Youth culture in a digital world – Artikelen
Week 1
1) Chapter 2: Developmental Approaches to Understanding Media Effects on Individuals (Douglas A.
Gentile, et al.)
- In order to more fully understand media effects on children, it is first (1) necessary to dispel
some myths regarding media influences. Thus, we address some common beliefs regarding
media effects, and how these beliefs – though simple, persuasive, and sometimes partly true
– may actually hamper a fuller comprehension of how various media influence youth.
Following this discussion, (2) we describe two general approaches to development – one
based on normative developmental theory (the developmental tasks approach) and the
other focused on individual differences among children (the risk of resilience approach). We
will use these models as frameworks for understanding the intersection of media effects and
development.
- 1) Seven myths about media effects:
o 1A) Myth 1 = Media effects are simple and direct.
o 1B) Myth 2 = The effects of media violence are severe.
o 1C) Myth 3 = Media effects are obvious.
o 1D) Myth 4 = Violent media affect everyone in the same way.
o 1E) Myth 5 = Causally means “necessary and sufficient”.
o 1F) Myth 6 = Causality means immediacy.
o 1G) Myth 7 = Effects must be “big” to be important.
These persistent myths underscore the importance of thinking carefully about what the
effects of media violence on individuals may be. Two developmental theoretical
approaches show a great deal of promise for helping researchers to understand the effects of
media violence on children.
- 2) Two developmental theoretical approaches:
o 2A) Developmental tasks approach Masten and Braswell (1991, p. 13) define
developmental tasks in the following manner: “In developmental psychopathology,
adaptation is often defined in terms of developmental tasks … The basic idea is that
in order for a person to adapt, there are developmental challenges that must be met.
Some arise through biological maturation, others are imposed by families and
society, while others arise from the developing self.” A number of principles are
specific to a developmental task approach:
2A1) First, there is a hierarchy to these tasks. Different issues rise in
importance depending on the developmental level of the child.
2A2) Later tasks are contingent on the success with which earlier tasks were
negotiated. That is, any measure of competence is implicitly measuring
the totality of adaptation that occurred prior to that measurement.
2A3) Although current adaptation is predicated on prior adaptation, change
is still possible; future developmental progress is not determined of fixed as
a result of how earlier developmental tasks are organized.
2A4) Finally, while change is possible, it is constrained by prior adaptation:
The longer a child is on an adaptive pathway, the less likely it is that dire,
current circumstances can bump the child onto a maladaptive pathway.
Summary = The effects that violent (or other) media may have on children and
youth may be very different depending on the age of the child in question. As
children face different developmental tasks, media are likely to have a greater or
lesser effect depending on the specific issues that children are facing at that time.
, The developmental tasks approach helps to describe why children at different
developmental stages would be expected to be affected differently.
o 2B) A risk and resilience approach to development Another approach to viewing
development is via a risk and resilience perspective. As opposed to the normative
approach to the developmental tasks framework – every child is presumed to go
through these phases, each with varying degrees of ease – a risk and resilience
approach focuses on differential life experiences among children that may put them
at risk for future maladaptation (risk factors), and those factors that serve to
“protect” children from this risk exposure (protective factors). This approach is
likely to be useful to help explain why we may see greater effects of media violence
on some children than on others.
The risk and resilience approach helps to describe why children at any given age
could be affected the same way, but that one child would show the effects
behaviorally and another might not.
2) Chapter 4: Constructing Identity Online: Identity Exploration and Self-Presentation (K.
Subrahmanyam, et al.)
- Formulating a unified sense of self, in other words constructing a coherent and stable
identity, is an important adolescent developmental task, and the focus of this chapter.
Here we adopt Moshman’s definition, which summarizes the elements emphasized in the
most important theories, and which offers a framework for studying identity during
adolescence: “An identity is, at least in part, an explicity theory of oneself as a person”.
According to this view, one’s identity is a sophisticated conception of the self, one which
should help to answer questions such as “Who am I?”, “Where do I belong?”, and “Where
am I headed?”.
