Worried About the Wrong Things Read online

  The opening three examples in this introduction contribute to a discourse of fear and risk that is all too familiar by now. Such cautionary tales about predators, sexting, bullying, pornography, and suicide affect the ways we think about technology and youth. A focus on the negative and harmful ways teens use and are affected by technology has fueled a moral panic about technology. While such a panic cannot be solely blamed on media representations and descriptions of teens and technology, as a media scholar I am particularly interested in the role of media in shaping our understandings of cultural phenomena and populations. Media play an integral and inextricable role in shaping our understandings of risk—understandings that, in turn, shape our expectations of youth and technology. Thus, one of the central questions of this book is “How do expectations of youth, technology, and risk shape policies, practices, and lived experiences?” A second central question is “By focusing on the loudest and most visible risks, what are we overlooking in terms of risk and opportunity?” (In other words, “What else should we be worried about?”)

  I approach these questions from multiple levels in order to gain both a “big picture” understanding of risk and a localized and contextualized understanding of how expectations shape the everyday “lived experiences” of actual youth (Bloustein 2003). As I will explain further, I do this through an analysis of popular culture, journalism, and policies—all of which are spaces and institutions that symbiotically construct and reflect discourses of risk, and therefore have power to shape our expectations of youth and technology. I also aim to answer these questions through extensive ethnographic research with high school students in Texas. A majority of the students who were subjects of my research are marginalized because of income, ethnicity, and/or immigration status. Many of the teens mentioned in this book are involved in after-school digital media and film clubs, and that involvement provides insight into their digital media practices and values. Combining discursive analysis of popular culture, news media, and policy with the ethnographic data about teens’ lived experiences allows me to analyze the real-life implications that risk discourses have on the lives of actual young people. I demonstrate that how we talk about risks—whose anxieties are given a voice, whose stories are told, whose stories are silenced—has the power to significantly shape our expectations and understanding of youth cultures. And, as will be argued, expectations shape experiences in competing and inequitable ways. We have an obligation to pay close attention to what and who is labeled a risk, and how risk is mobilized in the spaces that structure young people’s everyday practices and opportunities.

  In this book I am referring to risk—and, by extension, to risk discourse—from a social constructivist perspective that is focused less on objectively identifying the probability of harms and dangers than on understanding how society identifies, mediates, and constructs understandings of what is considered to be a risk.6 As Lupton writes (1999, p. 29), “a risk, therefore, is not a static, objective phenomenon, but is constantly constructed and negotiated as part of the network of social interaction and the formation of meaning.” Notions of what is considered a risk are socially embedded within systems of power and change over time and differ in different contexts. For example, what a teenager deems risky will probably differ from what an adult or a toddler deems risky, because perceptions of risk are contextually bound. The philosopher Francois Ewald explains that “anything can be a risk; it all depends on how one analyzes the danger, considers the event” (1991, p. 199). What a society deems risky is not neutral, but rather is constitutive of a society’s morals and beliefs about objects, populations, and practices. Notably, as will be further discussed throughout the book, constructions of risk overwhelmingly rely on expert knowledges that have the power to identify and draw public attention to particular understandings and phenomena, often at the expense of alternative explanations and interpretations. According to Lupton (1999, p. 33), “distinguishing between ‘real’ risks (as measured and identified by ‘experts’) and ‘false risks’ (as perceived by members of the public) is irrelevant. … Both lead to certain actions. It is the ways in which these understandings are constructed and acted upon that is considered important.” While I acknowledge that objective harms related to young people’s online interactions do of course exist, I want to point out that it is important to distinguish between harm and risk, which are often conflated yet are quite distinct. In late modernity, “risk has been co-opted as a term reserved for a negative or undesirable outcome, and thus is synonymous with the terms danger or hazard” (Fox 1999, p. 12). The conflation of risk and harm leads to a perception that all risks are negative and ought to be avoided, which obscures the benefits of taking risks. Equating risk with harm also disciplines us to practice risk-avoidance strategies at the expense of beneficial opportunities. Throughout the book I use the concept of risk less as a way to describe the probability of potential harm than as a social construct that is produced via various discourses of power (e.g. the government, policies, media, and experts). I do so in order to analyze their effects and actions.

  My analysis of risk reveals how expectations about youth and technology can be categorized into harm-driven expectations and opportunity-driven expectations. (See figure I.1.) These categories (which are not mutually exclusive and are not polar opposites) provide a way to think about how primary expectations—whether articulated or latent—shape experiences, opportunities, and practices. Harm-driven expectations are revealed through policies, practices, and narratives that are based on fear or anxiety. They respond to a concern about—or rather an expectation of—potential hypothetical harms. Such expectations are often formed, and decisions are often made, even in the absence of sufficient evidence to demonstrate collective harm. The mere threat of individual harm—that is, the risk itself—serves as justification for fear-based policies, decisions, and practices. Harm-driven expectations rationalize restrictive policies, intuitions, and practices that try to control technology—and therefore young people’s agency—within various spaces. Such policies, practices, and narratives often reify constructions of young people as passive victims and tend to focus too much on the technology itself—as the agent of change—rather than on the collective experiences of young people themselves. Harm-driven expectations enact control on the basis of perception of risk—as a danger that is typically identified by perceived experts—and therefore the perceptions have the cyclical nature of reinforcing and reifying expectations of harm.

