blog 11

Chapter 6 (p. 150 - 170)

“Participatory cultures work together to inform each other about the world and teach communication and organization skills. They help each other find their personal and collective voice…ultimately, these communities encourage conversations about social and political change” (p. 152).

Under what conditions do young people consider themselves political agents? When they can engage in “civic imagination.” (That is: )

a.       When they can feel empathy for others

b.      When they can imagine what a “better” world would look like

It is common among young activists to use “pop culture” references / language associated with pop culture / participatory culture to help advance their causes; often times, this is lost on adults.

Star Trek – a platform to discover representation and idealism? The idea that media (pop culture?) can influence how youth see and interpret the world; how it could inspire them to imagine the way a new one would (should) look. The images of diversity in programs like Star Trek reveal faults in our own reality.

Important to find your own voice as well as finding a collective voice that shares your opinion: “engagement with popular culture might inspire shifts in one’s political identity” (p. 154).

Early engagement actions often turn to activist habits (skills we learn in extracurricular settings that we carry over to our political endeavors).

Networked Power & DREAMer Movement

Mimi: the internet makes information and causes more accessible, but are people really participating (“engaging”) more? She does not think so. The issue of agency ownership arises, in which we do not take responsibility for the participation we contribute to. Issues like welfare and education – more personal and private responsibility and less support; EXAMPLE of Kickstarter. Everyday people need to take responsibility for/in public life? I think what she is saying here is that we need to stop separating the two as much?? Personal and private don’t have to be “either/or” situations.

Danah: (“communicate, coordinate, and advocate”) what kids desire, parents fear. Networked places are great or challenging status quo, but also awful for preserving it. Trying to prevent youth organization, this is not a new concept. Boarder protection, anti-terrorism and illegal immigration act of 2005 – meant for regulating illegal immigrants; treated them very poorly; teens organized against it through a walk-out in LA. The response to their involvement (as it often is) is the kids were admonished for their activism, because they were “throwing their education away” when their predecessors fought so hard to their right to get one. Adults are appalled by political indifference yet terrified of youth involvement. (Perhaps this has to do with fearing a different opinion?) Furthermore, this move was viewed less because of its traditionally political significance, and portrayed more as an act of laziness and vandalism.

Henry: DREAM – development relief education for alien minors; act 2001; conditional permanent residence to teens enrolled in h/s and had been in residence 5 years before bill pass. Effects of DREAMers: united cause, not message, as opposed to previous racially-based causes that were separated by race. Important aspect was for each DREAMer to tell their own story, not every story had to be the same.

The DREAMers were unsuccessful for a time, and began to work locally (in-state, not nationally) until Obama administration signed act much like DREAM. Youth activism helped sway Latino vote, which helped Obama get reelected:

“we see a significant change in public policy largely inspired by youth activism.”

Alternative Activism:

Today’s youth participates primarily online or through digital mediums, however, today’s youth has gotten creative with their protesting. Some of which way are quite different than the way previous generations used to participate. Instead of protests, some groups will boycott (BUYCOTT) a brand in protest instead.

“while participatory politics does raise hope for fostering a more democratic culture, it cannot in and of itself overcome structural inequalities that have historically blocked many form participating in civing and political life.” (161)

What Counts as Political Participation?

Mimi: “fighting the man” isn’t the only way to get involved.

“it is about youth mobilizing to create positive alternatives within existing power structures.” (162). /// not just “adult-guided politics or civics”. So I think here Mimi is saying that political involvement is not enough when it operates within the confines of what adults set before kids/ when kids react and interact with the politics of adults. But rather, there needs to be an inherent initiative on behalf of the youth. What Mimi calls “Big P Politics” (adult-centered) and “little p politics” (extracurricular forms of activism—organization—that develop civic capacity skills, like organizing fan conventions)

StarCraft community = StarCraft Without Borders to help raise money for Doctors Without Borders. Political and civil/ community service/ engagement that defies the traditional (adult) definition of the words.

Taking some kind of control/ practicing with some kind of authority helps youth establish a better foundation for activism than pushing them into voting booths when they’re older and have no experience.

Henry: student government is a shame/ farce of political activism, because students do not have any real power. The power they are given has no relevance to their everyday (school) lives. Young activists need to have a stake in their cause/consequences to be successful in pursuing something.

Danah: “lack any meaningful form of agency in their lives” (163)

“act out what adults say it means to be a leader rather than actually learning to lead” (164)

KNOWING when to lead and when to follow

Cultivating activists & the HP Alliance

Mimi: important that political groups aren’t too specialized, otherwise power is contained to only that community, and nowhere else. How to connect these movements to big p politics. Problem of transfer between different contexts. It is important that young activists see their efforts being connected to more adult-oriented areas.

