, and also laid out the purpose of the study
and the research questions. The second chapter provided a review of the literature pertaining to
Hawaiian paradigms, the state of civic knowledge and engagement in the continental U.S. and
Hawaii, and also focused on the ways participatory culture and new media created environments,

and excitement. Kuleana weaves empowerment and ownership into the opportunity that has
been captured. There is a transformation in Kuleana, one that comes from ho‘ohiki, keeping the
promises you make to yourself” (p. 4).
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 109
spaces, networks, and conditions for youth to explore and interact with, in, and around, civic
issues. The third chapter provided a description of the methodology employed in the study.
This chapter, then, reports on the findings that emerged from the analysis of the data,
which took the form of participant interviews, online documents (screen captures), written
narratives, and member-checks, and synthesizes particular patterns and themes within the case,
as they relate to the literature review and the conceptual framework introduced in Chapter 2.
This qualitative study utilized a case study methodology, which collected data from
surveys, interviews, and online documents (Creswell, 2007; Creswell, 2009; Madison, 2012;
Merriam, 2009). The purposive sample of 11
th
and 12
th
grade students at a private high school,
located in Hawaii, who demonstrated a propensity for off-line civic participation, and who also
had access to SNSs, served as the case under study; subsequently, the unit of analysis was the
civic expressions of native Hawaiian youth. This study specifically targeted civically engaged
youth who demonstrated a penchant for civic participation in offline contexts (e.g. involvement
in school clubs, and community organizations), to gain insight into the processes and means by
which offline participation articulates itself in the online world, and vice versa. Specifically, this
study examined the ways that the participants used SNSs for civic purposes; therefore, the data
collected also related to the phenomenon of online civic expression. The aim of this analysis
was to illuminate the range of relationships and civic expression patterns held by Hawaiian youth
in the 11
th
and 12
th
grades. As such, questions posed to the participants were designed to elicit
thinking about the experience of engaging in offline and online civic discourse, and reflection on
why they made decisions to engage in, on, and through various forms of media, including SNSs.
For the latter, field notes (see: Appendix E) were used to capture the nuances and intricacies of
the interactions within the context of an online culture.
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 110
In the presentation of the findings, the background of the case is first introduced, and
includes a detailed description of the school site as well as the participant characteristics and
demographics; next, the findings of the case study are presented thematically, in relation to each
research question. The intent of this study was to ascertain the patterns and themes that occur
when Hawaiian youth engage, or do not engage, in online and offline civic issues. In examining
the civic thoughts and actions that were articulated in the lives of NHY, these findings sought to
answer the following research questions:
1. In an era of heightened and immersive use of digital and social media by society, how
and why is civic engagement developed and expressed among native Hawaiian
youth?
2. What influence does indigenous culture have on the civic expression patterns of
Native Hawaiian youth?
As the review of the literature confirmed, and the conceptual framework noted, the
socially-appealing friendship-driven (FD) and interest-driven (ID) nature of SNSs, combined
with the technological speed and breadth of new media, provided a context for the new media
literacies of participatory culture to flourish in SNSs. Through these digitally-mediated,
synchronous and asynchronous social networks, civic agency was developed and enacted
through varying forms of offline and online civic practices. The following data analysis
addresses the connection between these elements, reports on the ideas that shaped and
encompassed the civic lives of Hawaiian youth, and examines cultural patterns that exist in the
ways that thoughts and actions were manifested in blended contexts, and through the SNS
Facebook.
Creswell (2009) contends that “the basic procedure in reporting the results of a
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 111
qualitative study are to develop descriptions and themes from the data” (p. 193); therefore, the
data analysis process of open-coding revealed patterns in the data sets, represented in Figure 6—
the substratal categories and themes—which indicated: (a) that civic agency was acquired by
participants from the two key social spheres of school and family, which in turn, developed a
distinctively “Hawaiian” identity and a sense of kuleana—responsibility—that informed the
practices and activities of the participants; (b) that three emergent categories in the data aligned
to particular modes (or tiers) of civic expression; these three categories were: civic objectives,
new media literacy practices, and activities; and (c) that the values, beliefs, and practices of
indigenous Hawaiian culture undergirded all aspects of citizenship. As depicted in Figure 6,
below, these categories encompass the means and methods by which civic agency was
developed, and civic engagement was expressed, in the lives of contemporary Hawaiian youth.
It is also of note to mention that, in regards to “civic agency,” the act of “civic
engagement” with, in, on, and around new media and corresponding interactions, also fostered
additional forms of civic capacity (e.g. knowledge, skills, motivations). As a few participants
noted, the act of engagement sometimes promoted “new” knowledge and skills. Therefore,
while it is acknowledged that, in some cases, civic engagement cultivates agency, the primary
focus of the analysis below is on the latter’s effect on the former.
The intent of the data collection was to offer “descriptions and themes that convey
multiple perspectives from participants” (Creswell, 2009, p. 193); therefore the findings are
presented using a within-case analysis and are organized thematically. Thematic analysis was
selected as the means of presenting the findings, because it allows for appropriately identifying,
analyzing, and capturing patterns in qualitative datasets (Braun & Clarke, 2006). In an effort to
address the initial research question, and in using Chapter 2’s conceptual framework as a model,
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 112
the analysis is first presented thematically, through a discussion of the means and methods by
which civic agency was developed through school and family networks, and further shows how
these social institutions shaped aspects of identity and kuleana. To address the second part of the
first research question, the findings are again presented and organized thematically, by Tiers of
Civic Expression—whereby the 1
st
Tier serves as the lowest form of expression, and the 3
rd
Tier
represents the highest form of expression. Subsequently, the findings are presented by the
objectives, NML practices and activities that make up each tier. In response to the second
research question, the findings on the influence of indigenous culture on civic thoughts and
actions are discussed within the context of the two larger sections on agency and expression.
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 113

Figure 6. Substratal categories and themes of Native Hawaiian youth civic agency and engagement

Negotiation
Transmedia Navigation
Judgment
Multitasking
Collective Intelligence
Appropriation
*Contextualized information
*Links to affiliated
organizations
*Call to action
*Explicit instructions for
involvement in issues
*Remixed content –
specific demonstration
of ‘appropriation’
*Commentary offered
*Critical dialogue
evoked

*Community-based objectives
(e.g. Mobilization of
community in support of a
civic cause; impact change at
a social or political level)
*Peer-based &
informative objectives
(e.g.: build relationships
via identity expression;
share thoughts and elicit
conversation)

Networking
Distributed Cognition
Visualization
Simulation
Performance
Play
SCHOOL
FAMILY KULEANA
*Individual objectives
(e.g.: Identity formation;
develop personal civic
knowledge)
*Likes; shares, links,
pictures, and videos
serve as civic dialogue
*Bookmark information
to create repository of
personal knowledge
3
rd
Tier
Expression
2
nd
Tier
Expression
1
st
Tier
Expression
CIVIC AGENCY
CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
NML
PRACTICES
ACTIVITIES
TIERS OF
CIVIC
EXPRESSION
CULTURE
OBJECTIVES
IDENTITY
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED

114
Case Description: Participant Characteristics and Demographics
Taken together, all of the participants in the study represent the case. That is to say, all of
the participants were students at a private high school, situated in a rural area on one of the
Hawaiian Islands. Surrounded by forestland, pastures, and a small residential community, the
institution offered traditional coursework in the English language, and also offered classes in
Hawaiian language, as well as a curriculum and a school climate centered on Hawaiian culture.
The school’s mission is to educate students of native Hawaiian ancestry, the resultant effect of
which is intended to create a vibrant future for the Hawaiian community as a whole. To aid in
this endeavor, the institution has precipitated the implementation of strategies to enhance the
equity and equality of education for native Hawaiian students who have traditionally and
historically been a socio-economically disadvantaged, underserved, and underachieving segment
of the population (Aluli-Meyer, 2006; Meyer, 2003; Kanaiaupuni & Ishibashi, 2003). One such
strategy employed is the implementation of a one-to-one laptop program. Of great import to this
study, the project provided each student with a laptop, equipped with myriad educational
software, and access to wireless services while on and off campus. The inclusion of laptops at
the high school site enabled students to have instant access to new media, enhanced opportunities
to engage in an online participatory culture, and inevitably with SNSs. In addition to laptops,
100% of the participants reported owning a smart phone, and indicated that they used these
devices to check Facebook and other SNSs daily during a normal week.
At the time this study was conducted, the student population of the high school, grades 9
through 12, consisted of approximately 580 students, 100% of whom were of part Native
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 115

Hawaiian ancestry.
9
As such, although the participants in the case also self-identified as having
other ethnic heritages, such as Caucasian, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, or Filipino, all shared
Hawaiian as a common ethnicity. For confidentiality purposes the pseudonym: Hawaii High
School (HHS) is used as an identifier. Furthermore, pseudonyms for all participants were
created to assure confidentiality; pseudonyms and general demographic information for each
participant, gleaned from the preliminary survey, is presented in Table 1. Pseudonyms were
assigned randomly from a predetermined list of 20 male names and 20 female names, utilizing
both English and Hawaiian. The table is organized in alphabetical order, by participants’
pseudonym.

9
Because the school site is a private educational institution, it has implemented a policy, which
specifies that ethnically Hawaiian applicants are given preference in the admissions process;
thus, the student population is considered to be 100% ethnically “Hawaiian.”
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 116

Table 1
Participant Coding: Pseudonyms and general demographic information

Participant
Pseudonym
Age Gender Online Network
Affiliations
Offline Network Affiliations

Andrew

16 Male
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Tumblr
• Member of 2 community organizations
• Member of 1 school club
• Involved in school and club athletics
Casey

17 Female • Facebook
• Member of 1 community organization
• Member of 1 school club
• Involved in school athletics
James

18 Male
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Member of 3 community organizations
• Member of 2 school clubs
Kalani

18 Male • Facebook
• Hawaiian civic club member
• Member of 2 school clubs
• Member of student council
• Involved in school athletics
Keala

17 Female
• Facebook
• Instagram,
• Pinterest
• Member of 2 community organizations
• Church group member
• Member of 1 school club
Ku’ulei

16 Female
• Facebook
• Instagram,
• Tumblr
• Pinterest
• Member of 2 community organizations
• Member of 3 school clubs
Makana

16 Female
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• Tumblr
• Member of 1 community organization
• Member of 2 school clubs
Malia

17 Female
• Facebook
• Instagram

• Community organization member
• Church group member
• Member of 2 school clubs;
• Involved in school and club athletics
Manu

17 Female
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Member of 1 community organization
• President of 1 school club
• Member of Student Council
Michael

17 Male
• Facebook
• Instagram

• Member of 1 community organizations
• Member of 2 school clubs
Pua

17 Female
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• Member of 2 community organizations
• President of 1 school club
• Member of Student Council
Saul

18 Male
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Hawaiian civic club member
• Member of 3 school clubs
Tamara

18 Female
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• Pinterest
• Member of 1 community organization
• Church group leader
• Women’s club member
• Member of 3 school clubs
Ulu