- Erikson, who was the first to draw attention to the notion of identity, viewed adolescence as
the period when individuals have to accomplish the task of constructing an identity of the
self or the ego identity. Creation of an ego identity represents the integration of existing
accumulated experience, skills, talents, and opportunities offered by various social roles into
one compact and complex identity of the individual. Erikson’s theory about identity was
subsequently elaborated by Marcia, who viewed identity as a process and developed an
approach to measure an adolescent’s identity status at any given point. For Marcia, the
concepts of exploration and commitment were key to identifying where an adolescent was in
his or her identity development: Exploration occurs when an adolescent is drawn into the
process of choice and decision making over the issues of relationships, religion, life style, or
occupation/jobs. It is a process of active search and discovery. In contrast, commitment is the
acceptance of a certain goal and life program, and entails an individual taking responsibility
for his or her life choices and actions. For Marcia, the presence and/or absence of the core
dimensions of exploration and commitment yielded the following 4 distinct states of identity
or identity statuses:
o 1) Foreclosed identity
o 2) Identity diffusion
o 3) Moratorium
o 4) Identity achievement
- Identity is a mult-dimensional construct and scholars have distinguished between different
aspects of identity, such as:
o 1) Personal identity Personal identity is based on self-assessment and self-
reflection.
o 2) Social identity Social identity is connected to feelings of inclusion or belonging
to one’s social context or social group.
, o 3) Gender identity Gender is important during adolescence and emering
adulthood: males and females often have verry different social roles and the identity
prrocess they undergo can vary according to these social roles.
o 4) Ethnic identity Ethnic identity is also constructed during adolescence and is
defined as “an enduring, fundamental aspect of the self that includes the sense of
membership in an ethnic grorup and the attitudes and feelings associated with that
membership”.
We will show that digital contexts can support youth as they construct their personal,
social, gender, and ethnic identities.
- As we noted earlier, construction of a stable and coherent identity requires exploration, and
for today’s adolescents, exploration can occur in both offline and online worlds. As we will
show in this section, online contexts offer plenty of opportunities for the questioning and
searching envisioned by Erikson and Marcia. We will describe the many different ways in
which identity constuction occurs online and show that it depends very much on the
particular tools and affordances of the online environment in question.
o 1) Tools for online self-presentation:
1A) Nicknames (usernames) In some online applications such as chat
rooms, discussion forums, or textual online games, identity is often
established through a nickname or username, which may convey information
about a user’s gender, sexual identity, as well as special interests.
1B) A/S/L Code In an effort to share basic facts about their identity in the
internet environment, young internet users have come up with creative
strategies. One such strategy that we found in our own research on online
teen chat rooms is the A/S/L (age/sex/location) slot filler code.
1C) Avatars Within computer games and complex virtual worlds, players’
online identities or personas are avatars, which are adjustable, motion-
enabled graphical representations.
1D) Photos and videos Photographs and videos can be used for online
self-presentation and are easy to upload in blogs, social networking profiles,
and other similar user-generated sites.
The preceding suggests that young people take advantage of the tools available
within a particular online context for exploration and self-presentation. From unique
chat codes, nicknames, and avatars to photographs and videos, adolescents take
advantage of online tools to quickly and easily reveal aspects of their self that they
wish to share with their online partners and peers.
o 2) Identity expression and self-presentation in blogs and homepages Blogs and
web pages present virtually constructed images of adolescent’s lives, their problems,
joys, and the issues with which they are dealing at the time. Here we describe two
studies: one one blogs and one on personal homepages, which have yielded a rich
but complicated picture of young people’s online identity construction. Both
studies show that teens’ use of technology in the service of identity occurs not for
the active identity experimentation suggested by Erikson, and popularized by Turkle,
but fors elf-expression and fors haring this information with peers. Like other aspects
of online behavior, adolescent’ identity expression in blogs and homepages may be
dependent on the context.
o 3) Identity expression and self-presentation in social networking sites Although
social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace seem to be primarily used for
connecting with peers, aspects of identity expression and presentation have been
found within them. From her interviews with 16 social networking site users, who
were 13- to 16-years old, Livingstone concluded that teens’ identity development
“seemed to be expressed in terms of decisions regarding the style or choice of site”.
