Guest editorial: Beyond digital youth: understanding, supporting, and designing for young people’s digital experiences
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ILS-07-2022-264 |
| Published date | 15 August 2022 |
| Date | 15 August 2022 |
| Pages | 317-329 |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Librarianship/library management,Library & information services |
| Author | Katie Davis,Mega Subramaniam |
Guest editorial: Beyond digital
youth: understanding, supporting,
and designing for young people’s
digital experiences
In 2006, the MacArthur Foundation launched a $50m initiative to help determine how
digital media [1] are changing the way young people learn, play, socialize and participate
in civic life. The research that resulted from this initiative provided foundational insight
into the complex interweaving of young people’s digital and nondigital experiences, and
pointed to impacts on youth’s relationships, learning and sense of self, among other
experiences (Ito et al., 2010; James et al., 2009; Jenkins, 2009). Examp les of such influential
work include:
The Digital Youth Project, led by Mizuko Ito, Peter Lyman, Michael Carter and
Barrie Thorne, which introduced us to the concept of HOMAGO (hanging out,
messing around and geeking out), a framework for understanding young people’s
informal learning through online activities, and the progressively sophisticated and
involved forms of participation they move through (Ito et al., 2009,2010).
Henry Jenkins’Project New Media Literacies, which defined a set of cultural
competencies and social skills, such as transmedia navigation, distributed cognition
and appropriation, that young people need to navigate the new media landscape
successfully (Jenkins, 2009).
The Digital Youth Network, led by Nichole Pinkard, which has worked with a
variety of educational and community-based organizations to understand and
support Chicago youth in learning digital media skills and new media literacies
(Barron et al., 2014;Pinkard et al., 2008).
The Quest to Learn public middle and high school in New York City, which was
designed by a team led by Katie Salen Tekinbas and based on a pedagogical
approach to learning called game-like learning. Game-like learning places children’s
interests and expertise at the center of their learning experiences (Barab et al., 2005;
Squire, 2011;Tekinbas et al., 2010).
The GoodPlay Project, led by Howard Gardner and Carrie James, which explored
the moral and ethical dimensions of young people’s networked experiences in the
areas of identity, privacy, ownership and authorship, credibility and participation
(James et al., 2009).
The Connected Learning Research Network, led by Mizuko Ito, which introduced
the connected learning framework and highlighted the value of using networked
technologies to support meaningful connections across young people’s learning
ecologies, as well as the persistent inequities in how these networked opportunities
are distributed in society (Ito et al., 2013,2020).
The Youth and Participatory Politics Research Network, led by Joseph Kahne,
which identified and described the new forms of political and civic engagement
enabled by networked technologies (Cohen and Kahne, 2011;Kahne et al., 2015).
Guest editorial
317
Informationand Learning
Sciences
Vol.123 No. 7/8, 2022
pp. 317-329
© Emerald Publishing Limited
2398-5348
DOI 10.1108/ILS-07-2022-264
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