Kids Living and Learning With New Media

Tim SpragueCMS 298

Hanging Out, Messing Around and Geeking Out

Chapter 7 : Work

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Work, Youth, and New Media

In the United States youth are largely shut out from the primary labor market (p 296)

Activities such as “helping” at home or in class often are not counted as work, although they are clearly productive labor (p297)

New media learning is validated by the by the expectation it will translate to job relevant skills in the future.(p 298)

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Work, Youth, and New Media

Lower income youth more typically take a pathway that “leads directly from high intensity high school employment to full time adult employment.(p298)

Privileged homes take new technology for granted, integrating computer use seamlessly into their everyday routines and domestic spaces.(p298)

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Work, Youth, and New Media Digital and networked media have

opened up 0pportunities for economic activity for young people that are not part of the existing ghettoes of youth labor, but rather involve young people’s mobilizing and hustling to market their new media skills in a more entrepreneurial vein.(p299)

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Work, Youth, and New Media

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Training

Training = fun + digital media = new economy

Affords upward mobility to less privileged families

Taken seriously, new media will help students with their studies

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Training Continued

• Some teachers report that new media production classes are considered a way to keep kids busy

• Youth media programs navigate a complicated balance, using media production as a form of remedial classroom work as well as at times framing the programs as vocational training (p307)

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Entrepreneurism

Historically, technology has been an area where

kids traditionally spent money, now with the

almost seamless transition between recreational

media and potential money making avenues, young

people are recognizing value in terms of dollars, that

this former pastime represents

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Publishing and DistributionAnime: a style of animation originating in Japan that is characterized by stark colorful graphics depicting vibrant characters in action filled plots often with fantastic or futuristic themes

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Publishing and Distribution Cont.

• While the vast majority of these efforts are not oriented toward immediate gain, some of the more entrepreneurial young creators are reaping economic benefits from their creative work (p310)• Online revenue is obtained by either selling advertising space or

by selling their actual end product

• Mizuko Ito quoting Mahiri et al reports that, “artists can often feel conflicting loyalties over whether they are pursuing their craft for the love of the work or for economic goals.” (p310)

• Anime sales in North America in 2010 totaled approximately $180 million. Needless to say Anime is a lucrative business

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Freelancing

• Todays connected youth realize the magnitude of their skills, often used initially to help friends and family

• Kids eventually become aware of the fact that their skills are marketable, not just a social phenomenon

• The strategy then is to evolve from hobby to money making career

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Enterprises

New media, online distribution, and auction sites such as eBay have expanded the potential for entrepreneurial activity that relies on digital media for buying and selling goods (p319)

Opportunity

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Enterprises Cont.

Katynka Z. Martinez’s study make many important observations the most important is her conclusion , ” It is unknown whether, asAdults, they will be able to find employment opportunities andContinue to establish new forms of social organization that holdOn to the same inquisitive spirit that drew them to games andComputers in the first place.” (p323)

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Nonmarket Work

• Amateur and nonmarket activities historically have been a place for middle-class and elite kids to “practice” work, develop creative talents, and gain experience in self actual- ization and responsible work (p323)

• Children in working class and poor families engage in fewer of these kinds of activities, and they are often expected to perform much more domestic work (p324)

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Nonmarket Peer Production

• Fan subbing: amateur Amine subtitlers who translate and subtitle anime and release it through Internet distribution

• No Compensation

• Fansubbers do their work for “fellow fans” and for the pleasure of working with other like-minded members

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Conclusion

This study of socioeconomic groups in the new digital age, sheds lite on the workings and strategies of cultural clansIn various settings. The middle class and elitists describedIn chapter 7 take their digital circumstances almost for granted,While the poor and less fortunate alliances are aware of theirDisadvantaged economic conditions and strive to take advantageOf the few opportunities that are present

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Reference

Ito, M., Baumer, S., Bittani, M., Cody, R., Herr-Stephenson, , Horst, H. A., & Tripp, L. (2010). Hanging out, messing around, and geeking out; kids living and learning with new media. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Retrieved from http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/hanging-out- messing-around-and-geeking-out