The document discusses how new media and technology impact youth work and learning opportunities. It notes that privileged youth integrate computers seamlessly at home, while lower-income youth often move directly from intensive high school jobs to full-time work. However, digital media have created new entrepreneurial avenues for youth to market their skills. While some view new media training as job preparation, others see it as busywork. Some youth monetize their media skills or hobbies, but most engage in amateur non-market activities for enjoyment rather than pay. In conclusion, socioeconomic status influences how youth experience and utilize new technologies.

1. Kids Living and LearningWith New Media
Tim Sprague
CMS 298
Chapter 7 :Work

2. Work,Youth, and New Media
 In the United States youth are largely shut
out from the primary labor market (p 296)
 Activities such as “helping” at home or in
class often are not counted as work,
although they are clearly productive labor
(p297)
 New media learning is validated by the by
the expectation it will translate to job
relevant skills in the future.(p 298)
2

3. Work,Youth, and New Media
 Lower income youth more typically take a
pathway that “leads directly from high intensity
high school employment to full time adult
employment.(p298)
 Privileged homes take new technology for
granted, integrating computer use seamlessly
into their everyday routines and domestic
spaces.(p298)
3

4. Work,Youth, and New Media
 Digital and networked media have opened up
0pportunities for economic activity for young
people that are not part of the existing ghettoes of
youth labor, but rather involve young people’s
mobilizing and hustling to market their new media
skills in a more entrepreneurial vein.(p299)
4

5. Work,Youth, and New Media
5

6. Training
Training = fun + digital media
= new economy
Affords upward mobility to
less privileged families
Taken seriously, new media
will help students with their
studies
6

7. Training Continued
• Some teachers report that new media
production classes are considered a way
to keep kids busy
• Youth media programs navigate a complicated
balance, using media production as a
form of remedial classroom work as well as at
times framing the programs as vocational
training (p307)
7

8. Entrepreneurism
Historically, technology has been an area where
kids traditionally spent money, now with the
almost seamless transition between recreational
media and potential money making avenues, young
people are recognizing value in terms of dollars, that
this former pastime represents
8

9. Publishing and Distribution
Anime: a style of animation originating in Japan that is characterized by stark colorful
graphics depicting vibrant characters in action filled plots often with fantastic or futuristic
themes
9

10. Publishing and Distribution Cont.
• While the vast majority of these efforts are not oriented toward immediate gain,
some of the more entrepreneurial young creators are reaping economic benefits
from their creative work (p310)
• Online revenue is obtained by either selling advertising space or by selling their
actual end product
• Mizuko Ito quoting Mahiri et al reports that, “artists can often feel conflicting
loyalties over whether they are pursuing their craft for the love of the work or
for economic goals.” (p310)
• Anime sales in North America in 2010 totaled approximately $180
million. Needless to say Anime is a lucrative business
10

11. Freelancing
• Todays connected youth realize the magnitude of their
skills, often used initially to help friends and family
• Kids eventually become aware of the fact that their skills
are marketable, not just a social phenomenon
• The strategy then is to evolve from hobby to money
making career
11

12. Enterprises
 New media, online
distribution, and auction
sites such as eBay have
expanded the potential for
entrepreneurial activity
that relies on digital media
for buying and selling
goods (p319)
Opportunity
12

13. Enterprises Cont.
Katynka Z. Martinez’s study make many important observations
the most important is her conclusion , ” It is unknown whether, as
Adults, they will be able to find employment opportunities and
Continue to establish new forms of social organization that hold
On to the same inquisitive spirit that drew them to games and
Computers in the first place.” (p323)
13

14. NonmarketWork
• Amateur and nonmarket activities historically have been a
place for middle-class and elite kids to “practice” work,
develop creative talents, and gain experience in self actual-
ization and responsible work (p323)
• Children in working class and poor families engage in fewer
of these kinds of activities, and they are often expected to
perform much more domestic work (p324)
14

15. Nonmarket Peer Production
• Fan subbing: amateur Amine subtitlers who translate and
subtitle anime and release it through Internet distribution
• No Compensation
• Fansubbers do their work for “fellow fans” and for the
pleasure of working with other like-minded members
15

16. Conclusion
This study of socioeconomic groups in the new digital age,
sheds lite on the workings and strategies of cultural clans
In various settings. The middle class and elitists described
In chapter 7 take their digital circumstances almost for granted,
While the poor and less fortunate alliances are aware of their
Disadvantaged economic conditions and strive to take advantage
Of the few opportunities that are present
16

17. 17
Reference
Ito, M., Baumer, S., Bittani, M., Cody, R., Herr-Stephenson, , Horst, H.
A., &Tripp, L. (2010). Hanging out, messing around, and
geeking out; kids living and learning with new media.
Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology.
Retrieved from http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/hanging-out-
messing-around-and-geeking-out