16 Male
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Tumblr
• 4H member
• Member of 2 school clubs
!
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It is of note to mention that through the process of obtaining IRB approval for the study,
concessions were made to ensure that online privacy and security guidelines and regulations
were met. Furthermore, to expedite the approval process, the scope of online SNS data that was
collected was delimited to that which fell solely within the public domain. That is to say, all data
that was collected could be accessed by anyone with Internet access. Initially, the goal was to
collect screenshots and data from all of the common SNSs of which the participants were
members – those being: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Vine. However,
because of the aforementioned delimitations, this study used data that was publically accessible.
Consequently, Facebook proved to be the only SNS that allowed access to all participants’
online civic expressions. Therefore, aside from a few screenshots from the Twitter accounts of 2
participants, the bulk of the data gathered and presented in this chapter was derived from all 14
participants’ use of Facebook. While Madden et al. (2013) report that Facebook usage amongst
teens has been waning, with one participant in the study even confirming that “Facebook [was]
dying out, at least for [her], anyway;” every participant had an active Facebook account which
had been utilized and updated monthly from January 2013 through the data collection period,
and a comparative examination of Facebook timelines, which included: posts, status updates,
shares, and likes, was deemed feasible, and became the crux of what constituted document
analysis.
The decision was also made to cull data that represented the participants’ current age and
grade-level; therefore, while the data collection period for online documents was two weeks
long, screenshots taken from Facebook timelines included participant activity on the SNS for the
current school year, which was from August 2013 to February 2014. In other words, because
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data from participant Facebook timelines were meant to provide a snapshot of up-to-date civic
expression, it was limited to that which fell within a seven-month period and constituted a part of
the 2013-2014 school year at the HHS campus. The screenshots and excerpts from written
narratives and interview transcripts that follow were selected as representative samples, which
were indicative of consistent and typical responses, and were meant to capture the collective
essence of participants’ civic thoughts and actions.
Within the larger categorical themes, typical responses from participants and analysis of
documents also showed an assortment of relevant topics that appeared in the social networks of
NHY, and for which they expressed civic thoughts; categories such as “human rights,” “wars,”
“conflicts,” “gay marriage,” and other broad contemporary national and international civic issues
were found through a thematic analysis of the data. However, even more prevalent and
overshadowing in the responses and screen captures were issues situated at local and community
levels. Additionally, in an early inductive stage, codifying these local issues revealed an
amalgamation of three common topics the youth engaged in: environmental issues, social issues,
and political issues. In examining issues of importance to NHY, the common code appearance
of one topic was always accompanied by one or both of the other topics. For example, whenever
the civic issue of “the environment” was coded, it was always in the context of a socio-political
discussion, and vice versa. Therefore, many of the conversations and pictures documented,
centered on these particular civic issues, and thus were coded, and are represented in the
findings, as such. The major analysis of civic expression among Hawaiian youth, then, was
determined not to be the topics they chose to engage with, but the means and methods by which
they chose to do so in offline arenas, and online arenas, such as Facebook. Therefore, while
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these three common civic issues are contextualized within the discussion that follows, the
substratal categories and themes, noted in Figure 6, which emerged from the data, are the focus
of analysis, and are presented in the findings below.
Findings
Scholars contend that SNSs have the potential to reach youth, to teach them to be more
active in their roles as citizens of a connected society, and while their research on youth civic
expression has been conducted in pockets across the U.S. (Bakker & deVreese, 2011; Cohen, et
al., 2012; Herrera, 2012; Kahne et al., 2012; Kahne & Lee, 2012; Kahne & Middaugh, 2012;
Kligler-Vilenchik & Shresthova, 2012; Longford, 2009; Mossberger, 2008), online civic
expression by Hawaiian youth is an unexplored area of study. Therefore, in support of a
comprehensive educational effort to bolster civic knowledge and engagement among NHY, it is
essential to understand the means by which these young people currently express civic thoughts
and actions in both the physical and digital worlds. Furthermore, if an educational policy to
support civic knowledge and, in turn, bolster digital citizenship, is to be developed, it is
important to understand how and why youth develop the capacity—knowledge, skills, and
motivations—for civic engagement in environments that blend various forms of culture,
especially in online atmospheres. The findings confirmed there were, indeed, recognizable
patterns in the ways and means by which youth engaged in civic thoughts and actions, and
therefore present knowledge, which can be leveraged by educators to inform theory, policy,
pedagogy, and practice.
The objective of the study was, therefore, to discover the ways that various forms of civic
engagement were articulated by NHY, and to understand how youth ascertained, developed, and
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employed the knowledge necessary for the critical forms of dialogue that underlie citizenship
practices in the community. Thus, research question one asked: “In an era of heightened and
immersive use of digital and social media by society, how and why is civic engagement
developed and expressed among native Hawaiian youth?” The aim of this question was two-
fold: first, to extrapolate commonalities in the civic skills, knowledge, motivations, and wisdom,
which formulate civic agency, particular to Hawaiian youth; and second, to gain insight into the
ways in which Hawaiian youth express civic thoughts and actions in offline and online
environments. Because of the unique nature of the school site and the ethnic make-up of the
participants, the second research question asked: “What influence does indigenous culture have
on the civic expression patterns of Native Hawaiian youth?” This question specifically sought to
ascertain how the indigenous paradigms of Hawaiian culture were employed, if at all, within the
myriad forms of civic capacity-building exercises, practices and activities in which NHY engage.
To answer these questions, 14 civically-inclined students, 8 females and 6 males,
comprised the sample population for the single case under investigation; they were asked to
share their thoughts and beliefs regarding civic practices and experiences in offline and online
environments. In each instance, a thematic within-case analysis was used to elicit patterns in the
data, which then became categories – civic agency and civic engagement, respectively. Ideas,
practices, and beliefs associated with Hawaiian culture were also coded, and examined within the
context of these two categories. Thus, through the use of transcribed interviews, online
documents screen-captured from SNSs, and written narratives, the analysis that follows: (a)
delves into how and why the capacity—agency—for civic expression was developed among the
participants; and (b) examines the ways that civic engagement was expressed by participants. As
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Figures 5 and 6 noted, elements of Hawaiian culture encompassed and undergirded all aspects of
civic participation; therefore, an analysis of the beliefs, values, and practices that comprise
“culture” are intertwined within the discussions and analyses of civic agency, engagement, and
expression, and are meant to be understood as the motifs that typify an indigenous Hawaiian
system of thoughts and actions, and is presented holistically in the context of the findings.
Simplistic as though it may seem, the construction of a “Hawaiian” paradigm is one that
is fraught with complications, and first necessitates an understanding of Hawaiian culture. Noted
indigenous scholar Manulani Meyer (2003) argues that
Culture [is] what one group of people consider ‘best behaviors’ for the group, [and] ends
up being important for how those behaviors get developed… [I]t is the way expectations
influence [Hawaiian] priorities, and the manner in which context shapes them, which
makes them specific to Kanaka ‘Oiwi (Native Hawaiians). This is another
epistemological point: culture defines culture. (p. 188)
Meyer’s point is that culture is ever-changing; culture is time and space bound.
However, in response to the shifting context of contemporary culture, Meyer (2003) also argues
that, “the cultural structure of epistemology extends through the present and has been bolted
down to withstand the forces of modernity” (p. 188). In other words, there are traditional
paradigms, rooted in place-based knowledge, that transcend time and place, which are pillars of
Hawaiian culture. As noted in Chapter 2, “Hawaiian” paradigms, and thus: “culture,” include
acknowledgement of the influence of elders, a connection to the natural world, and use of
metaphor and feelings to describe intellect (Meyer, 2003). These ideas help to understand the
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cultural expectations that undergird Hawaiian beliefs, values, and practices, and thus frame the
findings regarding Hawaiian ideology and Hawaiian identity, expounded upon below.
The analysis of the data is presented through interview responses, screenshots
(documents) and written narratives, and is contextualized in thematic categories, as is common in
visual data analysis (Prosser, 1996, 2005; Rieger, 1996). Upon transcription of the interviews
and narratives, and coding of civically demonstrative screenshots, data was uploaded to
Dedoose, in order to unfurl the themes and categories associated with civics. In the coding
process, during an initial deductive stage, information was coded in relation to Chapter 2’s
conceptual framework, and tagged and analyzed, via researcher memos, in an effort to capture
systems thinking (Stave & Hopper, 2007). That is to say, data were grouped into sets that
represented civic agency, in the form of knowledge, skills, and motivations, or sets that
represented civic engagement in either the 1
st
, 2
nd
or 3
rd
Tier. For the former, school and family
emerged as recurring responses, and were the two social institutions, which aligned to facilitating
participants’ sense of identity and kuleana – taken together, these categories were shown to be
consistent conduits of civic agency, and are thus represented in Figure 6 as precursors to civic
engagement and expression.
Therefore, the analysis of the emergent theme of civic agency precedes the analysis of
civic engagement and expression. The presentation of these two top-level findings expounds
upon the aim of the study, in that the information gleaned, aids in understanding the typical
patterns, conditions, and interactions that undergird the capacity for youth citizenship, and also
illuminates the typical practices and activities through which varying forms of civic expressions
were able to take place.
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Identity & Kuleana: Hawaiian Youth and the Development of Cultural Civic Agency
The American Association of State Colleges and Universities (2013) notes that civic
agency is the capacity for citizens and groups of people to work collaboratively to address
common challenges, solve problems, and create common ground. This capacity includes the
extrinsic knowledge and skills that come from different sources (e.g. online sources, such as
websites, SNSs; and offline sources, such as peers, clubs, and community affiliations).
However, Boyte (2005) adds that civic agency can also be understood “in cultural terms, as
practices, habits, norms, symbols and ways of life that enhance or diminish capacities for
collective action” (p. 43). In this regard, agency is also an intrinsic motivator, and, in this study,
is understood as the values, beliefs, and practices that undergirded civic-mindedness. In seeking
to understand why and how NHY developed civic agency, the findings showed an intertwining
of these conceptual understandings, and revealed that there were two fundamental external
sources: school and family (‘ohana
10
), that nurtured two fundamental recurrent internal concepts:
identity and kuleana – which, together, represented the prominent features of civic agency that
encouraged civic-mindedness and citizenship practices for all participants. Thus, the discussion
that follows is organized by the themes of identity and kuleana, and elaborates on the ways that
participants developed these two forms of agency, and also briefly discusses how they were
imparted by the social institutions of school and family.
Identity. The data showed that, for all participants, school and family emerged as the
most influential entities in developing a strong sense of identity, which served to direct thoughts

10
The Hawaii word, ‘ohana, literally translates to “family,” and includes blood-relatives, as well
as extended family members. The Hawaiian term is used synonymously, as it was a constantly
occurring in-vivo code, used by participants in their narratives, interviews, and member-checks.
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on civic issues. When inquiring about what most influenced their civic thoughts, school and
family were consistently mentioned within the context of identity and Hawaiian culture, and
were thus noted as frequent common-code occurrences. For example, in response to why he was
participatory in his community, Kalani—an 18-year-old male, active in a Hawaiian civic club,
and a member of 2 school clubs and student council—offered the following statement:
I’m a product of my family and what they taught me… and going through [Hawaii High
School]… at this point in my life, I can say that those two things right there are what
totally shaped my path and who I am, and the way I see the world, and how I think about
cultural issues.
Kalani, and many of his peers also specifically cited learning about “Hawaiian” concepts
as precursors to their ideology on civic responsibility. Here, Kalani’s acknowledgement of the
influence of elders, created a cultural expectation that was indicative of his Hawaiian beliefs and
practices. Other interviews and narratives confirmed the influence of Hawaiian-focused
ideology, from “elders” – both from family and school sources, on civic thoughts. One
participant offered that “…when I started learning about the history of my ancestors, from my
family and doing protocols in school, was when I really understood who I was.” Pua, a 17-year-
old female, who was a president and member of 2 school clubs, also shared that:
…I started to pay attention to my Hawaiian genealogy and culture… through learning
from my family, and I guess the reinforcement that the school provided… they both
really ignited a passion in me… and because of that I started to know who I was, and I
had the feeling and the sense that I wanted to make a difference in my community.
Additionally, a self-selected screenshot provided by Pua (Figure 7), added support to her claim
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that an experience that school afforded, helped to inform her role as a member of a larger
collective. Through a follow-up interview, Pua confirmed that the Facebook status documented
a week-long field trip that involved participation in a reforestation effort; she also included a
picture of the club members who were a part of the educational opportunity, and, in her
comments, thanked them for their work in support of the civic endeavor.

Figure 7. Self-selected screenshot from Pua’s Facebook timeline
Pua’s accompanying narrative noted that:
This [screenshot] shows the impact that the experience had on me, because it made me
realize that Hawaiians are really connected to nature, and Hawaiian culture is a part of
everyone who lives here. And if you live here, you are a part of the ‘ohana that works
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together to make the island a better place to live. And I see myself as part of this ‘ohana,
which helps me to realize who I am as a Hawaiian.
An analysis of her narrative and commentary in the status post indicated she believed everyone
in Hawaii was considered “family,” regardless of background; thus, to Pua and the other
participants who embraced this notion, a Hawaiian identity was one that was inclusive of others,
and one that worked toward the betterment of all. A researcher memo noted that this post was
interesting in that it, conceptually, melded school and family into one entity – Pua saw her
classmates as family members, which alludes to the notion that school can merge FD and ID
networks, and thus, can foster relationships that nurture civic inclusiveness and action. Further
analysis of the screenshot revealed that 17 people liked it, and that one of the participant’s
mothers even commented on the status, which, again, supported the findings on how family
culture was ever-present and influential in the thoughts and actions of NHY.
Participants also shared additional sentiments regarding the familial and educational
influences that shaped their identities and civic thinking. For example, when asked why she
cared about Hawaiian issues, and participated in political community events, one participant
claimed that her family “focuses on being Hawaiian, which means caring about things that affect
the people in my community;” another participant noted that practicing Hawaiian values at home
and school “creates a strong foundation for Hawaiians… You know, knowing who you are,
where you come from, and even the language, is something that provides a strong foundation for
the things I think about and act on, in every aspect of my life;” with yet another participant
claiming that, “what I’ve come to learn, and really see, is that we need traditional knowledge to
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guide our way. And that’s how we build the la hui
11
… and that’s how we build the community...
everyone working together.” An analysis of these interview responses noted that the civic-
minded NHY in the study all had a conceptual understanding of what constituted a Hawaiian
identity, which included the key concepts that Meyer (2003) contends shape culture:
acknowledgement of the influence of elders, a connection to the natural world, and use of
metaphor and feelings to describe intellect. For all participants, this ideology encouraged beliefs,
which were thoughtful, considerate, and critical of their role in society. In short, a Hawaiian
identity, as conveyed by participants, was one that embraced inclusiveness and compassion for
others; these pillars of civic agency represent tenets, which Thomas Jefferson (1818) would
agree indeed help to cultivate their morals, and instill into them the precepts of virtue and order.
All participants also mentioned how daily cultural protocols made them reflect on their
duties, and reasons for actively participating in community events outside the school and home.
Yet another participant, Malia, added that the values that she learned from her family and from
being at HHS definitely influenced her civic agency; in her words, she offered the following:
…like ‘imi ‘ike,
12
malama,
13
‘and things like oli,
14
and mele
15
and hula
16
that I do every
day, at school and at home… subliminally and maybe even consciously, makes me think
of caring about social issues… it encourages me to care for certain things about being
Hawaiian, about being proud to be Hawaiian, and what that means… These things
influence how I think about the decisions I make… and I feel it’s my responsibility to do

11
A Hawaiian Collective
12
to seek knowledge
13
to care for; to support
14
chant
15
song
16
dance
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what I can to help my people.
In general, Malia’s response to her embracing of Hawaiian values and cultural practices
paralleled many of the other participant responses in that a “Hawaiian” identity was established
through knowledge imparted through the avenues of school and family, which worked to
influence civic thought on, as Malia so eloquently stated, a conscious and sub-conscious level.
These findings echo Meyer’s (2003) sentiments that Hawaiian paradigms are, in part, shaped by
“emotion, discovery, and a shared world view (p.189). It is in this way that the youth in the
study also articulated how an indigenous identity was directly tied to their responsibility, or
kuleana, as people of Hawaii.
Kuleana. All participants embraced the notion that being Hawaiian also meant being
members of a larger collective. Through gaining an understanding of who they were as
Hawaiians, participants noted that they were able to contextualize their current roles in society,
and were cognizant of their civic responsibilities. In follow-up interviews, participants affirmed
that civic agency, in the form of knowledge they were explicitly taught, from either school or
their family members, was a contributing factor to their civic motivations and perceived
responsibilities to be involved in local and national issues of importance.
In regards to the ways that identity nurtured kuleana, many participants noted that their
“kupuna”
17
and the traditional “values of the past,” which they learned about in school and at
home, were influential in determining what kuleana represented in their lives; one participant
shared that “I know where I’m coming from, because I know who I am, so I know my kuleana in
the school and in the community.” In commenting on his role as a Hawaiian in society, another

17
ancestor
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participant noted that, “understanding the deeper meaning of what kuleana is, and how it’s
determined in our lives, how we find it, and how it finds us… and how we seek to fulfill kuleana,
is important in understanding what it means to be Hawaiian.” These types of reflective and
inclusive civic understandings were also shared, in some form, in every participant interview,
narrative, and document analysis, and were thus concluded to be determining factors in
understanding the knowledge and motivations that make up civic agency.
Document analysis of civic screenshots also noted that the participants were well aware
of the interplay between a Hawaiian identity and kuleana. (See Appendix F for additional
samples of screenshots, which were collected and coded for civic agency, identity, and kuleana.)
For example, a screenshot from Kalani’s Facebook timeline (Figure 8) represents how a cultural
learning opportunity fostered his indigenous identity, which, in turn, encouraged the value of
kuleana, and the ideology that accompanied the concept.
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Figure 8. Screenshot from Kalani’s Facebook timeline
This screenshot captured a field trip that Kalani’s class took on January 17
th
, on the
anniversary of the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, and conveys how the formal learning
experience influenced his civic thoughts on cultural social issues. An analysis of Kalani’s status
showed the historical, political, and social thoughts that converged and which were evoked due
to the experience, which helped him to embrace his modern Hawaiian identity by acknowledging
the past. Further analysis of the screenshot also noted that Kalani touched upon the kuleana that
his aboriginal identity evoked, and which offered optimism for future progress, as a collective.
A follow-up interview with Kalani confirmed that this status did indeed convey the kuleana that
he felt as a member of his family and of the school. Researcher field notes also noted that this
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status was liked by 53 individuals and was commented on by one, which reaffirmed the large
audience he reached with his message. The comment, posted by someone in Kalani’s FD
network who also attended the field trip, which loosely translates to, “long live the people and
the values of Hawaii,” was further acknowledgement of the identity and responsibility of the
individuals who participated in the experience, as well as of the Hawaiian people as a whole.
This status also tagged two kumu,
18
which, according to Kalani, was meant to “publically show
the influence that the teachers had on me and my thoughts… and my responsibility as a
Hawaiian in the 21
st
century,” which further aids in understanding how civic agency was
developed in the lives of NHY in the study, through educational experiences and entities.
All participants also noted specific people in and out of school who helped to impart civic
responsibility; 12 of the 14 participants noted or tagged specific teachers, in interviews and in
their online expressions, as influential in shaping their civic paradigms, and all participants noted
that some adult mentor had an impact on the way they approached the civic issues that were
significant to them. In speaking on the various ways that school, as an institution, helped to help
foster thoughts about civic issues and kuleana, one participant recalled:
…going on field trips, going to cultural sites on the island, planting koa trees, and stuff
like that… I guess, honestly, that was my first introduction to doing that kind of work,
through those types of opportunities that teachers and coaches made happen… So, you
know, all those things definitely shaped how I think about and practice kuleana.
This response suggests, that for many participants, the formal adult mentorships and educational
opportunities provided by school, often presented the only opportunity for civic participation and

