Digital Youth Project (Kids' Informal Learning with Digital Media: An Ethnographic Investigation of Innovative Knowledge Cultures)
The Digital Youth Project was a three-year ethnographic investigation of youth new media practices that sought to understand how new media are being integrated into youth practices and agendas and, in turn, how these practices change the dynamics of youth-adult negotiations over literacy, learning, and authoritative knowledge. The study, which began in 2005 and was completed in the summer of 2008, approached these questions by documenting new media practices from the youth point of view. The project spanned 23 different case studies conducted by 28 researchers and collaborators and sampled from a wide range of different youth practices, populations, and online sites, primarily in the United States. The practices we focused upon incorporated a variety of geographic sites and research methods, ranging from questionnaires, surveys, semi-structured interviews, diary studies, observation, and content analyses of media sites, profiles, videos, and other materials. Collectively, the research team conducted 659 semi-structured interviews, 28 diary studies, and focus group interviews with 67 participants in total. We also conducted interviews informally with at least 78 individuals and participated in more than 50 research-related events such as conventions, summer camps, award ceremonies, and other local events. Complementing our interview-based strategy, we also clocked more than 5,194 observation hours, which were chronicled in regular field notes, and collected 10,468 profiles, 15 online discussion group forums, and more than 389 videos as well as numerous materials from classroom and afterschool contexts. In addition, our Digital Kids Questionnaire was completed by 402 participants, with 363 responses from people under the age of 25.
The study found that the majority of youth use new media to “hang out” and extend existing friendships, what the research team terms "friendship-driven genres of participation". A smaller number of youth also use the online world to explore interests and find information that goes beyond what they have access to at school or in their local community. Online groups enable youth to connect to peers who share specialized and niche interests of various kinds, whether that is online gaming, creative writing, video editing, or other artistic endeavors, an "interest-driven genre of participation". In both friendship-driven and interest-driven online activity, youth create and navigate new forms of expression and rules for social behavior through which they acquire various forms of technical and media literacy. New media allow for a degree of freedom and autonomy for youth that is less apparent in a classroom setting. Youth respect one another’s authority online, and they are often more motivated to learn from peers than from adults. Their efforts are also largely self-directed, and the outcomes emerge through exploration, in contrast to classroom learning that is oriented toward set, predefined goals. The study concludes that youths’ participation in this networked world suggests new ways of thinking about the role of education and suggests that educators should take seriously new media as a potential site of learning.
Postdoctoral researchers included Sonja Baumer (University of California, Berkeley), Matteo Bittanti (University of California, Berkeley), Heather A. Horst (University of Southern California/University of California, Berkeley), Patricia G. Lange (University of Southern California), Katynka Z. Martínez (University of Southern California), C.J. Pascoe (University of California, Berkeley), and Laura Robinson (University of Southern California).
Doctoral students included danah boyd (University of California, Berkeley), Becky Herr-Stephenson (University of Southern California), Mahad Ibrahim (University of California, Berkeley), Dilan Mahendran (University of California, Berkeley), Dan Perkel (University of California, Berkeley), and Christo Sims (University of California, Berkeley).
Master’s students included Judd Antin (University of California, Berkeley), Alison Billings (University of California, Berkeley), Megan Finn (University of California, Berkeley), Arthur Law (University of California, Berkeley), Annie Manion (University of Southern California), Sarai Mitnick (University of California, Berkeley), Paul Poling (University of California, Berkeley), David Schlossberg (University of California, Berkeley), and Sarita Yardi (University of California, Berkeley). Judy Suwatanapongched was a JD student at the University of Southern California.
Rachel Cody was a project assistant at the University of Southern California.
Undergraduates were Max Besbris (University of California, Berkeley), Brendan Callum (University of Southern California), Allison Dusine (University of California, Berkeley), Lou-Anthony Limon (University of California, Berkeley), Renee Saito (University of Southern California), Tammy Zhu (University of Southern California), and Sam Jackson (Yale).
Collaborators include Natalie Boero, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at San Jose State University; Scott Carter, a PhD candidate at the University of California, Berkeley who now works at FXPal; Lisa Tripp, Assistant Professor of School Media and Youth Services, College of Information, Florida State University; and Jennifer Urban, Clinical Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Southern California.