Week 1
1) Chapter 2: Developmental Approaches to Understanding Media Effects on Individuals (Douglas A.
Gentile, et al.)
- In order to more fully understand media effects on children, it is first (1) necessary to dispel
some myths regarding media influences. Thus, we address some common beliefs regarding
media effects, and how these beliefs – though simple, persuasive, and sometimes partly true
– may actually hamper a fuller comprehension of how various media influence youth.
Following this discussion, (2) we describe two general approaches to development – one
based on normative developmental theory (the developmental tasks approach) and the
other focused on individual differences among children (the risk of resilience approach). We
will use these models as frameworks for understanding the intersection of media effects and
development.
- 1) Seven myths about media effects:
o 1A) Myth 1 = Media effects are simple and direct.
o 1B) Myth 2 = The effects of media violence are severe.
o 1C) Myth 3 = Media effects are obvious.
o 1D) Myth 4 = Violent media affect everyone in the same way.
o 1E) Myth 5 = Causally means “necessary and sufficient”.
o 1F) Myth 6 = Causality means immediacy.
o 1G) Myth 7 = Effects must be “big” to be important.
These persistent myths underscore the importance of thinking carefully about what the
effects of media violence on individuals may be. Two developmental theoretical
approaches show a great deal of promise for helping researchers to understand the effects of
media violence on children.
- 2) Two developmental theoretical approaches:
o 2A) Developmental tasks approach Masten and Braswell (1991, p. 13) define
developmental tasks in the following manner: “In developmental psychopathology,
adaptation is often defined in terms of developmental tasks … The basic idea is that
in order for a person to adapt, there are developmental challenges that must be met.
Some arise through biological maturation, others are imposed by families and
society, while others arise from the developing self.” A number of principles are
specific to a developmental task approach:
2A1) First, there is a hierarchy to these tasks. Different issues rise in
importance depending on the developmental level of the child.
2A2) Later tasks are contingent on the success with which earlier tasks were
negotiated. That is, any measure of competence is implicitly measuring
the totality of adaptation that occurred prior to that measurement.
2A3) Although current adaptation is predicated on prior adaptation, change
is still possible; future developmental progress is not determined of fixed as
a result of how earlier developmental tasks are organized.
2A4) Finally, while change is possible, it is constrained by prior adaptation:
The longer a child is on an adaptive pathway, the less likely it is that dire,
current circumstances can bump the child onto a maladaptive pathway.
Summary = The effects that violent (or other) media may have on children and
youth may be very different depending on the age of the child in question. As
children face different developmental tasks, media are likely to have a greater or
lesser effect depending on the specific issues that children are facing at that time.
, The developmental tasks approach helps to describe why children at different
developmental stages would be expected to be affected differently.
o 2B) A risk and resilience approach to development Another approach to viewing
development is via a risk and resilience perspective. As opposed to the normative
approach to the developmental tasks framework – every child is presumed to go
through these phases, each with varying degrees of ease – a risk and resilience
approach focuses on differential life experiences among children that may put them
at risk for future maladaptation (risk factors), and those factors that serve to
“protect” children from this risk exposure (protective factors). This approach is
likely to be useful to help explain why we may see greater effects of media violence
on some children than on others.
The risk and resilience approach helps to describe why children at any given age
could be affected the same way, but that one child would show the effects
behaviorally and another might not.
2) Chapter 4: Constructing Identity Online: Identity Exploration and Self-Presentation (K.
Subrahmanyam, et al.)
- Formulating a unified sense of self, in other words constructing a coherent and stable
identity, is an important adolescent developmental task, and the focus of this chapter.
Here we adopt Moshman’s definition, which summarizes the elements emphasized in the
most important theories, and which offers a framework for studying identity during
adolescence: “An identity is, at least in part, an explicity theory of oneself as a person”.
According to this view, one’s identity is a sophisticated conception of the self, one which
should help to answer questions such as “Who am I?”, “Where do I belong?”, and “Where
am I headed?”.