18
teacher(s)
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practice that they had in their lives. Many participants also shared that the different relationships
and mentorships that their formal school experience offered, aided in their civic-mindedness. In
an interview, one participant conveyed that “…the teachers here at [HHS] were the people who
spoke into my life… that really helped me to shift my understanding and focus my attention on
things that are important for me, and for the community.” These findings further support Ito et
al.’s (2009) contention that formal institutions of learning can create the conditions under which
interest-driven activities can develop, and through which civic knowledge can be imparted and
leveraged.
The findings from this study also concur with prior research, which shows that in a
participatory culture there are myriad ways that contemporary youth develop the knowledge,
skills, and motivations which constitute civic agency (Jenkins et al, 2009; Khane, Crow, & Lee,
2013). Youth were found to indeed glean civic thoughts and ideas from the different FD/ID
networks with which they interacted; as one participant noted, “I communicate and formulate my
ideas from things I’m surround by… so I pull from everywhere...from the Internet and the
physical world around me.” Another participant said that civic ideas “come from past
generations, like my parents…and past experiences… just everyone and everything that has put
something in my mind and some point.” Although youth “pulled from everywhere,” an analysis
of the data revealed two themes that were specific sources of civic development, common across
all NHY participant responses: family and school, each of which fostered a Hawaiian identity
and promoted the aboriginal value of kuleana. These sources of agency were found to work in
conjunction with the knowledge and skills, which participants developed independently, and
provided the capacities and motives for NHY to engage in the discourses and actions that
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constituted civic expression.
Tiers of Civic Expression: Hawaiian Youth and the Manifestation of Civic Engagement
In this study, civic engagement was defined as “the practices and activities that support
organized collective action towards civic goals” (Kligler-Vilenchik & Shresthova, 2012, p. 5);
civic engagement also included participation in critical dialogue that took a social or political
stance, and was also indicative of mobilization or action towards a social or political cause or
belief. An additional inductive analysis of the data, consequently, revealed three specific
thematic categories, which aligned to the description of civic engagement: objectives, new media
literacy practices, and activities. These categories are etic, in that they were not denoted and
used by the participants to signify their civic actions and behaviors, but instead have been used to
capture the recurring concepts and themes in the responses (Maxwell, 2009). An analysis of the
data confirmed that, for participants, objectives often dictated the types of NML practices that
were utilized to express civic ideas, and thus typified the type of activities that constituted the
manifestation of blended citizenship practices. Consequently, the “Tiers of Engagement,” noted
in Chapter 2, were used as a model for the “Tiers of Expression” in this chapter, which reflect the
findings, and delineate the ways that practices and activities were manifested, for different
purposes and circumstances across each tier. Therefore, the examination of civic expression that
follows is thus organized by mode (1
st
, 2
nd
, 3
rd
Tier Civic Expression), and the ensuing
discussion centers on the ways that the categorical themes of objectives, new media literacy
practices and activities, which define civic engagement, were articulated by youth, in each tier.
1st Tier Civic Expression. An analysis of the data revealed the emergence of themes that
helped to shed light on how and why civic expression was manifested in the lives of NHY. The
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results showed a linear process of expression; Figure 9 represents the larger etic themes, as well
as the substantive sub-themes, that came to characterize the 1
st
Tier. All 14 participants (100%)
described and demonstrated the objectives, NML practices, and activities associated with 1
st
Tier
Civic Expression, which established the notion that the civic-minded youth in this study had the
basic skills and competencies to engage in fundamental forms of digital citizenship practices.

Figure 9. Model of 1
st
Tier Civic Expression
The analysis of youth interactions which constituted 1
st
Tier Civic Expression revealed
that: (a) objectives were individualistic in nature, the intent of which focused on the formation
and conveyance of a Hawaiian civic identity and development of personal knowledge; (b) NML
practices were employed as a means of expression, and were used in deployment of activities, in
the form of affirmation(s) of existing civic issues and ideas (e.g. shared statuses, likes, pictures,
links, and videos), the purpose of which supported the noted objectives, as well as to archive
Networking
Distributed
Cognition
Visualization
Simulation
Performance
Play
*Individual
objectives (e.g.:
Identity formation;
develop personal
civic knowledge)
*Likes; shares, links,
pictures, and videos
serve as civic
dialogue
*Bookmark
information to create
repository of
personal knowledge
1
st
Tier
Expression
CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
NML
PRACTICES
ACTIVITIES
TIER OF
CIVIC
EXPRESSION
OBJECTIVES
CULTURE
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information for later use. James, Malia, and Ulu were participants who demonstrated 1
st
Tier
Civic Expression, and provide the exemplary data noted below.
Objectives. As noted above, the participants who demonstrated 1
st
Tier Expression did so
with specific individualistic goals in mind. In this tier, Facebook was used as a purposeful
means of developing, conveying, and confirming a civic identity to self and others, as well as to
use forms of new media (e.g. images, events, thoughts, and ideas of others) to create a personal
online repository of knowledge.
Among the participants, the portrayal of a civic self was a recurring objective for
expression, and therefore, an underlying source of engagement. Follow-up interviews and
document analysis confirmed that one of the most common ways youth demonstrated civic
expression, in the form of civic discourse, was through the manifestation of their “Hawaiian”
civic identities, exemplified by the cover photos, profile pictures, and statuses they shared on
Facebook. The conveyance of these identities coincided with the appearance of elements—
values, practices, and beliefs—that make up the themes associated with Hawaiian culture. In
other words, all participants used Facebook statuses as a means of indirectly (and, in some
instances, directly) portraying a social or political stance on a Hawaiian issue, through the
rendering of their online identities. For example, typical participant responses noted that they
shared pictures or statuses “to standing for something,” or “for symbolic purposes,” or to
“represent a metaphor for something larger,” which demonstrates the sophistication that they
used to communicate different forms of critical dialogue, which define contemporary civics
practices (Kahne & lee, 2012; Rheingold, 2008). These findings suggest that, for the
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participants, “dialogue” in the online world, was not limited to words, but extended to other
forms of new media, such as pictures, videos, and links to other websites.
In addition to identity portrayal as an objective, all participants reported the use of
statuses, in the form of likes, shared links, and shared videos, were also means of
“bookmarking,” or archiving information that was of personal interest to them. In many cases,
this was done with the intent of saving the information, so that the individual could retrieve it at
a later time. When asked what type of information participants bookmarked using SNSs, all
participants confirmed at least one example of a civic issue which they bookmarked, for which
they “want[ed] to know more about,” or “revisit,” or “go back to later.”
The civic practice of being informed about social and political issues is a tenet of
citizenship practices (Beach & Rines, 1912), and was an exemplified goal, relayed by all
participant interview responses, and confirmed by document analysis. These instances of using
Facebook for identity expression and bookmarking were prevalent civic exercises among
participants, and dictated the types of NML practices and civic activities that were used by youth
to reach their intended goals.
Practices and activities. In reaching the projected civic objectives of 1
st
Tier Expression,
coded data in interviews, student narratives, documents, and researcher field notes, revealed that
participants employed the use of Jenkins et al.’s (2009) New Media Literacies. (See Appendix A
for a complete list and descriptions of New Media Literacies.) Because the civic practices in this
tier were considered foundational, it was no surprise that a fewer number of social skills and
competencies were evident, as compared to the other two tiers. It is of import to mention that the
NML practices emerged as frequent code appearances and often coincided with the actions and
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behaviors that participants exhibited; thus, they are articulated in a broad sense in the discussion
below, through participant responses and screenshots from their Facebook timelines. In the data
analysis process, in every instance where 1
st
Tier Expression was noted, the following NML
practices were also evident: play, performance, simulation, visualization, distributed cognition,
and networking. Thus, it was understood that the civic activities expressed by participants,
utilized forms of NML practices to reach intended individual objectives, which, in accordance
with the 1
st
Tier, were meant to show identities that supported social or political causes, or
simply to save information gleaned from online sources.
All participants reported using cover photos or myriad other forms of statuses to
demonstrate who they were and how they wanted others to see them; for each participant, this
meant posting some type of visual element that signified a Hawaiian self, which, according to
Rheingold (2008), is a form of critical dialogue, indicative of civic practices. The notion of
posting a status to show, or portray a particular online identity, was a finding confirmed by all
participants. Specifically, photos of Hawaiian flags, tribal patterns, famous local landmarks,
Hawaiian language phrases, and other pictures of a cultural nature, served as common motifs, to
relay implicit and explicit messages of “Hawaiian-ness” to others in their friendship-driven
networks. (See Appendix G for additional examples of cover photos coded and confirmed as a
means of 1
st
Tier Civic Expression.) Commenting on his use of pictures in statuses, James, an 18
year-old male who was active in community organizations outside of school, offered a
summation of participant responses that were civic in nature; he said “statuses are quick way to
show support for Hawaiian issues… like I’m Hawaiian, and I’m down for Hawaiian causes.”
This comment, and others like it, supports the individualistic objective of outwardly showcasing
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socio-political support of Hawaiian matters, through a basic, easy, and quick form of civic
engagement.
Figure 10 represents two similar Facebook profile pictures – from James, and also from
Malia, a 17 year-old female, each of which portrays the participant holding a Hawaiian flag.
When asked to elaborate on why he chose this particular picture for his Facebook timeline,
James responded that “the vibe that [he tries] to put out on social media is always from the
perspective of [Hawaiian] people,” noting that he consciously thought about the incorporation of
Hawaiian culture in the decision to post a picture on Facebook. He added that, “…even basic
things like my cover photo… and my profile picture [of] me holding a Hawaiian flag… it’s more
just little subtle ways to get across my identity… to show what I stand for.” Malia echoed this
sentiment, and, in her own words, added that her inclusion of the Hawaiian flag in her profile
picture was because, “that’s how people see me, as the ‘native’ Hawaiian… as someone who is
knowledgeable about my culture… and that’s who I think I am… someone who supports
Hawaiian issues.” By far, these pictures were two of the more “liked” cover photos in the study,
with James’ receiving 59 likes, and Malia’s receiving 67, respectively; which showed that even
small types of revolutionary acts are, at the very least, seen, acknowledged, and liked by those in
the online social networks of youth. The 126 total likes that these two photographs received also
showed the potential impact that SNSs can have in reaching individuals in FD networks and
beyond. The fact that 126 people saw these pictures, were interested in them, and offered
affirmations of the content, is profound because of the sheer number of people these individuals
had access to, and elicited responses from. These “likes” propose the notion that James and
Malia, like the rest of their peers in the study, engaged with others regarding social and political
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philosophies, through the pictures and silent conversations afforded by participatory culture, and
did so through the use of new media. A researcher memo noted that the ability to reach 126
people all at once, showed that FD infrastructures are, indeed, in place in the lives of NHY, and
thus have the potential to be used for larger, more influential, civic endeavors.

Figure 10. Screenshots from James’ and Malia’s Facebook timelines
In addition to profile pictures and cover photos, statuses were also used to relay civic
dialogue; the findings revealed that links and videos were also common forms of civic activities
for all participants. In each of the 14 Facebook pages examined, it was found that each
participant had at least five recorded instances of a shared status that was confirmed, through
follow-up interviews, as used for civic purposes. One example, from Ulu, a 16-year-old male,
active in the community organization, 4-H, noted that he shared a link (Figure 11), because, he
believed that it could serve a “symbolic purpose” and that his intent was also “informational.”
Furthermore, it was something that came across in his timeline that pertained to an issue he cared
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about, and wanted others to be aware of, which captured his awareness of civic duty and
responsibility.

Figure 11. Screenshot from Ulu’s Facebook timeline
When asked why he shared the link, he responded similarly to other participants, and
claimed he did so because, “I want[ed] my friends to know about it… and I want them to know
that I know about it too… so I guess it’s like showing the things that are cool to me… and to
show who I am and what I stand for.” An analysis of his response and screenshot revealed that
this status, in the form of a shared link to a video, via an organization that Ulu was a part of, was
a means of reaching his intended objective, which was to express his opinions on an issue and
affirm his identity, and not necessarily to engage others in conversation or dialogue. The video’s
content provided an overview of why the mountain—Mauna Kea—was historically sacred to the
people of Hawaii, and offered commentary from respected elders from the community, as well as
opinions from scholars from the local university. A researcher memo noted that this seemingly
simple act of sharing a link was a more complex form of engagement than originally appeared.
In sharing the linked video, Ulu: leveraged his offline connection to the community organization
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of which he was a part; extended and disseminated the information from multiple sources and
peoples to his FD network; relayed a civic message, capturing what he stood for, and developed
his Hawaiian identity. This all occurred through one click of the “share” button on Facebook,
and without his having to offer an original thought. This sharing of civic knowledge was a
common finding across all participants’ actions and corresponding responses, and supports
Jenkins et al.’s (2009) theory of how participatory culture functions in the lives of youth.
Although this particular status received only 4 likes, an analysis of this screenshot further
demonstrates the power and potentiality of new media practices, to offer information that goes
beyond the knowledge an individual may have. It can serve to link community wisdom to
community members, to inform them of social, political, and environmental issues, so they can
decide on how best to act – whether in the form of a like, a shared status, or through more
tangible means.
In regards to having an impact on his community, and when asked if he thought that his
shared status would actually influence his peers to get involved in the issue, Ulu noted that,
although he hoped his friends might care about the information, that was not his primary goal. In
his own words he said, “sometimes, when I share something, it’s just about working through
ideas that I might have on an issue…and that might even change later on down the
road…because…if I want to go back later, to look at it… it’s there too.” An examination of this
response showed how the civic objective shaped the practices and activities—actions and
behaviors—Ulu employed. Because his intent was primarily self-serving, the online expression
that he consequently employed was a less labor-intensive form of participation, and was, thus,
considered to have less of a civic impact on others. Additionally, an analysis of his response also
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showed the emergence of another common theme, which was to “bookmark” the video (and
corresponding knowledge in the video), to save the information, as Ulu put it, “to go back to
later.”
As noted above, the findings revealed that a particular distinction within 1
st
Tier Civic
Expression was that, for a majority of participants, civic practices and activities on Facebook
were expressed for personal, informational reasons, which were often used to save and document
ideas and media found in online arenas. This was confirmed by other participants who simply
expressed a “like” or “shared” a status, picture, or link about a civic issue, because of the desire
to archive the information, and not necessarily because they were affirming the content. Many
participants also confirmed the use of the bookmarking concept in other SNSs; in follow-up
interviews, one participant noted that, “…like even on Vine, if I want to see it again, then I’ll re-
vine it.” Another participant stated that “for videos on Facebook or Instagram, if I want to
remember it… if I want to remember and go back to it, to watch it later with my friends…I just
‘like’ it... so it’s saved.” An additional participant shared that, “…so usually, for example, if I
see something that’s a big issue on Facebook, I’ll like it, just to bookmark it. And then I’m
going to Google it later… and then find other resources, just to make sure, like…their facts are
right,” which shows the understanding and application of different forms of NMLs such as play
and distributed cognition, as well as the critical analysis skills necessary for civic participation.
The participant responses also show the different ways youth utilize SNSs, to enact 1
st

Tier Civic Expression, and apply myriad forms of new media and participatory cultural practices,
which constitute engagement in critical thoughts and ideas. A researcher memo described these
emergent findings to reveal that shared or liked statuses were actions that affirmed civic ideas,
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but they also constituted behaviors common in literate societies, where things are recalled,
instead of remembered, as they are in oral societies (Ong, 1982). This points to the observation
that the youth in the study figured out ways to navigate the streams of information that rush
through social media, and utilized the means available to them to capture and recall information
pertinent to their daily social and civic lives. In this sense, participant data showed that the “like
factor” was not just an acknowledgement of something that was “cool” or “interesting” or
“entertaining,” but emerged as a method of managing and warehousing knowledge.
In sum, two major findings emerged in the analysis of 1
st
Tier Civic Expressions among
Hawaiian youth: (a) their objectives were personal in nature, and they used SNSs to develop and
portray a civic identity, one which embodied elements of Hawaiian culture; furthermore their
objectives demonstrated a purposeful documenting of knowledge, as a way to house information;
(b) NML practices were employed through Facebook as a means of conveying civic engagement,
and were deployed to in accordance with activities that typically took the form of affirmation(s)
of existing civic issues and ideas (e.g. shared statuses, likes, pictures, links, and videos). In other
words, civic expression in this tier was not originally created, but instead either affirmed or
stored in the form of a “like” or shared status. Civic practices in this tier were also considered to
be “one-click,” in that the tools afforded by SNSs (e.g. the like, share, re-tweet, and favorite
button), allowed for easy and minimal efforts to attain the specified objectives for expression.
Building on the 1
st
Tier, an analysis of different civic objectives, practices and activities
revealed an added layer of civic dialogue and participation, manifested among Hawaiian youth,
and produced 2
nd
Tier findings that exemplified the diverse ways that SNSs have an impact on
the civic lives of HHS students.
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2nd Tier Civic Expression. Data analysis revealed the emergence of additional themes
that helped understand how and why civic expression is manifested in the lives of NHY. Figure
12 represents the larger etic themes, as well as the sub-themes that characterize 2
nd
Tier Civic
Expression. All of the participants (100%), described and demonstrated the objectives, NML
practices, and activities associated with civic engagement in the 2
nd
Tier, which purported that, in
addition to base-line civic practices, the civic-minded youth in this study also had the social and
technological skills and competencies to engage in higher forms of digital citizenship practices,
and purposefully evoked critical thought and dialogue within their FD/ID networks.
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Figure 12. Model of 2
nd
Tier Civic Expression
The analysis of youth interactions which constituted 2
nd
Tier Civic Expression revealed
that: (a) objectives were more peer-centric in nature, and focused on building and strengthening
relationships, and on sharing and inciting critical dialogue about civic issues, and (b) the NML
practices of multitasking, collective intelligence, and appropriation were means of expression,
used to convey commentary, remixed content, and critical dialogue with other community
members. Saul, and 18 year-old male, Makana, a 16 year-old female, and Tamara, an 18 year-
old female, were demonstrated 2
nd
Tier Civic Expression, and thus provide the exemplary data
noted below.
Objectives. Youth in the study who demonstrated 2
nd
Tier Civic Expression, did so, not
with the direct intent of portraying a civic identity, or to bookmark a digital idea, but to critically
engage in issues important to them. In contrast to the 1
st
Tier, in which low-level expression was
Multitasking
Collective Intelligence
Appropriation
*Remixed content –
specific demonstration
of ‘appropriation’
*Commentary offered
*Critical dialogue
evoked

