Inform, Perform, Transform: Amplifying Urban Youth Civic Agency Through Mobile Media and Game Play

• In Event: New Media as a Resource for Transforming Civic Learning Contexts

Abstract

This paper looks at the role of new media and mobile devices like phones & iPods in developing student civic identity in formal classroom settings.

More than ever before, mobile devices are changing the ways young people are socializing, learning, consuming, and producing media products (Watkins, 2009; Livingstone, 2009; Lenhart, 2009; Lenhart, 2010). New media and phones are offering significant opportunities for authentic learning experiences and ways to engender young people into opportunities for civic participation; these tools are used not only to engage students in meaningful learning experiences, but also to shape ways people participate and interact with the world (Lievrouw, 2011). At the same time, the "new culture of learning" (Thomas and Brown, 2011) poses significant policy and pedagogical challenges for educators (Frey and Fisher, 2008).

Applying Deweyan conceptions of civic learning (Dewey, 1916), principles of play & "Flow" (Csikszentmihalyi,1990; Flanagan, 2009), and sociocultural literacy development (Moje and Lewis, 2007), this paper looks at civic learning utilizing mobile technologies in an urban high school classroom. A Youth Participatory Action Research methodology engaging youth as co-investigators in this research (McIntyre 2000) and Alternate Reality Game (ARGs) principles (McGonigal, 2008) are employed in this study’s research design.

Describing the civic development of a group of ninth grade students in South Central Los Angeles as they participate in an ARG, this work looks at the role that technology can play in shaping community inquiry, advocacy, and civic identity. While the in-class ARG essentially guides a YPAR methodology for working with the youth, the students perceived it as a series of game-like activities. Students engaged in practices that mimic larger shifts in cultural practices afforded by participatory media. These students utilized mobile media to investigate, challenge, and begin reframing school & community norms. Examining the impacts of violence, graffiti, pollution, and love within their South Central community, students incorporated location data, QR codes, and participatory social media into their research methods and practices. They utilized existing technical literacies and critical literacy development to amplify their voices within the school and larger public sphere. Some of the tools students utilized included folksonomy tagging – collaborative & social classification, Wikipedia authorship, and popular media production. These activities illustrate a redefinition of youth civic engagement in the 21st century and signal challenges for refining a pedagogy for social change.

Author

• Antero Garcia, Colorado State University