- Erikson, who was the first to draw attention to the notion of identity, viewed adolescence as
the period when individuals have to accomplish the task of constructing an identity of the
self or the ego identity. Creation of an ego identity represents the integration of existing
accumulated experience, skills, talents, and opportunities offered by various social roles into
one compact and complex identity of the individual. Erikson’s theory about identity was
subsequently elaborated by Marcia, who viewed identity as a process and developed an
approach to measure an adolescent’s identity status at any given point. For Marcia, the
concepts of exploration and commitment were key to identifying where an adolescent was in
his or her identity development: Exploration occurs when an adolescent is drawn into the
process of choice and decision making over the issues of relationships, religion, life style, or
occupation/jobs. It is a process of active search and discovery. In contrast, commitment is the
acceptance of a certain goal and life program, and entails an individual taking responsibility
for his or her life choices and actions. For Marcia, the presence and/or absence of the core
dimensions of exploration and commitment yielded the following 4 distinct states of identity
or identity statuses:
o 1) Foreclosed identity
o 2) Identity diffusion
o 3) Moratorium
o 4) Identity achievement
- Identity is a mult-dimensional construct and scholars have distinguished between different
aspects of identity, such as:
o 1) Personal identity Personal identity is based on self-assessment and self-
reflection.
o 2) Social identity Social identity is connected to feelings of inclusion or belonging
to one’s social context or social group.
, o 3) Gender identity Gender is important during adolescence and emering
adulthood: males and females often have verry different social roles and the identity
prrocess they undergo can vary according to these social roles.
o 4) Ethnic identity Ethnic identity is also constructed during adolescence and is
defined as “an enduring, fundamental aspect of the self that includes the sense of
membership in an ethnic grorup and the attitudes and feelings associated with that
membership”.
We will show that digital contexts can support youth as they construct their personal,
social, gender, and ethnic identities.
- As we noted earlier, construction of a stable and coherent identity requires exploration, and
for today’s adolescents, exploration can occur in both offline and online worlds. As we will
show in this section, online contexts offer plenty of opportunities for the questioning and
searching envisioned by Erikson and Marcia. We will describe the many different ways in
which identity constuction occurs online and show that it depends very much on the
particular tools and affordances of the online environment in question.
o 1) Tools for online self-presentation:
1A) Nicknames (usernames) In some online applications such as chat
rooms, discussion forums, or textual online games, identity is often
established through a nickname or username, which may convey information
about a user’s gender, sexual identity, as well as special interests.
1B) A/S/L Code In an effort to share basic facts about their identity in the
internet environment, young internet users have come up with creative
strategies. One such strategy that we found in our own research on online
teen chat rooms is the A/S/L (age/sex/location) slot filler code.
1C) Avatars Within computer games and complex virtual worlds, players’
online identities or personas are avatars, which are adjustable, motion-
enabled graphical representations.
1D) Photos and videos Photographs and videos can be used for online
self-presentation and are easy to upload in blogs, social networking profiles,
and other similar user-generated sites.
The preceding suggests that young people take advantage of the tools available
within a particular online context for exploration and self-presentation. From unique
chat codes, nicknames, and avatars to photographs and videos, adolescents take
advantage of online tools to quickly and easily reveal aspects of their self that they
wish to share with their online partners and peers.
o 2) Identity expression and self-presentation in blogs and homepages Blogs and
web pages present virtually constructed images of adolescent’s lives, their problems,
joys, and the issues with which they are dealing at the time. Here we describe two
studies: one one blogs and one on personal homepages, which have yielded a rich
but complicated picture of young people’s online identity construction. Both
studies show that teens’ use of technology in the service of identity occurs not for
the active identity experimentation suggested by Erikson, and popularized by Turkle,
but fors elf-expression and fors haring this information with peers. Like other aspects
of online behavior, adolescent’ identity expression in blogs and homepages may be
dependent on the context.
o 3) Identity expression and self-presentation in social networking sites Although
social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace seem to be primarily used for
connecting with peers, aspects of identity expression and presentation have been
found within them. From her interviews with 16 social networking site users, who
were 13- to 16-years old, Livingstone concluded that teens’ identity development
“seemed to be expressed in terms of decisions regarding the style or choice of site”.