*Peer-based &
informative objectives
(e.g.: build relationships
via identity expression;
share thoughts and elicit
conversation)

Networking
Distributed Cognition
Visualization
Simulation
Performance
Play
*Individual objectives
(e.g.: Identity formation;
develop personal civic
knowledge)
*Likes; shares, links,
pictures, and videos
serve as civic dialogue
*Bookmark information
to create repository of
personal knowledge
2
nd
Tier
Expression
CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
NML
PRACTICES
ACTIVITIES
TIER OF
CIVIC
EXPRESSION
CULTURE
OBJECTIVES
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evident, a defining feature of the 2
nd
Tier was an increased level of engagement, in which civic
activities took the form of critical dialogue and/or commentary on social or political issues; that
is to say, “original” civic thoughts were manifested by participants, through the use of Facebook
statuses, to evoke responses and thoughts from peers.
Whereas “one-click expression” was a defining feature of the 1
st
Tier, the goals that
constituted 2
nd
Tier Expression were more laborious, and involved critical practices and activities
manifested in the form of content, that included pictures, status posts, shared links, and which
also included original commentary by the individual posting or responding to the content. This
added level of expression was found to be a key factor in sharing one’s own knowledge, and
engaging the thoughts and actions of other members in participants’ FD/ID networks. In other
words, civic expression on SNSs was used to convey and extract thoughts and ideas from others,
with the direct intent of engaging members of the community in Hawaiian issues that focused
particularly on environmental, social, and political topics.
Speaking on the topic of objectives, one participant noted, “now that we have
technology…I think we have to do our part to let other people, who aren’t informed, know about
it,” and added “it’s our job to get the word out,” which captured the sentiment of the civic-
minded participants who acknowledge the responsibility they felt they had to their communities
– and which reaffirmed their practice of kuleana. The data also showed that, when the intent was
either to inform or “crowd-source” knowledge, civic-themed statuses, photos, and links were
“liked” or “recommended,” or “shared,” and were always accompanied by a comment on,
critique of, or explanation pertaining to the civic issue at hand.
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Practices and activities. The findings of this study suggest that, to a large extent, the
historic cultural forces of Hawaii’s past, noted in the review of the literature, influenced the civic
nature of youth expression today, and it is no surprise that the forms of engagement that
comprised 2
nd
Tier Civic Expression, which were created and discussed by the participants, were
imbrued with social and political dialogue. To evoke critical commentary and discourse, the data
revealed that, in addition to the NML practices used in the 1
st
Tier, participants specifically
utilized multitasking, collective intelligence, and appropriation as a means of disseminating
ideas across networks. That is to say, frequent code occurrences of these skills appeared
whenever the objective was to communicate and evoke civic engagement in the form of
dialogue.
Because friendship and interest-driven networks proved to be tenets of 2
nd
Tier Civic
Expression, Facebook statuses were confirmed to have an impact on peers, reach a broader
audience, and, thus also brought forth of a multitude of perspectives. An analysis of interview
responses, narratives and screenshots found that the discourse participants exhibited went beyond
mere sharing or liking on the SNS, and instead was carried out using appropriated means,
because NHY wanted “to see what their friends thought” or “to add to the support of a cause” or
“to be a part of conversation in the state [of Hawaii].” These responses exemplified the activities
that youth undertook, and demonstrated the desire of youth to hear the opinions of others, and to
be heard in return, and helped to illuminate why and how they chose to use SNS for expressive
civic purposes.
In addition to eliciting responses from others in their FD networks, another common
finding across responses was that NHY created commentary and critical dialogue to express
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counter-culture beliefs about issues. Saul was an 18 year-old male, who was an active member
of a Hawaiian civic club, and also a member of 3 school clubs; a screenshot from his Facebook
timeline (Figure 13) provided an example of the type of issue and typical critical interchange that
most participants engaged in.

Figure 13. Screenshot from Saul’s Facebook timeline
An analysis of the screenshot revealed that Saul began a critical dialogue on the
hypocrisy of Hawaiians who advocate sustainability and local products, but also looked to
exploit it for personal gain when the opportunity arose. In a follow-up interview, Saul confirmed
that he wanted to see what others thought about the issue, and sought commentary from others.
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Saul’s post elicited 12 likes and two responses, one by an individual who offered a different
opinion on why local farmers are potentially getting the short end of the economic stick; and
another comment from an individual explicitly questioning whether or not Saul was calling out a
specific corporate entity (or person). These types of short exchanges occurred periodically on
participant timelines, and proved to be a way youth expressed ideas that they were, as Saul put it,
“thinking about” and “need[ed] to get feedback on,” to see what their peers had to say about the
issue.
When asked why he posted the status, and what impact he intended it to have, Saul’s
response was that he believed his opinions on Facebook helped to “shape the story and the
narrative” of what was portrayed in mass media and on the news to his friends. Saul, like many
participants, noted that the use of social media was to convey thoughts and ideas that were not
often heard in traditional media outlets; specifically, he noted that, “the challenge for people like
us [Hawaiians], where the mainstream media is telling us different stories, is just to find ways
to… shift that narrative into the consciousness of the community, by using other avenues… like
social media.” A researcher memo noted that the “stories” and “narratives” Saul mentioned add
to the civic ideology of participants, and provide alternate points of view for those in his FD
networks to consider. This was the observable power of social media in 2
nd
Tier Civic
Expression: to provide a democratic balance—to, as Jefferson (1818) would argue, inform a
populace, to develop the reasoning faculties of our youth, [and] enlarge their minds. Saul’s
comments to inform, to educate, and to offer a counter-narrative to that of mainstream media
proved to summarize and support boyd’s (2007, 2010) reasons as to why youth flock to SNSs to
voice opinions about issues that are of concern to them and their immediate community spheres.
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The divergent thinking processes that Saul expounded upon provide an avenue for educators,
teachers specifically, to tap into. These findings suggest that a civics curriculum, which utilizes
contemporary issues, and which offers the authentic means of critical thinking and expression
that SNSs afford would provide a perfect pedagogical scaffold to support youth civic practices
and actions.
In examining the common NML practices in the 2
nd
Tier, another consistent finding
across responses was that NHY consistently utilized appropriation, to remix commentary and
critical dialogue, and pictures from outside sources to express their own beliefs about an issue, as
well as to evoke the sentiments of others in their FD networks. In other words, originally created
civic commentary often intertwine with pictures, videos, links, and tags as a means of
engagement.
One such example was from Makana, a 16 year-old female member of a community
organization and a school club, who provided a self-selected screenshot (Figure 14), to
demonstrate a civic issue she posted and commented about. In her status she expresses the fact
that the mayor of the island passed a bill to ban GMOs. In the post, Makana also included a link
to an online article that detailed the reasons the mayor and legislature made their decision; this
act showed the same leveraging of outside knowledge that was exhibited in 1
st
Tier Expression,
where the NML of distributive cognition was evident. However, in this case, additional NMLs
were also utilized to provide alternate points of view to viewers of the status.
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Figure 14. Self-selected Screenshot from Makana’s Facebook timeline
Further analysis of the screenshot, and a follow-up interview revealed that she also
applied the NML practices of multitasking and collective intelligence, to scan her blended
environments for different types of media, including information and news sources. She also
utilized appropriation to alter the media content available to her (Jenkins et al., 2009); which is
to say that she took an existing picture—in this case, “GMO Free USA’s photo”—and combined
it with her own commentary, and also added a link to a local news video. Additionally, she
consciously tagged two other individuals in the post. Tagging was a common practice among
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participants, and was a communicative tool that was used under different circumstances, and for
different purposes.
All participants reported that they would often tag someone “as a quick way to contact
friends,” when they were not accessible by other means, such as “not answering their phone,” or
“not responding to text messages.” In this sense, a tag was used solely as a communicative
conduit. However, as was the case with many of the civic-minded participants, tagging people
was used as means of confirming and authenticating relationships and knowledge from FD/ID
networks. By tagging others, Makana targeted, acknowledged, and included people, whom she
believed shared similar views on the topic of GMOs, in the conversation. In a follow-up
interview she confirmed that she tagged her friends, “because I know that they cared about the
outcome.” When asked why, she responded by using a phrase that many of the other participants
used: “…because of cultural reasons.” She went on to add that “GMOs represent Monsanto and
Monsanto represents… the system of capitalism, and the system that we live in prevents
[Hawaiians] from seeing the land as something that feeds us… and that we’re connected to,
historically.”
19
Like Saul, Makana believed that because she was familiar with the civic issue,
and had learned about the history, she was better informed, and therefore had a responsibility to
make sure that others knew about it as well. Thus, her comment further showed that NHY
articulate critical dialogue through SNSs with cultural agency and undertones in mind, and with
a penchant—or sense of kuleana—for service to others.

19
In contextualizing the issue, it is of note to mention that traditionally in Native Hawaiian
culture, Haloa was believed to be the very first Hawaiian; stillborn, his body was buried and
became the first kalo
19
plant, which is a revered symbol of Hawaiian culture, and is also staple in
the Hawaiian diet (Meyer, 2003). One argument, that Makana reported ascribing to, was that
GMOs alter the DNA of kalo, and thus alter and defile a common ancestor of the Hawaiian
people (Nelson, 2013).
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Further analysis of the status confirmed prior research on the use of hashtags, denoted as:
#, was employed (Jaschke et al., 2007); in this study, participants often utilized the hashtag as a
means of linking this conversation to other discussions, searches, or queries on similar topics.
By using the hashtag and accompanying words and phrases in her status, Makana tapped into
additional ID networks, to make her message known to a potentially larger audience. Inputting
#Bill113, #GMOBan, #GMOProhibition, and #GMO, in the Facebook search bar revealed a slew
of pages, links, and conversations that also utilized the same hashtags, and provided additional
sources of information—through the NML practice of collective intelligence—to those who
wanted to know more about the issue. Additional examination of the screenshot revealed that it
was liked 16 times, and evoked 5 comments. A follow-up interview confirmed that the first
comment was from a peer, which she knew offline; however, Makana also noted that the second
response was from someone outside her FD network. When asked how she felt about this, she
indicated that “it happens all the time with issues like this,” and that, “I know if I post something
that’s potentially controversial, I have to be ready for responses… from anyone.” Makana
elaborated by adding that, “I posted this because I think that it is important for everyone who
lives in Hawaii… my friends, yes… but… like, not just Hawaiians, because everybody eats food,
and so everybody is affected… in some way or another.” This response captures the true nature
of inclusive citizenship, in which the collective good is at the forefront of civic thoughts and
actions (Beach & Rines, 1912).
Makana’s post also represented the multifaceted nature of civic engagement, and the
accompanying practices and actions that were used by all of the youth in the study, to reach their
intended informative and critical objectives. This status, like those from the other participants in
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(see Appendix H), demonstrated that NHY used ideas from Hawaiian culture as impetuses to
harness the features, tools, and language, of Facebook to employ the civic practice of online
critical dialogue (Rheingold, 2008) and to reach and engage others in communal discussions.
Tamara, an 18 year-old female active in multiple community organizations and school
clubs, and who also held leadership roles, was another participant who demonstrated the type of
civic communication that was indicative of practices and activities that represent 2
nd
Tier
Expression. The screenshot below, Figure 15, taken from Tamara’s timeline, also captured a
frequent kind of status, where a civic thought, or idea, or issue was affirmed and thus, “liked,”
“shared,” or “recommended,” or re-posted from an outside source (as indicated by the word
“recommends” at the top right-hand corner of the screen capture), and was also commented on,
or critiqued by, the individual who shared it. The social and environmental issue of the Thirty
Meter Telescope (TMT), which was to be built atop Mauna Kea, was a common civic topic
across all collected data, with at least one instance of the issue appearing on each of the 14
participant’s timelines. In an interview, Tamara shared why Mauna Kea was a significant civic
issue to her and her fellow Hawaiians; she claimed, …it’s always been our philosophy as
Hawaiians to sustain the ‘aina
20
, so that we can sustain ourselves… because that was the goal of
our kupuna
21
, and for our people.” She, like her peers, commented that the desecration of the
land and other sacred sites had a direct impact on the well-being of the Hawaiian community,
and, thus, was an issue that needed to be spoken on. In a follow-up interview, Tamara expressed
that, at the time, she was trying to limit her time on Facebook, but was compelled to use social
media to get in touch with her friends and family; she stated, “I needed go back on to reach

20
land
21
ancestors
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people with this message, because it meant so much to me… I needed to let other people know
about it, and everybody is on Facebook, so that’s the first place I went.” The urgent and cultural
undertones of Tamara’s interview response were also present in her Facebook status, below.

