Combining a comprehensive literature review with original empirical research on young people′s use of new media, this book provides a fresh and in-depth discussion of the increasingly complex relationship between the media and childhood, the family and the home. We can no longer imagine our daily lives without media and communication technologies. At the start of the 21st century, the home is being transformed into the site of a multimedia culture. This book looks at the discussions around the potential benefits of this new media and asks: What impact are the new media having on childhood and adolescence? Are these technologies changing the nature of young people′s leisure and sociability? and has the participation of children in private and public life changed?

Computer games, the Internet, and other new communications media are often seen to pose threats and dangers to young people, but they also provide new opportunities for creativity and self-determination. As we start to look beyond the immediate hopes and fears that new technologies often provoke, there is a growing need for in-depth empirical research. Digital Generations presents a range of exciting and challenging new work on children, young people, and new digital media. The book is organized around four key themes: Play and Gaming, The Internet, Identities and Communities Online, and Learning and Education. The book brings together researchers from a range of academic disciplines – including media and cultural studies, anthropology, sociology, psychology and education – and will be of interest to a wide readership of researchers, students, practitioners in digital media, and educators.

This book examines youth media practices on social media, introducing the concept of connective journalism as a precursor to collective political action.

Social networking, blogging, vlogging, gaming, instant messaging, downloading music and other content, uploading and sharing their own creative work: these activities made possible by the new digital media are rich with opportunities and risks for young people. This report, part of the GoodPlay Project, undertaken by researchers at Harvard Graduate School of Education's Project Zero, investigates the ethical fault lines of such digital pursuits. The authors argue that five key issues are at stake in the new media: identity, privacy, ownership and authorship, credibility, and participation. Drawing on evidence from informant interviews, emerging scholarship on new media, and theoretical insights from psychology, sociology, political science, and cultural studies, the report explores the ways in which youth may be redefining these concepts as they engage with new digital media. The authors propose a model of "good play" that involves the unique affordances of the new digital media; related technical and new media literacies; cognitive and moral development and values; online and offline peer culture; and ethical supports, including the absence or presence of adult mentors and relevant educational curricula. This proposed model for ethical play sets the stage for the next part of the GoodPlay project, an empirical study that will invite young people to share their stories of engagement with the new digital media. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and Learning

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.tandfebooks.com/doi/view/10.4324/9781351026987, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. The pervasiveness of social media in young people’s lives is widely acknowledged, yet there is little evidence-based understanding of the impacts of social media on young people’s health and wellbeing. Young People, Social Media and Health draws on novel research to understand, explain, and illustrate young people’s experiences of engagement with health-related social media; as well as the impacts they report on their health, wellbeing, and physical activity. Using empirical case studies, digital representations, and evidence from multi-sector and interdisciplinary stakeholders and academics, this volume identifies the opportunities and risk-related impacts of social media. Offering new theoretical insights and practical guidelines for educators, practitioners, parents/guardians, and policy makers; Young People, Social Media and Health will also appeal to students and researchers interested in fields such as Sociology of Sport, Youth Sports Development, Secondary Physical Education, and Media Effects.

How young people think about the moral and ethical dilemmas they encounter when they share and use online content and participate in online communities. Fresh from a party, a teen posts a photo on Facebook of a friend drinking a beer. A college student repurposes an article from Wikipedia for a paper. A group of players in a multiplayer online game routinely cheat new players by selling them worthless virtual accessories for high prices. In Disconnected, Carrie James examines how young people and the adults in their lives think about these sorts of online dilemmas, describing ethical blind spots and disconnects. Drawing on extensive interviews with young people between the ages of 10 and 25, James describes the nature of their thinking about privacy, property, and participation online. She identifies three ways that young people approach online activities. A teen might practice self-focused thinking, concerned mostly about consequences for herself; moral thinking, concerned about the consequences for people he knows; or ethical thinking, concerned about unknown individuals and larger communities. James finds, among other things, that youth are often blind to moral or ethical concerns about privacy; that attitudes toward property range from “what's theirs is theirs” to “free for all”; that hostile speech can be met with a belief that online content is “just a joke”; and that adults who are consulted about such dilemmas often emphasize personal safety issues over online ethics and citizenship. Considering ways to address the digital ethics gap, James offers a vision of conscientious connectivity, which involves ethical thinking skills but, perhaps more important, is marked by sensitivity to the dilemmas posed by online life, a motivation to wrestle with them, and a sense of moral agency that supports socially positive online actions.

When societies worry about media effects, why do they focus so much on young people? Is advertising to blame for binge drinking? Do films and video games inspire school shootings? Tackling these kinds of questions, Youth and Media explains why young people are at the centre of how we understand the media. Exploring key issues in politics, technology, celebrity, advertising, gender and globalization, Andy Ruddock offers a fascinating introduction to how media define the identities and social imaginations of young people. The result is a systematic guide to how the notion of media influence ′works′ when daily life compels young people to act out their relationships through media content and technologies. Complete with helpful chapter guides, summaries and lively case studies drawn from a truly global context, Youth and Media is an engaging and accessible introduction to how the media shape our lives. This book is ideal for students of media studies, communication studies and sociology.