  Figure I.1 Characteristics of harm-driven and opportunity-driven expectations.

  Contrast expectations of harm with opportunity-driven expectations, which start with the assumption that digital media practices, policies, and narratives ought to be designed to maximize benefits and positive opportunities for youth. Rather than presuming all risks are negative and must be controlled, opportunity-driven expectations enable and trust young people to identify and manage risks responsibly. Based on evidence and lived experiences, opportunity-driven expectations allow us to design spaces, tell stories, and write policies that will facilitate positive outcomes for young people—not only as individuals, but also as a collective population. Rather than merely controlling technology, opportunity-driven expectations produce discourses that acknowledge the practices and the agency of young people as experts on their own experiences. Society tends to privilege harm-driven expectations and thus to overlook or even diminish the positive opportunities afforded by technology. Lastly, through a lens of expectations we also can examine the competing expectations of adults and youth as a framework for understanding how adults’ expectations—often responding to fearful understandings of risk—overshadow the ways young people themselves make meaning out of their digitally mediated practices and how they mitigate risk in creative and agentive ways. We ought to create spaces in which the experiences of young people are valued and in which they are able to agentively contribute to or even challenge discourses of risk, technology, and teens.

  I believe
we have reasons to worry about young people’s use of technology, but not for the prevailing and popular reasons that dominate news accounts and policies (porn, predators, bullying, addiction, and so on). For one thing, such concerns are overly individualistic in nature; that is, they are concerned about risk to an individual and thus responsibilize individuals to protect themselves from harm, or rather to actively practice risk-avoidance strategies (Burchell 1996; Foucault 1991; Hunt 2003; Hier 2008; O’Malley 1992). This narrative of individual responsibilization ignores the ways institutions, experts, and discourses structure choices (Dean 1997 1999; Hier 2008; Kelly 2000). On the contrary, what concerns me is not so much individual harm (important though it is) as collective harm and the shared responsibilization for not only protection but equality. I’m worried about an entire population growing up without the digital literacies that are needed to equip them with equitable opportunities for success. This is not an individualized responsibility; instead it ought to be of wide social concern, and therefore a collective responsibility. When only particular (privileged) populations have the opportunity to develop skills and literacies that will lead to opportunity, we are living in an unjust society. When risk reflects the privileged concerns of the privileged class, we are failing to defend the most vulnerable among us, who already suffer from disproportionate injustices.

  What deeply concerns me is the extent to which narratives, policies, and practices having to do with digital media are used to exacerbate rather than alleviate inequities. I’m concerned about a generation growing up at a time when surveillance is a normative part of their everyday lives. I worry about the potential for exploitation and discrimination, which are unintended consequences of individuals’ sharing their social lives online. I am troubled by online filters that purport to block objectionable material, yet normalize harmful advertisements that are aimed at capitalizing on young people’s self-esteem. I am uncomfortable with policies that block opportunities for participation and access to information, rather than contribute to the development of digital literacy and the attainment of social capital. And I get anxious when I hear politicians, tech industry representatives, teachers, and young people repeat discourses that blame teens for their grievances without considering the broader context in which adult society has created unequal structures and barriers that limit their agency and their ability to safely participate in the creation of their own mediated cultures. I believe we can create a more equitable, healthy, and safe digital future, but it requires a holistic approach in which policy makers, educators, technology companies, researchers, and commercial institutions work together with young people to meet their needs and to understand their practices, rather than merely working on their behalf. As Sonia Livingstone writes (2009, p. 153), “though the arguments against engaging with the risk agenda seem compelling, engage with it we must if we wish to recognize children’s own experiences and give them voice.” This book is an effort to engage with the risk agenda in a positive and opportunity-enhancing way.

  How then did we get here? Why are fears and anxieties seemingly increasing when research just doesn’t justify it? Why are policies continually attempting to regulate young people’s use of the Internet, rather than empower them to embrace new technologies in healthy and positive ways? Why do so many high schools insist upon monitoring and blocking students’ access to educational resources in the name of safety and protection, rather than developing positive curricula that embrace new opportunities? Why is the mainstream news full of scary big-bad-world stories that depict the exceptional harms rather than the benefits of new technologies? All this stems in part from the creation of a moral panic that perpetuates fear, in part from the novelty of the technologies that lead to uncertainty, and in part from a generation gap that does not seek to understand young people’s everyday practices. As will be further discussed, expectations of risk and harm can be explained via the disconnections between (a) young people’s lived experiences and the sensational mediated narratives that influence fear-based policy and reproduce harm-driven expectations, (b) the value of young people’s practices as compared to the value of adult practices, and (c) the myopic view on the novelty of technology and the greater context of social change. (See figure I.2.) Taking all of these elements into consideration, we have a society that focuses on particular fears and harms (predators, bullying, porn, safety, addiction, and so on) that are often reflective of privileged understandings of risk and potential harm to privileged young people. Worries about the threat of risk to individual youth, rather than concern about the opportunities for vulnerable populations of youth, are at the expense of a much-needed focus on the collective risks to society—risks that, as I argue throughout the book, demand and are worthy of immediate attention.