Figure 15. Screenshot from Tamara’s Facebook timeline
In her screenshot, Tamara exhibited the practices and activities associated with the 2
nd

Tier in her sharing of the link to a news article, while also expressing her own opinions on the
topic. This, again, demonstrated the blending of personal opinion, substantiated (appropriated
and garnered through collective intelligence) with facts and information from outside sources.
An examination of the status revealed that it was liked by 5 people, and was commented on by
an individual in her FD network. Additional document analysis noted that she utilized both the
Hawaiian language and English to convey her thoughts, which was typical of the way most
participants articulated their views on a civic issue. In a follow-up interview, Tamara addressed
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whether using a combination of both languages in her status was a conscious decision; after
some thought, she stated, “yes, because I wanted to reach the most people possible.” She also
relayed that she used “familiar” Hawaiian words, like pono
22
, and kanaka
23
, as she felt that “most
Hawaiians know what these words mean” and that it helped to “give credibility to [her] words, as
a Hawaiian who knows the language.” This metacognitive insight reveals that youth are aware
of the power of rhetorical techniques, which are also, according to Rheingold (2008), commonly
used in civic discourse, and are a fundamental practice in participatory culture (Jenkins et al.,
2009). Her peer’s comment in the screenshot supported Tamara’s stance, and noted that, “I am
in,” which alludes to the notion that the post raised the consciousness of the individual.
Furthermore, the comment noted that, “they should not continue to desecrate our land,” implying
a communal “our,” which was a finding that also appeared across responses. That is to say,
often, when NHY discussed civic issues, they did so in an inclusive manner, using “we,” “our,”
or “us,” which provides an insight into the ways that youth see themselves as connected to a
larger collective. Also included in the comment is mention of “Pele,” the Hawaiian volcano
goddess, which further emphasized the way that Hawaiian language, history, and ideology were
used on and through SNSs, and helped to illuminate the role that culture played in the online
civic interactions of the participants. In this instance, Hawaiian culture was blended with
teenage culture and participatory culture, to produce a civic interaction that worked to strengthen
the understandings among members of the community. These findings suggest that educators
who wish to offer guidance and information about the types of issues and conversations youth
are engaged in, can do so by leveraging concepts of inclusiveness, and by making conscious

22
righteous; “to do what is right”
23
Native Hawaiian
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pedagogical decisions to build cultural connections to contemporary topics of social and political
concern.
In sum, two major findings emerged in the analysis of 2
nd
Tier Civic Expressions among
Hawaiian youth: (a) objectives were primarily focused on communicating civic ideas and
concepts to peer networks, and in some cases, beyond – with the intent of building and
strengthening relationships and sharing and inciting critical dialogue about civic issues, and (b)
NML practices and civic activities were employed as means of engagement to convey
commentary, remixed content, and critical dialogue with community members in FD and ID
networks. In other words, civic expression indicative of the 2
nd
Tier was originally created and
sought to engage critical dialogue, through the use of blended forms of new media, and through
deliberate participatory practices.
Building on the 2
nd
Tier, an analysis of objectives that enabled blended forms of
mobilization amongst community members revealed an added layer of civic participation and
new media practices. These civic goals were manifested among Hawaiian youth, and yielded 3
rd

Tier findings that characterized the diverse ways that SNSs were utilized by HHS students to
enact actions and behaviors, which constituted ideal forms of citizenship practices.
3rd Tier Civic Expression. An analysis of the data also revealed the emergence of
additional themes that helped to understand how and why civic expression was manifested in the
lives of NHY. Figure 16 represents the larger etic themes, as well as the sub-themes that came to
characterize 3
rd
Tier Civic Expression. 6 out of 14 (43%) of the participants described and
demonstrated the objectives, NML practices, and activities associated with the 3
rd
Tier. The
findings showed that, in addition to being able to convey and evoke critical thought and dialogue
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within their FD/ID networks, NHY also used Facebook as a means of mobilization toward civic
action. The key difference from the first two tiers, then, is that, in 3
rd
Tier Expression, the
practices and activities that constituted engagement were used with the direct intent of
organizing community members on behalf of civic causes.

Figure 16. Model of 3
rd
Tier Civic Expression
Youth, who demonstrated 3
rd
Tier Civic Expression utilized forms of new media and
technologies to think about, communicate, organize, and mobilize efforts to express social and
political ideas and to affect social change in their communities. In this way, new media and
participatory culture support previous scholarship (Bennett, Wells, & Rank, 2009; Ito et al.,
Negotiation
Transmedia Navigation
Judgment
Multitasking
Collective Intelligence
Appropriation
*Contextualized information
*Links to affiliated
organizations
*Call to action
*Explicit instructions for
involvement in issues
*Remixed content –
specific demonstration
of ‘appropriation’
*Commentary offered
*Critical dialogue
evoked

*Community-based objectives
(e.g. Mobilization of
community in support of a
civic cause; impact change at
a social or political level)
*Peer-based &
informative objectives
(e.g.: build relationships
via identity expression;
share thoughts and elicit
conversation)

Networking
Distributed Cognition
Visualization
Simulation
Performance
Play
*Individual objectives
(e.g.: Identity formation;
develop personal civic
knowledge)
*Likes; shares, links,
pictures, and videos
serve as civic dialogue
*Bookmark information
to create repository of
personal knowledge
3
rd
Tier
Expression
CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
NML
PRACTICES
ACTIVITIES
TIER OF
CIVIC
EXPRESSION
CULTURE
OBJECTIVES
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2009; Jenkins et al., 2009, Kahne et al., 2011; 2012; Kligler-Vilenchik & Shresthova, 2012)
regarding the civic potentiality of online environments, and their impact on blended forms of
engagement. Additionally, in the 3
rd
Tier, indigenous cultural paradigms guided the thoughts
and actions of the participants. The findings showed that youth utilized FD/ID networks and
spaces to produce an actualized from of civic engagement, cognizant of the larger Hawaiian
community, and often was initiated through the use of SNSs.
The analysis of the youth interactions which constituted 3
rd
Tier Civic Expression
revealed that: (a) objectives were community-based and focused on mobilization or action
toward a specific civic issue, and (b) the NML practices of negotiation, transmedia navigation,
and judgment were employed through the demonstrated activities of participants, as means of
expression, to contextualize information, convey commentary, remix content, create critical
dialogue, and call community members to action. All of these activities fostered efforts aimed at
attaining social and political change. Manu, a 17 year-old female, Casey, another 17 year-old
female, and Michael, a 17 year-old male, were participants who demonstrated 3
rd
Tier Civic
Expression, and provide the exemplary data noted below.
Objectives. As opposed to 1
st
and 2
nd
Tier expressions, wherein participant objectives
focused on individual and peer interactions, the goals pertaining to the 3
rd
Tier, were those that
worked to reach and serve the larger public community. That is to say, in this tier, participants
used Facebook as a purposeful means of conveying civic images, events, thoughts, and ideas,
with the direct intent of mobilizing members in and outside of FD/ID networks, towards issues of
social or political relevance to the community.
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In addition to the goal of marshaling community efforts, a consistent theme across all
participants who exhibited 3
rd
Tier Expression was the underlying reason they shared,
commented on, and provided information through their chosen networks. The findings coincide
with those expounded upon in the discussion on civic agency, and suggest that NHY formulated
goals because they felt it was “[their] duty as kanaka maoli
24
” or “[their] responsibility” to
inform the broader community. This finding supports the work of Bennett, Freelon, and Wells
(2010), who suggest that the use of SNSs foster the blending and blurring of youth online and
offline identities, which provides empowering opportunities for civic expression. Indeed, one
participant noted that “there’s a lot of things going on politically, that the general public, and
some of my friends don’t know about, which is their right to know…so how better to inform
them… than to tell them, and ask them to get involved.” This desire, fueled by a sense of
obligation, to want to get others onboard with civic issues in the community, was echoed by
other participants who saw themselves as “educated Hawaiians,” “alaka’i,”
25
“Hawaiians with a
purpose,” or as “global citizens” who were part of a larger collective. The findings propose that
civic-minded NHY, who had a firm and established understanding of whom they were,
acknowledged their Hawaiian identities and used them more often as intrinsic motivators, to
have an impact on others to affect social change. That is to say, as compared to the represented
civic identities and responsibilities reported on in the 1
st
and 2
nd
Tiers, participants who
demonstrated a stronger and more prominent “Hawaiian” sense of self were more apt to exhibit
the practices and activities associated with 3
rd
Tier Civic Expression, and explicitly sought to
involve others in civic issues. This significant finding offers aid to educators who are

24
Native Hawaiian(s)
25
Leader
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responsible for the tutelage of indigenous youth, who are looking to leverage these
understandings to create learning opportunities, which connect civic knowledge to cultural
values, ideas, beliefs, and practices. This involvement may provide students with opportunities
to build, practice, and enhance the critical skills and competencies currently employed at
individual levels.
The desire to participate in social and political events, and to influence others to do the
same was a foundational principle of citizenship education and practice in the U.S. (Beach &
Rines, 1912), and was a goal exemplified throughout the 6 participant interview responses, and
confirmed was through analysis of their Facebook timelines and through follow-up interviews.
The data below showed that Facebook was indeed used as a prevalent means of citizenship
practice among participants, and dictated the offline and online practices and activities used by
youth to mobilize community members to act on civic issues.
Practices and activities. In working towards the civic objectives noted above, it was
found that the common 3
rd
Tier Expression actions and behaviors demonstrated forms of
participatory practices that fostered community involvement. To this end, participants reported
using Facebook in the following ways: to contextualize information from multiple sources; to
link FD/ID networks to other community organizations, entities, experts, and leaders; and to
deliberately call others to take action on an issue, and/or to offer explicit instructions on how
others might become civically engaged.
Data analysis also revealed that the participants utilized many of the same NML practices
found in the 1
st
and 2
nd
Tiers. However, when attempting to mobilize, it became evident that
three other literacies were used more often in the 3
rd
Tier than in the others; they were:
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negotiation, transmedia navigation, and judgment (Jenkins et al., 2009). That is to say, when the
goal of participants was to effect change, these three NML practices emerged as frequent code
appearances, and were found to work in conjunction with the activities that NHY participated in.
For example, an examination of the data revealed that youth in the study frequently used
negotiation to traverse diverse FD/ID communities to glean multiple perspectives; they used the
skill of transmedia navigation to follow the flow of stories and events across different offline
and online media sources such as social media, web sites of organizations, and news sources.
They also used judgment to assess the authenticity of sources of information, to fact-check, and
to make better-informed decisions about the stances they took on issues. Because the civic
practices in this tier were considered ideal forms of citizenship, participants exhibit myriad social
skills and competencies, in different configurations, in pursuit of goals. Their civic expressions
are articulated in a broad sense in the discussion that follows, and documented through
transcribed interviews, written narratives, and screenshots from their Facebook timelines.
Among the 6 participants who demonstrated 3
rd
Tier Expression, major consistencies in
the data sets revealed that they contextualized information from multiple sources, provided links
to community organizations and causes, and provided others with specific information regarding
how to take action on an issue. One of the recurring findings that embraced all of these facets
was the circulation of online petitions. All 6 of the participants reported either initiating, or
signing an online petition in support of a civic topic; Figure 17 is an example of one such status.
Manu, a 17-year-old female whose offline affiliations included a community
organization, a school club, and a leadership role in student council, provided the self-selected
“civic” screenshot, captured in Figure 17. (See Appendix I for additional examples of participant
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screenshots, including those portraying online petitions.) Manu considered herself informed and
up-to-date with current social and political happenings, and reported that she did so primarily
through the use of social media. In her written narrative she, like many of her peers, commented
on the local controversy surrounding the building of a telescope atop the sacred mountain,
Mauna Kea; in it she conveyed the importance of the issue in saying that “Mauna Kea is…to my
family… and to my people, the piko
26
of all of the Hawaiian Islands… it’s the aupuni
27
of
Hawaii as a whole… so it’s like taking our soul…our heart… who we are.” In an interview she
further added, “…and that’s why I posted this status, because it shows that we at least have to
have a conversation... and if someone wants to actually help… and voice their opinion…then the
link is right there to make a difference.”

26
Center; the source
27
Ruling center
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Figure 17. Self-selected Screenshot from Manu’s Facebook timeline
An analysis of her response showed that her specific goal was to start a conversation, to
inform those in her various social networks, and also to allow a venue for others to get involved,
in her words, “to make a difference,” and to “take action and sign the petition.” In working to
achieve her desired results, Manu relayed that her status also used Hawaiian ideology and
language as a way to bolster her authority as a Hawaiian, to get her message out to other
Hawaiians who shared her perspective. She also affirmed that she used English to reach those
who were not proficient in “the native tongue,” but for whom the issue held relevance; this
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demonstrated her ability to apply the NML of navigation, to reach different audiences and offer
different perspectives. This again offered an example of how a Hawaiian aesthetic was
articulated in and throughout the civic lives of the participants. Thus, the role of culture was
shown to be important in the manifestation of civic expression among Hawaiian youth, because
of the fact that it provided the motivation that undergirded beliefs, and, as was the case with the
use of Hawaiian language, provided the medium through which civic dialogue was articulated.
Further analysis of the screenshot showed that the content was appropriated, and
included commentary, a link to additional information from a community organization—in this
case, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA)—and a call to action, in the form of an online
petition. The NML of negotiation was also employed, as the website provided additional
information on the issue from different perspectives, links to legislative hearings and
congressional documents, and offered ways to take action in the community. The status also
elicited 6 likes and 4 comments from people from around the state, and beyond. Examination of
the content also showed that critical dialogue was indeed evoked, and, of particular importance,
the first and third comments offer confirmation of the signing of the petition as evidence of
“mobilization.” While this was not representative of the in-person, face-to-face community
support that Putnam (2000) argues is necessary for citizenship, the act of signing an online
petition that had offline implications, does offer justification for the reevaluation and rethinking
of the very concept of mobilization. In this example, new media truly allowed for a democratic
form of participatory culture, one that blurred the line between offline and online civic
engagement – with issues, and with other community members, and had an actual social impact.
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A follow-up interview with Manu confirmed that the individuals who responded were
people who were inside and outside her immediate FD network. One of the commenters was
someone from the U.S. mainland, whom she met during a college visit. This finding brings to
light the civic potential that communication technologies, like SNSs have, to traverse time and
place, and supports the contention by researchers (Ito et al., 2013; Jenkins et al., 2009; Kahne &
Lee, 2012 Rheingold, 2008) that the presence of new media and participatory culture in the lives
of young people work to facilitate a broad civic network that functions outside traditional
physical boundaries.
In addition to online petitions, the youth in the study also employed different types of
appropriated media in efforts to reach out to community members. Casey, a 17 year-old female
who was a member of a school club and community organization, provided a status that included
an informational flyer with details of a meeting, as well as information on an upcoming court
hearing (Figure 18).
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Figure 18. Screenshot from Casey’s Facebook timeline
Similar to other civically inclined participants, Casey described herself as a person who
used Facebook “for entertainment, and to keep up-to-date with Hawaiian issues.” In her
interview, she expressed that she became involved in community gatherings and attended court
hearings on political issues because she “found out on Facebook,” and frequently used the SNS
“to get others to do the same.” Her screen-captured status, which also discussed the Mauna Kea
telescope controversy, attempted to raise community awareness and garner in-person support for
the cause. When asked how and why she became involved in the issue, she responded by saying,
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Well, I’ve been following the issue on social media… and so I shared a flyer me and one
of my friends made… and we started talking more about it in school… and I also posted
on our class page to see if anybody else was interested… and we got more of our friends
involved…and we really wanted to go and support… so we went.
Casey’s response exemplified the way that SNSs have an impact on NHY, and showed, again,
the blending of offline and online activities developed and manifested through the use of new
media. Although only 3 individuals liked the shared image, a follow-up interview confirmed that
mobilization was successful, as there were approximately 30 people who attended the
community meeting, including her offline friends; furthermore, she estimated that close to 100
people attended the court hearing. When asked what impact the events had on her, Casey noted
that “it felt good to be a part of something and to see the community come together… to not just
talk about it, but actually be involved and get others involved too.” Other participants who also
shared the belief that the civic practices and activities they participated in affected the lives of
others around them mirrored this response. Casey emphasized this point by adding, “…to know
that our being there actually made a difference… that’s something special, and you can feel it
when it happens.” The sentiment that there was a certain “feeling” that happened when
mobilization occurred, was shared by other participants as well, with many noting that it was a
“spiritual” experience,” and that “you could feel the mana
28
” when people were together for a
common cause. The interconnectedness that many participants felt can be traced to the earlier
discussion on the role that Native Hawaiian ideology and culture plays in the lives of aboriginal
youth; which is to say, indigenous thought is always situated in a communal paradigm (Aluli-

28
life force
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Meyer, 2006) and thus can be understood in this context, to cultivate 3
rd
Tier Expression,
wherein practices and activities are innate, and carried out for the greater good. Culture, then,
works to provide the internal capacity for action, as well as the external act of mobilization itself.
In bringing individuals together, document analysis also revealed that Casey tagged 5
people in her status. As noted earlier, this practice was common among participants, and was
used in both trivial and complex ways. In a follow-up interview, Casey reported that she tagged
people with whom she did not necessarily hang out with all the time, but thought would have an
interest in the issue, which utilized the NMLs of judgment and negotiation. Additionally, Casey
also explained that she chose to tag a family member and a teacher; in her words the reason for
including these individuals was that “they taught me these things, and… I want them to know
that I learned from them…that their ‘ike
29
is heard… that I’m upholding my responsibility to my
people.” Tagging mentors, as a form of respect and public acknowledgement was also a practice
of 5 other participants, and provided further insight into how cultural practices and activities
shaped civic expression.
Additionally, a researcher memo noted that Casey tagged an older individual, whom she
specifically thought this message would affect. When asked why she tagged that person, her
response was that she “can’t vote on the issue, because [she’s] too young, tagging someone who
can, is the next best way to make a difference.” This addresses Middaugh et al.’s (2012) concern
that “those under the age of 25 often lack the official status, experience, access, or motivation to
participate in the process of making important public decisions” (p. 1). The conscious decision
that Casey made also implies that youth are thinking about their intended audiences when

