[youthradioleaders] Henry Jenkins: Towards a Cultural Theory of YouTube

[Johanna Franzel (Jones)]

Dear Teachers & Leaders,

For those who are interested, it's worth taking a look at Henry  
Jenkins' recently posted Nine Propositions Towards a Cultural Theory of  
YouTube:  
http://www.henryjenkins.org/2007/05/ 
9_propositions_towards_a_cultu.html.  Jenkins heads up MIT's  
Comparative Media Studies Program, and does a lot of great writing and  
thinking on web culture and participatory media.

I was particularly struck by Jenkins' 8th and 9th propositions - these  
seem like cogent points for those of us who are working to support a  
culture of young producers.

8. "In the age of YouTube, social networking emerges as one of the  
important social skills and cultural competencies that young people  
need to acquire if they are going to become meaningful participants in  
the culture around them. We need to be concerned with the participation  
gap as much as we are concerned with the digital divide. The digital  
divide has to do with access to technology; the participation gap has  
to do with access to cultural experiences and the skills that people  
acquire through their participation within ongoing online communities  
and social networks."

Does participation in social networking have a place in teaching youth  
radio?  And if it does, how would this kind of skill be meaningfully  
incorporated?  I've heard from a few youth media teachers who are  
trying to find ways to build MySpace into their curricula - would love  
to hear techniques and ideas from others who are thinking about this.

9. "YouTube teaches us that a participatory culture is not necessarily  
a diverse culture. As John McMuria has shown us, minorities are grossly  
under-represented -- at least among the most heavily viewed videos on  
YouTube, which still tend to come most often from white middle class  
males. If we want to see a more "democratic" culture, we need to  
explore what mechanisms might encouraged greater diversity in who  
participates, whose work gets seen, and what gets valued within the new  
participatory culture."

Though this is something which many of us have observed, it's worth  
keeping at the forefront.  To what extent do apparently democratizing  
tools really show diversity of all kinds (race, ethnicity, class, age,  
orientation, experience, geography etc.)?  Youth-made radio offers far  
more diversity than adult-made radio - the challenge is in finding  
ways, as Jenkins says, for this work to be seen (or heard) and valued  
(and eventually, change the face of radio entirely...).

Food for thought.  Thanks to all of you for the inspiring, dedicated,  
world-changing work you do!

Jones


Johanna (Jones) Franzel
Generation PRX Project Director
PRX Public Radio Exchange
Ph. 617.230.7311

jones at prx.org
http://www.generation.prx.org
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: text/enriched
Size: 2764 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.prx.org/pipermail/youthradioleaders/attachments/20070531/dd7b9450/attachment.bin