Henry: civic imagination at work – hpa; take fantasy world, connect to real life events. Gives young activists a platform to do so.

Fan activism – using the fandom of choice to make changes to your world (usually having to do with representation?? Star Trek & the gay alien).

Identify problem

Identify decision-makers

Established a tactic

Educated others

Took Action

Steps for political campaign

Mimi: connecting domains takes skills and a network. Your results will only b as good as your tools.

Danah:  networks help “leverage skills effectively” “activism is cultivated”

Mimi: can the policies of the hpa be applied to other channels of political activism???????

blog 10

Ch 5

“web 2.0 and participatory culture” I know this chapter talks about commercialization of the web and all that, but this one paragraph really got me thinking. It’s pretty off topic, so I’m sorry; though Web 2.0 has increased the average individual’s ability to (a) become informed about a particular cause and (b) become “involved” in one, I think that digitized participatory culture is weaker than its non-digital predecessor. Why do I say this? It is not because of recognition, because the digital era has made is impossibly easy for any cause to gain momentum and awareness. But what about web 2.0 and results? In today’s society, it is very easy to express support and align yourself with any given movement. But how much further does the average person pursue the endeavor? We can throw around as many hashtags as we like, but how likely are we to get physically involved? How likely are we to go to a rally, a protest, a sponsored event, a charity drive for our cause? In my opinion, I do not think it is very likely at all. Especially compared to earlier generations, whose only choice was to physically get up and do something for their cause. Now we can send out a tweet or change our Facebook picture and bam, we’ve participated. This type of participatory culture seems to cultivate false or shallow participation—participation that does not really mean anything. It is participation that is only for show. It is more performance art than anything, in my opinion.

“pointed to the crash as proof…the web was just a fad” I can’t imagine that anyone could believe that the web was just a “fad.” I really want to know where those reporters are now and ask them what they were thinking, considering how the internet is so omnipresent now. We practically set a plate for it at the dinner table. Also, I don’t really understand what danah means when she thinks we’re repeating this cycle. What cycle does she mean? If she’s speaking about the web and commercialization, I don’t agree; we had to create entire programs (ad blockers) in order to protect ourselves from being bombarded with advertisements (and advertisers are still finding ways to get to us), so I don’t think that aspect of the web is failing. And I know nobody thinks the web is going anywhere. So I’m not sure what she’s getting at here. Unless I missed something?

I never realized there are no ads on Wikipedia. It is true though that Wikipedia does, essentially, beg users for money. I remember the first time I saw it, I was shocked and appalled and worried about Wikipedia’s continued existence. (Which, as danah points out, was basically their goal.) Sure, I can’t use it as a source for my next research paper, but I use Wikipedia a lot in my personal, everyday life. It’s a good place to get some moderately detailed information about something you don’t know anything about—it’s perfect for beginners, no matter what the topic is. I thin, having a consistent online presence like that is important, especially in a time when you’re automatically skeptical of a sources validity (inversely of pre-digital eras?).

I like the idea that the public at large is taking advantage of the industry (whichever one that may be) instead of the industry exploiting us. It is true that fans and consumers always manage to either find or create loopholes that enable them to get free content or alter existing content in some way. Honestly, people who do this are my heroes. The level of dedication (to learning how to modify), skill and ingenuity really blow my mind. An example that I think most of us can relate to: people who mod GTA games. Some of the mods I have seen are absolutely hysterical and when I see these mods and I know that I never would have thought of that myself:

Like what is the purpose of creating such content? There really isn't one, I suppose, but I guess that's also what make sit fun to do. 

I also think that filing every creative endeavor under the term “labor” creates a bad mentality about putting effort into things (the question of “worth” as danah says). On one hand, you have people who will probably try to take advantage of that and try to pass everything they do off as “labor” (which just screams “extortion” to me); on the other, I feel there would be people who wouldn’t want to do anything creative because they’d start to feel guilty or ripped off for not charging to do something, even if it’s something they love doing (which is too capitalistic of a mindset I think). Example: I like to make my friends mixed audio cd’s for their cars. Should I be charging for this, since I use my own resources and put in a lot of creative “labor”? Interesting how the idea that “free access” to something is somewhat scandalous now (danah and her blog). And how, if we don’t try to monopolize on literally everything we do—if we’re not cinstantly trying to eek out a penny from every single effort—we’re stupid, we don’t value ourselves and we’re degrading our own work. 