29
knowledge
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deciding to express civic ideas in online contexts, and utilize SNSs as a means of employing
civic action that is often beyond their legal rights and reach as minors.
Another researcher memo also noted that Casey’s scenario exemplified how SNSs
fostered the coming together of friendship-driven networks and interest-driven topics, to initiate
a blended form of civic engagement, where online and offline interactions were seamless. This
finding showed that 3
rd
Tier Civic Engagement was (and is) possible, under the right
circumstances and conditions. This is the type of participatory scenario that scholars (Bakker &
deVreese, 2011; Cohen, Kahne, Bowyer, Middaugh, & Rogowski, 2012) have theorized about,
and contend, provide opportunities for civic discourse and action. The fact that Casey also
mentioned the adult influences that shaped her civic thoughts, further supports Ito et al.’s (2009)
and Jenkins et al.’s (2009) notion that formal and informal educational entities have mentorship
roles to play in online and offline civic agency and engagement, and that given the right context,
mentors (or teachers, or teacher-mentors) can have a profound impact on youth civic
expressions.
To many of the civic-minded participants, the idea that social media brought people
together was ubiquitous, and was seen as a part of the culture of civic engagement. For the
participants, social media was also viewed as one of the conduits of counter-culture; in a sense, it
served as a “voice for the people,” at times when other media outlets showed only one side, or
convey a particular polarized point of view. Michael, a 17 year-old male, whose family
members were active in Hawaiian civic issues, emphasized this point by claiming that “social
media is my primary source of information… because I’ve become too critical of the mainstream
media, that I don’t trust it,” and added that, “…especially with Hawaiian issues… I’ve been
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involved with…over the past few years, the mainstream media’s been on the other side… and,
it’s like our story isn’t being told through those venues, so we’re having to tell it through social
media.”
Youth in the study often sought out differing points of view, and in determining whether
or not to participate in a community issue, demonstrated the NML of judgment, and the ability to
contextualize information. A majority of the participants also expressed that they welcomed
opportunities to critique ideas, and made better-informed decisions to mobilize on behalf of an
issue or cause because of the wealth of information they had access to, due in large part to digital
media and access to corresponding technologies.
In a follow-up interview Michael elaborated on his involvement with civic causes, and
commented on the ways he saw social media being used as a tool for organizing and mobilizing
community members. He discussed his participation in efforts to raise public awareness on the
issue of GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms), and how he showed support at rallies and
legislative hearings. Commenting on the use of social media to facilitate mobilization, Michael
recalled that, during a last-minute rally, the community organization he was affiliated with
assembled a large number of people in a short amount of time; in his words he claimed that:
[W]ithin 24 hours, just… mostly using social media, we got the word out. And the next
morning we had about 200 people there… And it wasn’t just the Hawaiian activists… I
mean there were [Caucasian] and Filipino farmers, Japanese business owners… the
community was there… and we were all at the county council building… and I think that
definitely had an impact on the council members and the Mayor’s decision to ban GMOs
on the island… And, so those kind of things, I mean, in the days before… I can’t imagine
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life without social media and without the Internet… I think it would’ve been very hard to
organize that many people, that quickly.
Michael’s experience and accompanying comments exemplify the thoughts of his civic-minded
peers who demonstrated 3
rd
Tier Expression. They also demonstrate the power of social media
to enact civic responsibility and effect change in the community. His implication that SNSs
allow for a swift means of mobilization, was a key insight, and was one of the reasons that
revolutions took place overseas, in places like Egypt, where Facebook and Twitter were used to
deliver information on protests, as well as to show real-time reactions from the people on the
front lines – in places and spaces where traditional media has been absent (Middaugh et al.,
2012). Michael’s comments also show the way that interest-driven issues can form friendship-
driven bonds, and vice versa. This small-scale revolution was not televised, but it was broadcast
on small screens and social networks around the community, and its impact reverberated enough
to inspire a transformative decision from the governing body of Hawaii County – Jeffersonian
and Zuckerbergian ideologies, actualized.
Below are two screenshots that captured the unfolding of the events surrounding the civic
issue of GMOs of which Michael was a part; they document the use of Facebook, and offer a
profound example of how SNSs were used by youth, and the community, to influence social and
political change. The first screenshot, Figure 19, is a status that Michael acknowledged initiated
the in-person community gathering that he commented on in his initial interview; the second
screenshot, Figure 20, is a status shared by Michael, from one of the community organizations
with which he was involved, that acknowledged support of the online and offline community
efforts to prohibit the use of GMOs on Hawaii island.
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Figure 19. Shared status from Michael’s Facebook timeline
An analysis of Michael’s status noted that it provided links to the legislative bills, as well
as information on the potential impact of passage and non-passage; in alignment with 3
rd
Tier
Expression, the status also offered specific instructions on involvement, specifying dates for
events, items to bring, and colors to wear in support of the cause. The inclusion of these details
was comprehensive, and showed a broad understanding of the knowledge and information
needed for different facets of civic participation. Additional analysis showed that the status
received 15 likes, 5 comments, and 16 shares, and a majority of the comments engaged in critical
dialogue about different sides of the issue. Most offered direct support, in the form of words of
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encouragement, and tags and links to yet other people and sources of information. Because of
the relatively few number of “shares,” in a follow-up interview, Michael clarified his claim that
200 people had been mobilized in support of the rally. He claimed that “those 16 shares
could’ve let other people know, and maybe they didn’t share the exact status, but mentioned
something similar, like come down at such and such time…” He also mentioned that “the
message was on Twitter and Instagram too… and I know that people were Vining… so that
could explain it…” which points to a previously-mentioned limitation of the study. The posting
of the protest on other SNSs was not confirmed, but the eventual publically-announced, decision
by the mayor to ban GMOs, and the 140 likes and 475 shares of the information in Figure 20 (see
below), showed there were, indeed, many community members who “liked” the cause and were
interested in the issue, and were passionate enough to mobilize in support, both through online
and offline means.
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Figure 20. Shared status from community organization Facebook timeline
Michael’s experience offers compelling evidence of the way youth utilize the blended
forms of media and culture(s) they are immersed in, to affect social and political change. The
findings gleaned from Michael and his peers also offer evidence that youth do care about local
issues, and are willing and able to participate in the civic practices that are fundamental aspects
of American and global citizenship. Despite the noted success of social media to enact 3
rd
Tier
Civic Engagement, which mobilized the local community, and the documented triumph of the
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campaign to ban GMOs from Hawaii Island, in thinking about the likes and shares that statuses
receive, Michael also offered the following dichotomous thoughts on the role of social media as
a means of civic expression:
I think social media definitely has an impact… but I think it can have its downside too…
because some people, I think, depend on it too much… and then people just think that
they can just write something on Facebook and they think they’re supporting the issue,
but they don’t actually show up in person, you know? And the danger is that it’s almost
becoming the substitute for in-person interaction. And we’re missing the value of that
person-to-person kind of thing. And I know we’re still learning, but I think that there is a
lot of potential.
Michael’s comments speak to the main argument against online forms of civic participation, and
reiterate Putnam’s (1995; 2000) fear that isolation fosters mock-participation, and that true
citizenship involves face-to-face contact. However, the “learning” and “potential” that Michael
spoke of, rings true to scholars and educators alike, who support the notion that SNSs foster new
forms of citizenship (Kahne, 2013; Rheingold, 2008). These blended forms of civics served as
the basis for the preceding analysis, which confirmed that offline and online participation,
indeed, constitute civic practices and, therefore, the analysis of the data offered examples of how
youth leveraged SNSs to convey ideas and actions that prompted and enacted real social and
political change in their communities.
Discussion: Blended Expression and the Potential of Civic Ubiquity
As the analysis of civic engagement noted above, in an era of heightened and immersive
use of digital media, civic expression indeed thrived under the conditions which participatory
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culture offered. Forms of civic expression were manifested by youth, in blended contexts, such
as Facebook, because they were ubiquitous forms of media in the lives of the participants. The
findings showed that youth at HHS used social media in many of the same ways documented in
prior research, as vehicles to express voice and to connect with others in FD/ID networks
(Bakker & deVreese, 2011; Cohen et al., 2012; Ito et al., 2009; Kahne et al., 2012; Khane &
Middaugh, 2012; Shah et al., 2005). This study worked to reaffirm that youth use SNSs in these
environments as primary forms of day-to-day communication, and, in doing so, engage in civic
thoughts and actions. One participant emphasized that “social media has totally changed the way
teenagers communicate with other people,” which echoes Ito et al.’s (2009) notion that, “[d]igital
media and online communication have undoubtedly become pervasive in the lives of youth in the
United States” (p. 4). This sentiment was also shared by other participants, who conveyed that
social media was now thee way to converse, and was frequently used as both a macro and micro
communication tool. Another participant, noted that “it’s just what we do; it’s part of our day to
check Facebook… or get tagged in a picture,” which alludes to the fact that online networks have
bled into the offline world in a near-seamless way.
Research confirms that these online interactions indeed spill over into physical contexts,
and create spaces where youth hang out and intermingle with other individuals who share
affinities for social interaction (Ito et al., 2009; Jenkins et al., 2009). It can be concluded, then,
that the language of social media is the language of youth; and consequently, the language of
social media is therefore also the language of civic engagement and expression. As McLuhan
and Fiore (1967) would agree, in the digital age, the medium has, indeed, become the message.
In relaying and disseminating these messages, the findings suggest that the participants have
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specific civic goals that were common across data sets, which, in turn, dictated the types of
practices and activities that were employed as a means of civic engagement.
The findings also showed that youth in this study also had broad objectives when using
SNSs, which were similar to those of teenagers across the country; that is to say, they wanted to
be entertained, but they also wanted to learn, and to be cognizant about what was going on in the
world around them (boyd, 2007; boyd, 2010; Bakker & deVreese, 2011; Cohen et al., 2012);
however, most of all, they wanted to be heard. In mirroring interview responses from other
participants, and commenting on the main reason she felt teens use social media, Tamara, a 17-
year-old female offered a fitting summative commentary; she recalled that:
…someone said that every generation has a fear, and the “Millenniums” or “Millennials,”
I guess that’s what they call us, our fear is the fear of not being known. Because in order
to make a difference in the world, we have to be seen and we have to be heard. We want
to be known. We want to make a difference… I want to make a difference… At least
that’s what I want to do. And I think that’s how my peers feel too.
A researcher memo noted that every participant mentioned a variation of “needing to be heard,”
or “needing to know what’s going on,” or “needing to be in touch with others” as underlying
reasons for using social media. This need to be heard, known, and informed, emerged as key
contributors to civic agency, engagement and consequent forms of expression for youth in this
study and further helped to understand how new media networks like Facebook and other SNSs,
function in a participatory culture, one which truly allows all members of society to become
actively involved in civic issues.
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Research on SNSs has shown that, due to technology, the youth of today are well
informed about current social issues, at global, national, and local levels, and have tremendous
potential to give and receive knowledge and information (boyd, 2010; Kahne, Crow & Lee,
2013). To emphasize this point, when asked how social media influenced the way that civic
information was shared trough SNSs in his life, Saul, an18-year-old male supplied a response
that encapsulated the sentiments of nearly all participants, when he noted that SNSs are “the
epitome of what communication should be,” and added that, “social media is like what the
newspaper was before…the difference is that social media is just so instant… If you have any
idea you can bust it out and put it right there…” Saul’s comments help to contextualize the
historical shift that media has taken, and how new media has replicated and, in many cases,
replaced older forms of information and communication technologies. Commenting on civic
interactions and the use of SNSs, by teens and the communities of which they are a part, Saul
also added:
[I]f an issue comes out in the community, in about five seconds it’ll be out in the public.
And it doesn’t matter where you are… anywhere in the world… it’ll be there. You’ll be
there. And if there’s any reason for you to want to get a hold of somebody or express
your opinion or give feedback on an idea, the way to do that now is through social media.
His comments are poignant in that they convey the ideas that many youth in the study shared:
they were aware of the speed in which social media traveled, and the scope of people that it has
the potential to reach. His response that “You’ll be there,” also identifies social media as a tool
that has the capability to transcend time and place; a tool that allows for participation in civic
endeavors, without the constraint of distance and the boundaries of time zones. Saul’s remarks
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also speak to the civic knowledge available to the participants who spoke of being connected to
various networks and organizations. The fact that social and political thoughts and issues all
become public knowledge, literally in a matter of seconds, allows for real-time critical dialogue
amongst community members to take place, and for social change to emerge in support of
common goals, as they unfold – the convergence of Jeffersonian and Zuckerbergian ideologies,
actualized. The implication here is simple: youth who are members of SNS, by default, engage
in civic participation, albeit at different levels (or Tiers). The thematic findings in this chapter,
therefore, offer information to educators, so that they, too, may be amongst the real-time sources
of information that youth seek out and utilize; and also the entities that promote reflective
opportunities and experiences; and the institutions from which well-informed critical thought and
dialogue might emerge.
Conclusion
As noted above, examples of participant screenshots from Facebook timelines were
accompanied, when applicable, by excerpts from written narratives, and corresponding interview
data. The findings represented the etic themes that emerged from the off-line voices of students,
captured through interviews and written narratives, and also represented the online voices that
spoke from Facebook timelines. The report of the findings, therefore, was an attempt to analyze
the myriad declarations of the participants, and to present a comprehensive distilling of the ideas
that were common among responses regarding youth civic agency, engagement, and expression.
In sum, the findings revealed that the blended networks youth engaged in through various
forms of new media, did, indeed, embrace the underpinnings of participatory culture, which
included service to community and civic responsibility. The findings suggest that the indigenous
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concepts of reciprocity, sustainability, kinship, and thoughtful decision-making, which Aluli-
Meyer (2006) contends define Hawaiian culture, were also essential components to cultural civic
agency. This agency was found to directly influence the civic objectives, practices, and activities
that defined civic engagement – all of which were captured in, and delineated by the framework
presented through the Tiers of Civic Expression. Chapter 5 expounds upon these ideas, offers a
summation of the study, and a discussion of the implications of the findings in the discipline of
Education, and proposes recommendations for further research.

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CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION
…The revolution will be live.

