Sonia Livingstone

Julian Sefton-Green

Living and Learning in the Digital Age

The Class

Kirsten Drotner

This essential volume brings together the work of internationally-renowned researchers, each experts in their field, in order to capture the diversity of children and young people's media cultures around the world. Why are the media such a crucial part of children's daily lives? Are they becoming more important, more influential, and in what ways? Or does a historical perspective reveal how past media have long framed children's cultural horizons or, perhaps, how families - however constituted - have long shaped the ways children relate to media? In addressing such questions, the contributors present detailed empirical cases to uncover how children weave together diverse forms and technologies to create a rich symbolic tapestry which, in turn, shapes their social relationships. At the same time, many concerns - even public panics - arise regarding children's engagement with media, leading the contributors also to inquire into the risky or problematic aspects of today's highly mediated world. Deliberately selected to represent as many parts of the globe as possible, and with a commitment to recognizing both the similarities and differences in children and young people's lives - from China to Denmark, from Canada to India, from Japan to Iceland, from - the authors offer a rich contextualization of children's engagement with their particular media and communication environment, while also pursuing cross-cutting themes in terms of comparative and global trends. Each chapter provides a clear orientation for new readers to the main debates and core issues addressed, combined with a depth of analysis and argumentation to stimulate the thinking of advanced students and established scholars. Since children and young people are a focus of study across different disciplines, the volume is thoroughly multi-disciplinary. Yet since children and young people are all too easily neglected by these same disciplines, this volume hopes to accord their interests and concerns they surely merit.

International Handbook of Children, Media and Culture

John Coleman

Chris Davies

This book examines the presence and effects of new technologies in the lives of young people. The rapid pace of change in the development and use of digital technologies, and the likely impact this has on youth, means that the topic has wide implications for educational institutions, theory and practice. There is a demand for a concentration on the ways in which new devices such as smart phones and tablets, as well as new platforms and recent notions such as the ‘flipped classroom’, are affecting the way education is being provided. However, there is also still a small minority who do not have full access to the internet, and the disadvantages suffered by this group must also be addressed. The internet offers a vast range of opportunities for young people, and yet for various reasons it is not always available. This can partly be attributed to the controls that schools impose on the use of digital technology, for reasons of safety and security, and can in part be explained by the fact that policy makers have contradictory attitudes to technology. While they may argue for the need to have a well-educated and well-trained workforce, they fear the threats to privacy and safety posed by the internet. This book asserts that society needs to have more open debate about the threats and opportunities of digital technology as it is a dynamic and ever-changing topic for us all. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Oxford Review of Education.

Digital Technologies in the Lives of Young People

Alicia Blum-Ross

"In the decades it takes to bring up a child, parents face challenges that are both helped and hindered by the fact that they are living through a period of unprecedented digital innovation. Drawing on extensive research with diverse parents, this book reveals how digital technologies give personal and political parenting struggles a distinctive character, as parents determine how to forge new territory with little precedent, or support. The book reveals the pincer movement of parenting in late modernity. Parents are both more burdened with responsibilities and charged with respecting the agency of their child-leaving much to negotiate in today's "democratic" families. The book charts how parents now often enact authority and values through digital technologies-as "screen time," games, or social media become ways of both being together and setting boundaries. The authors show how digital technologies introduce both valued opportunities and new sources of risk. To light their way, parents comb through the hazy memories of their own childhoods and look toward varied imagined futures. This results in deeply diverse parenting in the present, as parents move between embracing, resisting, or balancing the role of technology in their own and their children's lives. This book moves beyond the panicky headlines to offer a deeply researched exploration of what it means to parent in a period of significant social and technological change. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative research in the United Kingdom, the book offers conclusions and insights relevant to parents, policymakers, educators, and researchers everywhere"--

How Hopes and Fears about Technology Shape Children's Lives

Parenting for a Digital Future

An intimate look at how children network, identify, learn and grow in a connected world. Read Online at connectedyouth.nyupress.org Do today’s youth have more opportunities than their parents? As they build their own social and digital networks, does that offer new routes to learning and friendship? How do they navigate the meaning of education in a digitally connected but fiercely competitive, highly individualized world? Based upon fieldwork at an ordinary London school, The Class examines young people's experiences of growing up and learning in a digital world. In this original and engaging study, Livingstone and Sefton-Green explore youth values, teenagers’ perspectives on their futures, and their tactics for facing the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. The authors follow the students as they move across their different social worlds—in school, at home, and with their friends, engaging in a range of activities from video games to drama clubs and music lessons. By portraying the texture of the students’ everyday lives, The Class seeks to understand how the structures of social class and cultural capital shape the development of personal interests, relationships and autonomy. Providing insights into how young people’s social, digital, and learning networks enable or disempower them, Livingstone and Sefton-Green reveal that the experience of disconnections and blocked pathways is often more common than that of connections and new opportunities.

Richard Butsch

In today’s thoroughly mediated societies people spend many hours in the role of audiences, while powerful organizations, including governments, corporations and schools, reach people via the media. Consequently, how people think about, and organizations treat, audiences has considerable significance. This ground-breaking collection offers original, empirical studies of discourses about audiences by bringing together a genuinely international range of work. With essays on audiences in ancient Greece, early modern Germany, Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, Zimbabwe, contemporary Egypt, Bengali India, China, Taiwan, and immigrant diaspora in Belgium, each chapter examines the ways in which audiences are embedded in discourses of power, representation, and regulation in different yet overlapping ways according to specific socio-historical contexts. Suitable for both undergraduate and postgraduate students, this book is a valuable and original contribution to media and communication studies. It will be particularly useful to those studying audiences and international media.