(Isn't everything done for political interest?) The topic of government in digitized areas honestly gives me anxiety issues. I think the internet is the final frontier in terms of the "unknown" (forgetting the ocean, because there is some scary looking stuff in there that I don't want any part of), and whenever politicians try to regulate the internet, I can't help but think "there goes the last of our freedom." (I'm not sure how that comes across to you guys though.)

blog 9

"Innovation comes with a cost and consumption"

In addition to content being so diverse, there's also stylistic variations as far as speaking patterns goes while vlogging.

When vloggers first became popular, I remember it would take a bit of time for them to respond to news-worthy events (if at all).

I don't agree that time-restrained videos such as Snapchat or Vine are in the same category as vlogging.

The MTV debate. Honestly, this one is so dense, yet it can be simplified to the issue of "sink or swim," in my opinion. The MTV issue mainly resulted due to music piracy issues. There's actually a pretty funny video that also discusses this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ysyZF-DZFY (which I will also tweet). This was honestly an eye-opener for me because the generation that "ruined" MTV referenced in the video is my generation. And it is true that I am guilty of pirating music (I think I have mentioned this in an earlier blog; I used Limewire when I was 11). So when he says this, I feel like I am personally responsible for single-handedly destroying an entire channel's worth of programming. (Not at all dramatic.)

18 months sounds like a fair amount of time. And it is interesting to think that this can apply to non-technical avenues. Which i also agree with.

"Innovation comes with a cost and consumption"

blog 8

“Networked Era” CH 1

Reading about Mimi and danah’s experiences with participatory culture is really surreal, because, though I am significantly younger, I too can remember the beginnings of “widespread internet” use. I know older generations tend to make fun of the Millennials for being “obsessed” with technology, and I’m not trying to sound elitist or anything here, but I am so happy to have been born when I was. My generation—the 90’s babies—was the last generation to not be completely surrounded (not going to say “dependent”) by technology since birth. (Although, any kind of human / tool advancement could technically be considered “new technology”, so maybe we aren’t the last after all?) So when danah says “I can’t even remember what San Francisco was like a few years ago,” I relate perfectly. I remember (as I’m sure all of you do too) what it was like to have very little internet / digital networks, then some very limited/ buggy ones, and then suddenly we had all of it, finely tuned and ready to go. And it is a very strange feeling. But at the same time, learning about the emerging digital nuances is so engrained in my childhood, it just felt like any other milestone: the first day of school, losing a tooth, using the internet.

On Mimi’s point about “barriers of entry” for “in groups”—does having this “bar” not make the group more enriched? Perhaps, in cases of participation, a standard is helpful in making the participation more meaningful? I understand that the whole idea of participatory culture is that every contribution matters, however, I’m sure we all know someone on some digital setting whose keyboard should be taken away and should just never be allowed to log in ever again. Then again, maybe the lack of meaningful contribution makes the surrounding contributors stronger? Perhaps it is a sort of digital Darwinism, where we see the errors associated with certain thinking / behaviors, and we learn to overcome these, lest we be associated with the “problematic” users? Though danah touches on this when she says participation requires a set of skills (not simply posting any old thing), but perhaps this has more to do with Mimi’s point about participatory “status” and user “differentiation.”  

The idea that participatory culture is explicitly “capitalistic” is laughable to me, because literally anything could be capitalistic, if the right people realize money can be made from it. That’s just what capitalism does. The point isn’t to be so “against the man” that we stop what we’re doing once we gain traction. Although that’s something I see very often—a popular cause or group gets too much recognition, and suddenly the movement dies, and the people disperse to other, lower key, endeavors. 

I really like that Henry included the clarification that just because a community is participating, doesn’t automatically mean the community is positive/ beneficial. It has been a long while since I’ve seen or heard of anything “pro-ana,” but I understand exactly what he means when he says they’ve met the criteria for a participatory culture. All this time, I have been thinking of participatory cultures as inherently positive, associating them primarily with social current movements; it never occurred to me that a participatory culture could be negative, although I have seen it many, many times (especially in earlier years, like 2010/ 2011).

I don’t agree with idea that the network created by the individual is narcissistic. A narcissistic network, to me, would be something like Instagram. There, the primary goal is to post pictures of yourself or whatever you see fit, and get as many people to applaud you on it (aka, like the picture). Even though you choose who to follow, you still worry mostly about your own posts than someone else’s. That is narcissism to me (despite talking about selfie culture and self-representation, as I don’t believe the general public is thinking that deeply into their selfies. Honestly, selfies are just things most people do thoughtlessly/ because they’re expected to).  So when the authors (especially danah) say a self-determined feed/ network is narcissistic, I can’t help but disagree. I think it has way more to do with self-expression and self-identification than the authors think.