The article Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century brought up quite a few interesting points that I had not heard of before and was surprised by. Henry Jenkins writes about the reasoning behind why we need to extend technology into the classroom of underprivileged students and how we can bring about the change in our classroom or school.
I was most intrigued by some of the statistics presented at the beginning of the article. He presented evidence that females are more likely than males to use social activities online. It might be because I am a female who loved blogging all throughout my teenage years, but this statistic did not surprise me at all. Comparing this to my life, I have noticed a pattern of more females using blogging sites and making more use out of social media sites like Facebook or Myspace. I was also intrigued by the lack of differences in participation levels when it came to ethnicity. I had not ever thought about how race and ethnicity played into this scenario, but it seems to make sense that the use of online participation is an even playing field.
However, I was extremely surprised by some of the statistics that he provided about urban youth being more likely to create media than suburban or rural youth. The study was done in 2005 and left out a lot of variables, but the percentage differences between the three groups was surprising. I was left wondering, why would urban youth be the leaders in this group? If they are the group that is stereotypically left with the least resources, why are they performing the best? And ultimately, if they are the group that is already performing the best, are we doing anything to bring the suburban youth and rural youth groups to the same level as the urban youth?
I agree with you that the article has a point at showing evidence that females are more likely than males to use social media activities online. However, I feel that while most females participate in social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, and Twitter, men also get equal social time on the internet as well. Though they may not be as engaged in finding the latest gossip on Facebook, men do have social interactions on the internet through online gaming such as World of Warcraft. I agree with your questioning of the statistic that urban youth are the leaders in creating social media over suburban students. You bring up a great point when you state, “If they are the group that is stereotypically left with the least resources, why are they performing the best?” Maybe this is because urban youth are more susceptible to the peer pressures of having the latest gadgets and being in the know of the latest social media gossip? Just a thought.
I liked how you pointed out that there were definitely some interesting comments that hadn’t been ‘heard before.” indeed, this is a very interesting subject area. Change in a classroom setting is always an issue, (if not just from a technological ie: innovative standpoint) and that extending our society to that of the inclusion of underprivledged educational resources is a major battle if not campaign. It is interesting that females are more likely to use social activities online. I think this could be pointed to the “relationship” focus many contemporary Psychologists have established in desiphering different moral or ‘worldly’ approaches to roles and the world at large. Woman are more inclined as a whole I think, at least from the perspective of our cultural knowledge, to want to engage in a relation with a source of interaction, certanly more so than wanting to ‘control’ or use as a ‘tool’ in the pure sense of the word. If that tool is to connect with more people, or to have a relation with more people, I statistically see how this is plausible, at least within the framework or moral orientations of the sexes. On the other hand, I would say that the statistics probably show that men are more inclined to use social media or other interactive media for more management and aquisition purposes, as opposed to more symbiotic forms of communication in online culture. I think it is extremely empowering for women to be using more social media and blogging cites, and is an example of how media and technology are catching up and being used in an appropriate way to the thoughts and gender approaches (self-ideas ?) that women have about themselves. I believe this is a quite symbiotic relationship. I think it is no surpruse that urban youth are utilizing this technology in a more savy way. The proximity of urban density makes the arrival and proximity of relations more intense, so there is a greater need and a greater gain from using this “tool” of technology to connect and enhance relationships. As urban populations are more inclined towards one another, in that they ‘survive best’ out of their utilization of relationships, as in necesitty, the enhancement of social media upon relationship structures in a must in urban youth culture. i think it is interested becasue of the lack of ‘dependance and proximity’ of suburban culture that social platforms online are not utilized as much. In many cases, out technology is lead and marketing by a core urban framework, including of course it’s innovators. Whicih is probably why mores so we should invest federally in inner city technology programs.