Comparative Discourses

Meanings of Audiences

Peter Lunt

"An exemplary study of how media regulation works (and, by implication, how it could work better) set within a wider discussion of democratic theory and political values. It will be of interest not only to students and scholars but to people around the world grappling with the same problem: the need to regulate markets, and the difficulty of doing this well." - James Curran, Goldsmiths, University of London In Media Regulation, two leading scholars of the media examine the challenges of regulation in the global mediated sphere. This book explores the way that regulation affects the relations between government, the media and communications market, civil society, citizens and consumers. Drawing on theories of governance and the public sphere, the book critically analyzes issues at the heart of today's media, from the saturation of advertising to burdens on individuals to control their own media literacy. Peter Lunt and Sonia Livingstone incisively lay bare shifts in governance and the new role of the public sphere which implicate self-regulation, the public interest, the role of civil society and the changing risks and opportunities for citizens and consumers. It is essential reading to understand the forces that are reshaping the media landscape.

Governance and the Interests of Citizens and Consumers

Media Regulation

Not only is everyday conversation increasingly dependent on television, but more and more people are appearing on television to discuss social and personal issues. Is any public good served by these programmes or are they simply trashy entertainment which fills the schedules cheaply? Talk on Television examines the value and significance of televised public debate. Analysing a wide range of programmes including Kilroy, Donohue and The Oprah Winfrey Show, the authors draw on interviews with both the studio participants and with those watching at home. They ask how the media manage discussion programmes and whether the programmes really are providing new 'spaces' for public participators. They find out how audiences interpret the programmes when they appear on the screen themselves, and they unravel the conventions - debate, romance, therapy - which make up the genre. They also consider TV's function as a medium of education and information, finally discussing the dangers and opportunities the genre holds for audience participation and public debate in the future.

Audience Participation and Public Debate

Talk on Television

Leah A Lievrouw

Praise for the First Edition: "A landmark volume that provides a foundation stone for a new subject - the study of new media. It is stunningly well-edited, offering a very high standard of original contributions in a skilfully orchestrated and organised textbook." - James Curran, Goldsmiths, University of London "The first major review of interactive technologies and their cultural and social context. This is more than a welcome addition to one's library; it is the authoritative overview of international research perspectives on interactive media technologies by leading scholars around the world." - Ellen Wartella, University of Texas, Austin "A landmark for the study of information and communication technologies within the field of communication. Its international team of editors and authors has brought together insights gained from over two decades of scholarly research. This indispensable reference demonstrates an increased maturity and stature for "new media" research within the field." - William H Dutton, University of Southern California "A truly comprehensive and authoritative volume. This Handbook will be an absolutely essential text for anyone concerned with social aspects of the new media." - Kevin Robins, Goldsmiths, University of London Thoroughly revised and updated, this Student Edition of the successful Handbook of New Media has been abridged to showcase the best of the hardback edition. It stakes out the boundaries of new media research and scholarship and provides a definitive statement of the current state of the field. Features new to the student edition include: Improved organization of material to make it more accessible for students and easier to incorporate into course design An introduction by the editors, which clearly lays out the main themes in new media studies as well as providing instructors with a guide to how to get the most out of the handbook in the classroom All chapters are updated to combine classic studies and background material with latest developments in the field. The first edition of the Handbook immediately established itself as the central reference work in the field. This new revised edition offers students the most comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to the area.

Student Edition

Handbook of New Media

Do today’s youth have more opportunities than their parents? As they build their own social and digital networks, does that offer new routes to learning and friendship? How do they navigate the meaning of education in a digitally connected but fiercely competitive, highly individualized world? Based upon fieldwork at an ordinary London school, The Class examines young people's experiences of growing up and learning in a digital world. In this original and engaging study, Livingstone and Sefton-Green explore youth values, teenagers’ perspectives on their futures, and their tactics for facing the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. The authors follow the students as they move across their different social worlds—in school, at home, and with their friends, engaging in a range of activities from video games to drama clubs and music lessons. By portraying the texture of the students’ everyday lives, The Class seeks to understand how the structures of social class and cultural capital shape the development of personal interests, relationships and autonomy. Providing insights into how young people’s social, digital, and learning networks enable or disempower them, Livingstone and Sefton-Green reveal that the experience of disconnections and blocked pathways is often more common than that of connections and new opportunities.

Taking the soap opera as a case study, this book explores the 'parasocial interaction' people engage in with television programmes. It looks at the nature of the 'active viewer' and the role of the text in social psychology. It also investigates the existing theoretical models offered by social psychology and other discourses. This second edition takes into account recent research work and theoretical developments in fields such as narrative psychology, social representation theory and ethnographic work on audiences, and look forward to the developing role of audience research. It will be an essential study for students and lecturers in social psychology and media studies.

The Psychology of Audience Interpretation

Making Sense of Television

Is the internet really transforming children and young people’s lives? Is the so-called ‘digital generation’ genuinely benefiting from exciting new opportunities? And, worryingly, facing new risks? This major new book by a leading researcher addresses these pressing questions. It deliberately avoids a techno-celebratory approach and, instead, interprets children’s everyday practices of internet use in relation to the complex and changing historical and cultural conditions of childhood in late modernity. Uniquely, Children and the Internet reveals the complex dynamic between online opportunities and online risks, exploring this in relation to much debated issues such as: Digital in/exclusion Learning and literacy Peer networking and privacy Civic participation Risk and harm Drawing on current theories of identity, development, education and participation, this book includes a refreshingly critical account of the challenging realities undermining the great expectations held out for the internet - from governments, teachers, parents and children themselves. It concludes with a forward-looking framework for policy and regulation designed to advance children’s rights to expression, connection and play online as well as offline.

Sonia Livingstone

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