Gil Scott-Heron
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
1970

This is fact: the revolutions and uprisings of today are live. They are liked and shared
and re-Tweeted and favorite and commented on – and this is all done live. Civic thoughts and
actions are captured and spread instantaneously through the pictures and conversations that
laptops, smart phones, tablets, and other mobile computing devices provide (Lenhart, Ling,
Campbell, & Purcell, 2010; Smith, 2013). Madden et al. (2013) have found that over 90% of
American youth have access to broadband networks, and over 80% of American youth who are
online, engage in, on, and through SNSs. What this means is that youth are immersed in era
where technology is ubiquitous – conversations at every digitized level embrace some form of
civic participation and social interaction. For the youth that participated in this study, the
findings showed that online life and offline life have indeed blended together, where the actions
in one arena have consequences in the other, and vice versa. Popular digital social networks,
such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and Pinterest, have shifted the very notions of
connectivity and challenged previous definitions of citizenship (boyd, 2008a, 2010; boyd &
Ellison, 2007; Heverly, 2008; Kahne & Middaugh, 2012). The lives of youth are intertwined
with all manners and ranks of society and culture – from the ubiquitous and mundane, to the
inspirational and civically inspiring – thoughts and actions are live. Updates are live. News is
live. Participation in events is live. Revolutions are live. Technology has advanced the civic
potential that participatory culture has come to represent, and which social media is able to
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capture and disseminate. It is the study of these civic phenomena and interactions that
precipitated this very study, which investigated why and how Native Hawaiian youth garnered
and practiced tenets of citizenship.
Summary, Implications, and Recommendations for Future Research
This study examined why and how offline and online civic expressions were developed
and manifested by Native Hawaiian youth, in an age of actualized participatory culture. This
study also sought to explore the affective, social, cultural, and educational factors that
contributed to the civic agency and engagement of high school students who were of Native
Hawaiian ancestry. Thus, the methodology of this study employed that of a qualitative case
study, which sought to answer the following research questions:
1. In an era of heightened and immersive use of digital and social media by society, how
and why is civic engagement developed and expressed among native Hawaiian
youth?
2. What influence does indigenous culture have on the civic expression patterns of
Native Hawaiian youth?
To answer this questions data was collected from Native Hawaiian students, in grades 11
and 12, who attended a private school on one of the islands of Hawaii, and took the form of
surveys, interviews, and narratives. Participants were selected as a purposive sample, targeted
for their prior civic work in offline contexts. In the study, all participants also had access to, and
involvement, participation, and/or membership in, an offline and online community or social
network. To triangulate data, document analysis was also conducted using popular SNSs, and
recorded using search queries and the screen capture application tool, Snagit. Pseudonyms for
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the site and all participants were created to ensure that identities were protected. All data was
collected, transcribed, and analyzed using the Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS),
Dedoose, and an inductive thematic analysis was used in conjunction with the Conceptual
Framework, to extrapolate categories and patterns in the data sets. A within-case analysis was
also conducted to capture the emergent themes in the data, and represent an accurate portrayal of
the responses, which denoted civic agency and expression among NHY. Additionally, the
conceptual framework, noted in Chapter 2, guided this study, and led to the substratal themes
that emerged in examining youth understandings and experiences in blended networks, including
the SNS, Facebook, and also sought to illuminate the ways that these interactions leveraged
agency from different spheres, to enact varying levels of civic engagement.
This final chapter, then, offers an amalgamation of the lessons learned as a result of this
study, and in doing so provides a summary of the findings, implications for the field of
Education and research community, as well as suggests areas for future research.
Summary of the Findings
The findings of this qualitative case study suggest that Native Hawaiian youth glean civic
agency from school and family members, and use this knowledge in to formulate a civic identity
that embraces the Hawaiian value of kuleana. The findings further suggest that once this
capacity for civic expression is established, it is then manifested through blended—offline and
online—contexts, in the form of civic engagement. Furthermore, the findings also suggest that
the level, or “Tier” of civic expression, is dependent on the richness, quality, and depth of civic
objectives, practices, and actions. In analyzing these expressions, this study also found that there
were cultural patterns that undergirded the thought-processes of individuals, which exemplified
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distinctly Hawaiian epistemological responses; therefore, an examination and discussion of these
sub themes was included in the preceding analysis.
A major revelation from the findings was, that for Hawaiian youth at HHS, civic agency
and the manifestation of civic expression were intertwined with the values, beliefs, and practices
that constituted Hawaiian culture. These “Hawaiian” paradigms included the continued
acknowledgement and influence of elders as sources of knowledge, a connection to the natural
world and responsibility to steward its resources, and the use of metaphor and feelings to
describe intellect and interactions with surroundings (Meyer, 2003). Additionally, the findings
showed that the civic objectives of participants corresponded to three distinct levels—Tiers—
which impacted the types of New Media Literacy practices and civic activities, both offline and
online, that NHY employed. Thus, a model, labeled, “Tiers of Civic Expression,” was
constructed to capture the major themes and categories that emerged from the data.
A summation of researcher memos noted that participants who had a firm Hawaiian
identity and understood and practiced the value of kuleana, embraced their roles as members of a
larger community, and thus were more apt to engage in the types of civic discourses, practices,
and actions associated with 1
st
, 2
nd
and 3
rd
Tier expressions. In short, the findings suggest that
indigenous paradigms impact the types of civic agency that participants develop, which directly
influence the types of civic objectives, practices, and actions that are manifested by youth, in
online and offline arenas.
Limitations
As mentioned previously, the use of a case study in qualitative research is not without its
limitations (Merriam, 2009). First, as is the case with most qualitative research, limitations of
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reliability, validity, and generalizability emerge. While the attempts to address reliability and
validity are expounded upon in Chapter 3, the uniqueness of the site and its participants (Native
Hawaiian Youth), make it difficult to conclude whether or not the results of this study would be
able to be replicated at other sites and under different contexts. A second limitation is that of
researcher bias, as the inferences that I draw from the interviews, narratives, and document
analyses are subject to interpretation. Attempts were made throughout the collection and
analysis process to triangulate data, and provide objective determinations. Another limitation
pertains specifically to document analysis; the concern centers on determining the authenticity
and accuracy of the data that is reported. Merriam (2009) purports that documents that claim to
be objective and accurate can contain biases that the researcher may not be aware of. This is
certainly the case in online SNSs, where bias is often prevalent. In instances where possible bias
or misinterpretation were present, follow-up interviews, and member checks were implemented
to ascertain correctness.
Implications for Research on Online Civic Expression
If, as Ito et al. (2009) contends, educators are to harness the effects of out-of-school civic
learning that youth experience, a concerted effort must be made to understand how and why civic
expression among youth is developed and manifested. The findings in this study suggest that
Native Hawaiian Youth indeed express themselves in myriad ways; however, the manner in
which they do so can be distilled into online and offline patterns and categories that are
distinguishable by the civic objectives which are set forth by individuals. Thus, this study builds
upon existing scholarship regarding the ways in which online civic activities—such as streaming
news and acquiring social and political information through SNS—influence offline civic
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behaviors, such as activism and volunteerism (Kahne & Sporte, 2008; Mossberg, Tolbert, &
McNeal, 2008; Xenos & Moy, 2007), and offers explicit examples of the blended civic practices
and activities which occur in the lives of Native Hawaiian youth. Furthermore, the qualitative
research that also informed this study, proposed that civic expression can also manifest itself in
online networks through popular culture, and more specifically, through the melding of the
conditions that participatory culture and new media facilitate (Jenkins, et al., 2009; Khane et al.,
2013; Ito et al., 2009). The findings in this study offered confirmation of the occurrence of
blended civic activities, through the capturing of screenshots from the SNS, Facebook;
furthermore, the findings provided an analysis of online documents, which were demonstrative
of citizenship practices. To my knowledge, this study is unique in that it was the first of its kind
to use screen captures to document the online civic practices of Native Hawaiian youth. Further
research might seek to build on the use of screen captures to employ a quantitative analysis of
civic engagement.
Implications for Research on Youth Identity Formation
Additionally, Chapter 2 also confirmed that there is a “dearth of research on the ways
youth share their civic identities online” (Weinstein, 2014, p. 211); despite this compendium of
knowledge, less is known about how minorities, like Hawaiians, developed online civic
identities, if at all. In other words, while prior research has shown ways in which youth develop
civic thoughts and actions, that constitute an civic online presence, no study has shown whether
or not Hawaiian youth acquire and express civic knowledge in the same manner as their
mainland counterparts. The results show that while there are indeed similarities in the civic
thoughts, actions, and expression patterns of NHY students and other teenagers across the
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country, there are also cultural nuisances that exemplify a particularly “Hawaiian” aesthetic,
which shaped civic agency, and, in turn, influenced civic expression towards issues of local
concern.
These “Hawaiian” expressions, revealed that participants shared and posted things on
SNSs as a way to show who they were to the world, which supports boyd’s (2007) research
which indicates that teens model “identity through social network profiles so that they can write
themselves and their community into being” (p. 2). While early research on online identity
formation showed instances of false identities, and deception among youth (boyd, 2007;
Buckingham, 2008; McKenna & Bargh, 2000; Turkle, 1995), the data in this study supports the
notion that online identities corresponded closely to offline identities. That is to say, it can be
concluded that contemporary forms of civic expression on SNSs were indeed genuine, and that
participants’ online civic identities matched with their offline civic identities – both of which
converged to create a true civic identity. In their study of identity formation on Facebook, Zhao,
Grasmuck, and Martin (2008) also claimed that anchored and established friendship-driven
networks facilitate authentic online identities and corresponding online expressions. The findings
in this study concur with this idea, and other research on identity formation in SNSs, and suggest
that online friendship-driven networks, which are established in offline contexts, and which were
prevalent in 1
st
Tier civic interactions, were true representations of the established identities of
youth (Subrahmanyam, Reich, Waechter, & Espinoza, 2008). Because of this study’s focus on
Facebook, further research could seek to examine the types of interactions that occur across SNS
platforms, to explore the authenticity of youth identities in different contexts.

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Implications for the Field of Education
In the 14 interview transcripts, one of the early themes that emerged was the influence
that different types of networks had on the civic thoughts, skills, and motivations that informed
engagement. As was alluded to in Chapter 2’s review of the literature, youth across the U.S.
have been found to build civic agency through informal experimentations with participatory
culture and new media; both practices were found to also foster civic capacities for engagement
among youth in this study as well. However, the educational opportunities provided by family
and school, in particular, were found to influence the ways that NHY thought about social,
political, and environmental issues that were important to them. Participant responses confirmed
prior research (Ito et al., 2009; Ito et al., 2013; Jenkins et al., 2009), which noted that educational
entities indeed have a role in civics education, and have the capacity and responsibility to impart
critical civic skills to students. That is to say, in support of the theory, which contends that
institutions of learning aid in the development of civic agency, nearly all participants reported
that experiences in school had a tremendous influence on how they thought about civic
participation, and referenced the development and understanding of their “Hawaiian” identities
and embracing of their kuleana, as precursors to actualized civic engagement.
During the interview process, usually in the context of discussing civic topics that were
important to the participants, I explicitly asked individuals to reflect on what they thought most
impacted the way that they viewed civic issues, and to determine where these ideas and beliefs
were derived from; furthermore, I asked them to reflect on whether or not these thoughts
influenced their offline and online expressions on those issues. The student-participants noted
clubs, sports, and other extra- and co-curricular activities as being influential in the way that they
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approached civic endeavors, such as volunteering and community service, and service learning.
Again, this response alludes to both Jenkins et al. (2009) and Ito et al.’s (2009) assertion that
school is a place were different networks converge to create civic agency. The willingness for
students to share their thoughts and beliefs regarding civic issues also provides a starting point
for educators to leverage the existing culture of school itself, and be cognizant of the impactful
nature that educational experiences provide, and use these occurrences to consciously embed and
impart civic knowledge and practice.
Education is meant to offer youth a place to practice critical thought. As such, Bennett,
Wells, & Rank (2009) assert that the Internet offers youth a perfect venue for civic dialogue and
interaction, which typifies the digital environments that many of today’s young people have been
born into. In contrast, however, boyd (2008a) cautioned that social networks might serve to offer
“cavernous echo chambers… [that] reiterate what their friends post” (p. 243). The findings
suggested that while many of the participants acknowledged the “echo chamber” effect of SNSs,
they also expressed the potential social and communal benefits that undergird social networks,
where the influence of others is ever omnipresent and beneficial; as one participant conveyed,
“social media is also accessible to the same people who don’t believe in those same things as me.
So it’s like, the playing field is even.” These ideas directly address Putnam’s (1995) and De
Tocqueville et al.’s (1972) view that subversive mass media can sway the ideas of a populace.
However, an analysis of the data found that youth recognize the different ways that the “playing
field is even,” by taking critical approaches to civic issues, and in many instances, acknowledged
that the differing points of views and opinions which are an integral part of the comments feature
of SNSs, offer just that – an opposing point of view to be critiqued and considered. As noted in
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the findings above, the youth in the study also used new media to confirm, refute, and fact-check
information, which hints that perhaps the caverns of social media are not entirely echo chambers,
but instead, act as repositories of communal wisdom and dissenting opinion, which are a pillars
of an informed citizenship (Rheingold 2008) and participatory culture (Jenkins et al., 2009).
Educators can thus use these repositories of knowledge and information as means of addressing
the College and Career Readiness benchmarks of Common Core State Standards (U.S.
Department of Education, 2012). Indeed, there is much more to the simplistic idea of social
networks being “homophilous,” and the reason that “friends seek out people who are like them”
(boyd, 2008a, p. 243); participant responses alluded to the fact that social networks create
asynchronous environments for engagement, which transcend time and place – where divergent
voices each vie for notice, and are noticed. If educators were to take notice as well, they too
could become a part of the civic conversations that inform youth action.
It can be concluded that this generation of connected youth, who are dubbed,
“Millennials,” represents a youth citizenry that has the potential to be more civic-minded and
involved in local and global communities than previous generations, because of the power that
information technologies have in their lives (Howe & Strauss, 2000). This study revealed that
the youth of today indeed have the tools to create and manifest civic-minded thoughts; they have
the cognitive ability to engage in critical dialogue; they have the skills to contend with online
threats that scholars (Anderson & Sturm, 2007; Belsey, 2005), argue are infringements on
privacy and safety; and they are armed with the knowledge to defend against tyranny and
oppression. This study also found that SNSs allowed youth to have exposure to other voices and
opinions, and glean and critically reflect on information from multiple and varied sources. For
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example, all participants expressed that social media was the most common way that that they
received and shared traditional forms of news, and was also a way for them to share news and
information which they felt was important. It is indeed time, therefore, for educators to
recognize the ways that youth actively participate in civics, and utilize the offline and online
practices and activities, noted in the Tiers of Civic Engagement, to engage students, nurture their
civic capacities, and provide authentic opportunities to engage in and improve the communities,
for which they are a part of.
Recommendations for Future Research
Because of the limitations and delimitations of this study, the data that was collected, was
primarily from the SNS, Facebook, and thus did not represent the full breadth of online civic
interactions that youth participate in. Therefore, future research might seek to investigate civic
expression across different SNSs and platforms, to determine similarities and differences, and
how they impact varying means of agency and engagement.
This study also sought to explore the patterns that emerged amongst a select group of
civically-minded individuals; future research might examine individuals who do not have
propensities toward civic involvement, to see if there are similarities or differences in the Tiers
of Civic Engagement model, presented in this study. Additionally, an individual case study
might be employed, to further test the model’s validity and reliability, and to delve into the
specific nuisances of civic interactions.
A longitudinal study, which follows youth throughout their post-secondary endeavors,
would also help in determining if civic practices continue, diminish, increase, or change over
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time. Additionally, a quantitative methodology might be employed to capture larger data sets
and offer a comparative model of characteristics that capture civic agency and engagement.
The findings also suggest that an approach to education, which is incorporates a culture-
based education, or a culturally relevant pedagogy, is indeed one that would foster civic
knowledge and participation. As Ladson-Billings (1995) notes, these pedagogical approaches
foster civic engagement by developing “critical perspectives that challenge inequities that…
institutions [like school] perpetuate” (p. 469). As such, because the data in this study showed
that culture was a recurrent theme in participant interviews, narratives, and online statuses,
application and refinement of the Tiers of Civic Engagement model would be useful to other
indigenous peoples and minorities, and might also provide starting points for future areas of
study.
Conclusion
Jefferson’s (1818) decree that those responsible for the education of youth in the U.S.,
were to develop the reasoning faculties of our youth, enlarge their minds, cultivate their morals,
and instill into them the precepts of virtue and order, implied that there are indeed underlying
principles which guide civic agency and expression. In this study, the development of a Native
Hawaiian identity, and the embracing of the indigenous value and practice of kuleana, were
found to be the precepts of virtue that emerged as consistent themes across all participant
responses. The instilling of virtue and order were demonstrated through participants’ use of
NML practices and civic activities, and were thus captured through interviews, narratives, and
documents (screenshots) from the SNS, Facebook.
As was noted in the review of the literature, social interactions were prevalent parts of
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teenage life; it was assumed, then, that the accompanying New Media Literacies, which were
embedded in participatory culture, played some type of role in civic agency and engagement
among youth. Social media was therefore one of the crucial modes through which NHY in this
study were found to utilize the NMLs, to express their ideas about civic issues and matters.
Furthermore, because the NMLs were not confined solely to online practices, and because digital
technologies have become ubiquitous in the lives of today’s youth, it was not surprising that the
findings also suggest that NHY do not view their online civic expressions—thoughts, actions and
behaviors—as separate from their offline practices. These discoveries suggest that, in a period of
heightened and immersive use of digital and social media by society in general, youth indeed
utilize the different tools and skills available to them to evoke civic knowledge and engagement.
Thus, it is a prosperous time for educators, and those in education, to revisit the Jeffersonian
ideal of civic knowledge for all, and utilize the Zuckerbergian philosophy of connectivity, to
create an enhanced understanding of citizenship, one that is inclusive of digitized forms of
engagement and participation. In turn, the findings in this study add to the compendium of
knowledge regarding the nuanced civic practices of youth, and seek to stimulate #revolutions
that are live and alive, and most certainly liked by all members of a participatory society.

