EVENT: Visible + Invisible Users: Internet, Social Media, and Youth in Global Perspective (2/11/2013)

The objective of this meeting is to offer a cultural yet technically informed reading of youth internet interactions in a global context. These interactions are usually treated as either quantifiable and measurable phenomena, or analyzed for their contents, but with little consideration for the specific forms of sociability that the web encourages. These are some of the questions that will guide the conversation:

How do young generations interact on the internet globally? What are the forms of expression (artistic, literary, etc.), or interaction (gaming, music and video sharing, social networks, etc.) they adopt, and why? Are these forms of expressions following global trends, creating local subcultures, or both? What conceptions of the self are fostered by these interactions (including ideas about private/public; privacy; generational difference)? What are the financial implications of youth’s use of social media? What are the social stratifications created within the digital world? As web users, do youth conform to or challenge society and/or the state? What are the strategies of corporations and governments in directing youth’s taste and consumption, and controlling political expression, and what are young people’s reactions to them?

Co-sponsored by the African Studies Center, Program in Latin American Studies, the College of Communication, and the Boston University Center for Humanities.

Date: Monday, February 11, 2013
Time: 2 – 5:30 PM
Location: College of Communication, 640 Commonwealth Ave, Room 209

INTRODUCTION

Eugenio Menegon, Director, BUCSA

PRESENTATIONS

Jenna Burrell , Assistant Professor, University of California at Berkeley, School of Information | “Invisible users: Internet and Youth in Ghana”
Paola Prado, Assistant Professor, Roger Williams University, RI, Dept. of Communication | “Digital Inclusion among Marginalized Youth in Brazil”
Anshul Jain, Ph.D. Candidate, Boston University, Dept. of Political Science | “Migration and the Evolving Mediascape: New Media, Identity and the Transnational Politics of the Indian Diaspora”
Jeremy Goldkorn, Founder of Danwei.com, Beijing, & Australian National University | “Chinese Youth Culture in the Age of Weibo (Microblog)”

FACILITATOR

Mina Tsay-Vogel, Assistant Professor, Boston University, College of Communication

FINAL ROUNDTABLE

CHAIR: James E. Katz, Feld Professor of Emerging Media, and Director, Division of Emerging Media Studies, Boston University, College of Communication