  Figure I.2 Disconnections that contribute to harm-driven expectations.

  I also want to acknowledge the growing body of academic work that contextualizes risks and focuses on the opportunities of new media technologies. I do not want to suggest that scholars are overly focused on the negative aspects of digital media; I am greatly indebted to researchers who continue to contextualize, theorize, and historicize the positive affordances of new media (Chau 2010; Ito et al. 2010; Jenkins 2006; Lange 2014; Rainie and Wellman 2012; Rheingold 2012; Scheidt 2006; Watkins 2009), and to work that contextualizes the risks and the opportunities associated with digital media (boyd 2014; Clark 2013; DiMaggio, Hargittai, Celeste, and Shafer 2004; Kalmus, Runnel, and Siibak 2009; Livingstone 2008, 2009; Livingstone and Sefton-Green 2016; Thiel-Stern 2014). In addition to contributing to this growing field, my research aims to make sense of the ways popular culture, policies, education, and industries continue to overly focus on, mobilize, and even capitalize upon perceptions of risks. While this book is written primarily for an academic audience, I also hope it will be read with interest and enthusiasm by a broader community, namely the adults and institutions who have the power to effectuate change in teens’ (digital) lives: educators, policy makers, social workers, media industries, counselors, web and software developers, and parents.

  It’s All Connected: The Media Ecology Approach

  As the media landscape becomes increasingly diversified, fragmented, and complex, so too should our methodologies for researching young people’s media practices. Morley (2006) suggests that we move beyond medium-centric approaches to understanding youth and technologies (i.e., away from approaches that myopically focus on the effects of a technology in isolation from its broader context). Such a shift necessitates multi-method analyses that privilege individuals and populations—rather than media—as the primary lens of analysis. One such method that aims to be people-centric rather than technology-centric is the media ecologies approach to ethnographic research employed by Mizuko Ito and her colleagues (2010). In their ecological approach to home and media environments, Horst, Herr-Stephenson, and Robinson (2010, in the volume by Ito et al.) attempted to “emphasize the characteristics of an overall technical, social, cultural, and place-based system, in which the components are not decomposable or separable. The everyday practices of youth, existing structural conditions, infrastructures of place, and technologies are dynamically interrelated; the meanings, uses, functions, flows, and interconnections in young people’s daily lives located in particular settings are also situated within young people’s wider media ecologies” (p. 31). In other words, in order to understand the distinct and dynamic experiences of young people and their engagement with media, it is important to fully consider the context in which their interactions occur.

  For example, rather than separating school life from social life from socioeconomic status, the media ecology approach acknowledges that they are always already related to one another—i.e., that society and media are mutually constituted and constitutive. The media ecology approach considers the co-constituted cultures of adults and youth, as well as the various institutions and geographies of young people (home, schools, work, online, etc.), in order to contextualize teen
s’ media practices within a broader understanding of their everyday lives. In terms of learning ecologies, school, after-school clubs, peer cultures, and home are all different interacting nodes through which young people participate, engage, and learn. Likewise, these various nodes also present various opportunities for attainment of social and cultural capital, through which inequalities are often articulated and reinforced. This model has been expanded on to develop a model of learning and opportunity known as the connected learning model (Ito et al. 2013). The connected learning approach contends that sustained successful learning is best supported via the interconnectedness and support of students’ peers, personal interests, and academic settings (as will be further examined in chapter 7). It is my goal to begin to delineate how risk is discursively constructed, managed, and negotiated within and between these nodes that constitute young people’s learning and media ecologies.

  As will be further discussed, understanding the driving motivations for and expectations of participation in digital media spaces provides insight into the educational value of young people’s mediated practices and is of paramount importance in understanding how students learn and the changing role of schools. In Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out, Ito and her colleagues argue that “the most engaged and active forms of learning with digital media happen in youth-driven settings that are focused on social communication and recreation” (2010, p. 12). Their research focuses on the different genres of participation in which youth engage with new media, and the practices which are rendered meaningful to youth themselves. They identify two primary genres of participation used to describe young people’s learning and media engagement: friendship-driven and interest-driven. “Friendship-driven practices” refers to “those shared practices that grow out of friendships in given local social worlds” (p. 16) and includes the day-to-day interactions with friends and peers offline and in networked publics (e.g., Facebook and Twitter).