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APPENDICIES
Appendix A
List of the New Media Literacies

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Appendix B
Youth Assent-Parental Permission Form
University of Southern California
Rossier School of Education
Waite Phillips Hall
3470 Trousdale Parkway
Los Angeles, CA 90089

YOUTH ASSENT-PARENTAL PERMISSION FOR NON-MEDICAL RESEARCH
This form will also serve as the “Youth Assent” and “Consent/Permission form for the
Youth to Participate in Research.” In this case, “You” refers to “your child.”

TITLE OF THE STUDY:
The Revolution Will Be Liked: An Examination of Civic Expression Among Hawaiian Youth

You are invited to participate in a research study conducted by Clint Anderson, M.Ed., Doctor of
Education candidate, and Dr. John Pascarella, Ph.D., from the University of Southern California
Your participation is voluntary. You should read the information below, and ask questions about
anything you do not understand, before deciding whether to participate.

Please take as much time as you need to read the consent form. Your child will also be asked
his/her permission. Your child can decline to participate, even if you agree to allow
participation. You and/or your child may also decide to discuss it with your family or friends. If
you and/or your child decide to participate, you will both be asked to sign this form. You will be
given a copy of this form.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of this study is to understand the civic issues are most important to native Hawaiian
students. This research study also seeks to understand how digital media technologies and social
networking sites influence the civic thoughts and actions of students, if at all. The results of this
study will help school administrators to better use resources for programs that support civic
learning. Furthermore, the findings will also help teachers to create units and lessons that use
relevant digital media technologies, to address civic issues that are important to all high school
students.

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STUDY PROCEDURES
If you agree to participate, you will be asked to complete the following:

Online Survey:
You will be asked to complete an online survey, which should take no more than 10
minutes to complete. You do not have to answer any questions that you do not want to.

Individual interviews:
You may also be asked to participate in an individual interview, which will be audio-
recorded and is anticipated to take no more than an hour to complete.

Electronic Document-sharing:
You may also be asked to share digital posts, images, words, phrases, status updates, etc.,
using social media, that shows or explains, “civic interaction and engagement” Any post,
image, status, etc. that contains identifying information will be redacted.

POTENTIAL RISKS AND DISCOMFORTS
There are no potential risks to your participation; however, you may feel uncomfortable
answering some of the questions. You do not have to answer any question you don’t want to.

POTENTIAL BENEFITS TO PARTICIPANTS AND/OR TO SOCIETY
There are no anticipated benefits to your participation. We hope that this study will help
researchers learn more about the civic issues that are important to Hawaiian students. This
research may also help advance the knowledge of how technology and social networking can be
better used in education; however there is no direct benefit to you for participating in this study.

PAYMENT/COMPENSATION FOR PARTICIPATION
For participation in the initial survey, you will receive entry into a drawing for an iTunes gift
card. The drawing will be held at the end of the study and the winner notified via email.

If you are selected to participate in the interview and/or electronic document-sharing, you will
receive a $10 gift card from the local movie theatre for your time. You do not have to answer all
of the questions in order to receive the card. The card will be given to you when you complete
the interview.

CONFIDENTIALITY
We will keep your records for this study confidential as far as permitted by law. However, if we
are required to do so by law, we will disclose confidential information about you. The members
of the research team and the University of Southern California’s Human Subjects Protection
Program (HSPP) may access the data. The HSPP reviews and monitors research studies to
protect the rights and welfare of research subjects.

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Only the researchers noted above will have access to the interview transcripts and data. The
audio recordings will be used for educational purposes only, and any identifiable information
obtained in connection with this study will remain confidential. The data will be stored on a
password-protected computer in the researcher’s office for three years after the study has been
completed and then destroyed.

PARTICIPATION AND WITHDRAWAL
Your participation is voluntary. Your refusal to participate will involve no penalty or loss of
benefits to which you are otherwise entitled. You may withdraw your consent at any time and
discontinue participation without penalty. You are not waiving any legal claims, rights or
remedies because of your participation in this research study.

ALTERNATIVES TO PARTICIPATION
Your alternative is to not participate.

INVESTIGATOR’S CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have any questions or concerns about the research, please contact:

Principal Investigator:
Clint Anderson, M.Ed., Ed.D. Candidate
University of Southern California
Phone: (808) 640-0288
e-mail: clintand@usc.edu

Faculty Advisor:
John Pascarella, Ph.D., Committee Chair
Assistant Professor of Clinical Education
University of Southern California
Waite Phillips Hall
3470 Trousdale Parkway
Los Angeles, CA 90089
Phone: (213) 740-0159
e-mail: john.pascarella@usc.edu

RIGHTS OF RESEARCH PARTICIPANT – IRB CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have questions, concerns, complaints about your rights as a research participant or the
research in general and are unable to contact the research team, or if you want to talk to someone
independent of the research team, please contact the University Park Institutional Review Board
(UPIRB), 3720 South Flower Street #301, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0702, (213) 821-5272 or
upirb@usc.edu

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SIGNATURE OF RESEARCH PARTICIPANT (If the participant is 14 years or older)

I have read the information provided above. I have been given a chance to ask questions. My questions
have been answered to my satisfaction, and I agree to participate in this study. I have been given a copy
of this form.

Name of Participant

Signature of Participant Date

SIGNATURE OF PARENT(S)/LEGALLY AUTHORIZED REPRESENTATIVE

I have read the information provided above. I have been given a chance to ask questions. My questions
have been answered to my satisfaction, and I agree to allow my child participate in this study. I have
been given a copy of this form.

AUDIO/VIDEO/PHOTOGRAPHS

□ I agree to be audio-recorded

□ I do not want to be audio-recorded

Name of Parent/Legally Authorized Representative

Signature of Parent/Legally Authorized Representative Date

SIGNATURE OF INVESTIGATOR

I have explained the research to the participant and his/her parent(s)/Legally Authorized Representative,
and answered all of their questions. I believe that the parent(s) understand the information described in
this document and freely consents to participate.

Name of Person Obtaining Consent

Signature of Person Obtaining Consent Date
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Appendix C
Preliminary Survey Questions

Aloha, my name is Clint Anderson and I am doing research to better understand the civic issues
are most important to native Hawaiian students. That is to say, I am investigating what topics in
the community and extended community, are of cultural, environmental, social, political, and
economic concern to students. This research study also seeks to understand how digital media
technologies and social networking sites influence your civic thoughts and actions, if at all.

The results of this study will help school administrators to better use resources for programs that
support civic learning. Furthermore, the findings will also help teachers to create units and
lessons that use relevant digital media technologies, to address civic issues that are important to
all high school students.

Participation in this survey is optional, and all information will be kept confidential.

1. What is your age?
2. What is your current grade?
a. 11
b. 12
3. Gender
a. Male
b. Female
4. For this question, think of “civic issues” as: topics in the community and extended
community, that are of cultural, environmental, social, political, and/or economic concern
to you. Are there civic issues that are important to you?
a. Yes
i. If yes, what are they (please list and explain as necessary)?
b. No
5. Are there any civic issues that are important specifically to Hawaiians, in general?
a. Yes
i. If yes, what are they (please list and explain as necessary)?
b. No
6. Are you a part of any online community or social network (e.g. Facebook, Instagram,
Twitter, Minecraft, etc.)?
a. Yes
b. No
c. If yes, please list which online communities/social networks

7. Are you a part of any “offline” organizations? (e.g. clubs, community associations,
church groups, etc.)?
a. Yes
b. No
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c. If yes, please list

8. What electronic communication technologies and devices do you own/use (e.g. laptop,
phone, etc.)? Check all that apply
a. Laptop
b. Smart phone
c. Tablet
d. Other: _________
9. Would you be willing to share additional information (posts, status updates, pictures,
tweets, etc.) about the online community and/or social network that you are a part of?
a. Yes
b. No
10. Would you be willing to participate in a follow-up interview to elaborate on your
responses and to discuss your thought on civics and digital media?
a. Yes
b. No

Thank you for your time. Your information will be very helpful to me in my research.

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Appendix D
Interview Protocol
I. Introduction

Aloha, my name is Clint Anderson and I am doing research to better understand the civic issues
are most important to native Hawaiian students. For our purposes, think of civic issues as: topics
in the community and extended community, which are of cultural, environmental, social,
political, and economic concern. This research study also aims to understand how digital media
technologies and social networking sites influence your civic thoughts and actions, if at all. The
results of this study will help school administrators to better use resources for programs that
support civic learning. Furthermore, the findings will also help teachers to create units and
lessons that use relevant digital media technologies, to address civic issues that are important to
all high school students.

II. Ask for permission to record the interview.

To facilitate my note taking, I would like to record our conversations today. I will be using a
digital recorder to document our discussion; is that okay with you?

III. Discuss issues of confidentiality and anonymity.

For your information, only researchers on the project, including me and my committee members,
will have knowledge of these recordings; and the actual recordings and corresponding transcripts
will be destroyed at the end of the study. Your verbal consent must be given for participation in
the study. Essentially verbal consent, acknowledges that: (1) all information will be held
confidential, (2) your participation is voluntary and you may stop at any time if you feel
uncomfortable, and (3) I do not intend to inflict any harm.

Because your identity will remain anonymous, is there a pseudonym, nickname, or alias that you
would prefer? (If you do not have one, a name/alias will be assigned to you.)

If yes, write preferred pseudonym/alias: ________________________________________

I have planned this interview to last no longer than one hour. During this time, I have several
questions that I would like to cover. If time begins to run short, it may be necessary to interrupt
you in order to push ahead and complete this line of questioning.

Would you like me to repeat or clarify any information? Do you have any questions for me?

IV. Obtain verbal confirmation

If you understood and agree to everything that I have said, please acknowledge verbally with a
“yes.”
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 219

Thank you again for agreeing to participate.

*Check Recording device; begin interview.

V. Interview Questions

General Demographic and Introductory Questions (If Necessary)

1. Lets start with some background information.
a. What is your age?
b. What is your current grade?
c. And your gender is ______________, correct?
d. What “offline” networks are you a part of (e.g. clubs, community associations,
church groups, etc.)?
e. What electronic technologies do you own/use (e.g. laptop, phone, etc.)?
f. Are you a part of any online community or social network (e.g. Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter, etc.)?

PROBES:
i. How often do you access this community/social network?
ii. Why do you spend time in this community/social network?

Questions Regarding Interactions and Experiences With Technology and Digital Media
In School Questions

2. Do you use technology and digital media in school?

PROBES:
a. How? Where? How often?

3. Do you use technology with other people at school?

PROBES:
a. With whom? Why? How?

4. Has your use of digital media and technology in school affected your involvement in your
local community in any way? Why or why not? Please explain.

Questions Regarding Student Interactions and Experiences With Technology and
Digital Media In “Affinity Spaces”

5. Where else do you use devices like your computer phone, and/or the Web? Why?

THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 220

6. What kinds of things do you do while online outside of school?

PROBES:
a. With whom? How often?

7. When you use a mobile device, what tasks do you use it for?

PROBES:
a. Pleasure / For fun / Relaxation / “Kill time”?
b. Learning?
c. Social purposes?

8. Has your use of digital media and technology outside of school affected your
involvement in your local community? Why or why not? Please explain.

Questions Regarding Issues of Civic Importance

9. Do you think there are civic issues that are more important to native Hawaiians, and to
the people of Hawaii?

PROBES:
a. Why are these issues important?

10. What civic issues are important to you in particular?

PROBES:
a. Why are these issues important to you?
b. Where do you get most of your information about local, national, and
international social, political, or economic issues?

11. Are there sources that have most influenced your thinking about civic issues? (Or: What
sources do you think most influence your peers thinking about civic issues?)

PROBES:
a. How specifically have they influenced your thoughts?
b. Describe an event or instance where you remember hearing, seeing, or reading
about a civic issue that you thought was important.

12. Are there sources that have most influenced you to take action on civic issues? (Or: What
sources do you think would influence your peers to take action on civic issues?)

PROBES:
a. What would (or does) move you to take action in support of a civic issue?
b. What do you think would influence your peers?
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 221

13. What do you think prevents you or your classmates from thinking about social or political
issues?

PROBES:
a. What entities, organizations, or specific people, or experiences present barriers?
b. What would you say is the biggest limiting factor?

14. Do you use social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to discuss or comment on any of these
civic issues? (Or: Do your peers use social media to discuss or comment on any of these
civic issues?)

PROBES:
a. Why or why not?
b. Did you/they initiate any of the statuses, tweets, etc.? Why?
c. Can you describe or summarize an issue of civic concern, and why you/they
commented or participated in the discussion, and your reaction to other comments
(if applicable)?
d. Was this experience positive and/or negative? Why?

15. [If applicable:] Would you be able to show me, or take a screenshot an instance where
you felt you were participating in civic engagement? (If yes, instruct participant to email
screenshot; or note description of SNS and post, to search for later.)

16. Would you be able to share your username(s) for the different types of social media that
you use? Again, any information that is found will be held in confidentiality.
If yes:
User name SNS
________________________ ________________________
________________________ ________________________
________________________ ________________________
________________________ ________________________
________________________ ________________________

VII. Closure, Thanks, and Follow-up

Thank you for your time. Your information will be very helpful to me in my research.
I also want you to know that I really enjoyed our conversation. Would it be okay if I contacted
you, if I should need clarification for any of your responses? Again, thank you very much.

THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 222

Appendix E
Researcher Field Notes / Document Analysis Sheet
Participant Psudoym: __________________________

Date of Data Colelction: __________________________

SNS Type: Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / Youtube / Tumblr / Other: ______________

Analysis of Expression

Date: ______________

Content: Image / Commentary / Video / Link

Type: Original Content / Shared / Recommended / Retweeted / Favorited / Liked

Number of likes generated: ________

Number of comments generated: ________

Goal/Objective/Reason for expression:

Observable Actions and Behaviors:

New Media Literacies: Play / Performance / Simulation / Appropriation / Multitasking /
Distributed Cognition / Collective Intelligence / Judgement /
Transmedia Navigation / Networking / Negotiation / Judgment

Additional analysis of content:

Memo:
THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 223

Appendix F
Additional Examples of Participant Screen Captures Coded for Civic Agency

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Appendix G
Additional Examples of Screen Captured Participant Facebook Cover Photos – 1st Tier

THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 225

Appendix H
Additional Examples of Participant Facebook Screen Captures – 2nd Tier

THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 226

Appendix I
Additional Examples of Participant Facebook Screen Captures – 3rd Tier

THE #REVOLUTION WILL BE LIKED 227

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Asset Metadata

Creator Anderson, Clint Kuahiwi Pasalo (author)

Core Title The #Revolution will be liked: an examination of civic expression among Hawaiian youth

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Education (Leadership)

Publication Date 11/24/2014

Defense Date 09/09/2014

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag civic agency,civic engagement,civics,Hawaiian youth,new media,OAI-PMH Harvest,participatory culture,social media

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Pascarella, John, III (committee chair), Martinez, Brandon (committee member), Slayton, Julie M. (committee member)

Creator Email clintand@usc.edu,clintkpanderson@yahoo.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-518743

Unique identifier UC11298639

Identifier etd-AndersonCl-3099.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-518743 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-AndersonCl-3099.pdf

Dmrecord 518743

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Anderson, Clint Kuahiwi Pasalo

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA