By Any Media Necessary
CONNECTED YOUTH AND DIGITAL FUTURES
Series Editor: Julian Sefton-Green
This series explores young people’s day-to-day lives and futures. The volumes consider changes at the intersection of civil and political reform, transformations in employment and education, and the growing presence of digital technologies in all aspects of social, cultural and political life. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning (DML) Initiative has supported two research networks that have helped launch this series: the Youth and Participatory Politics Research Network and the Connected Learning Research Network. The DML Initiative and the DML Hub at the University of California, Irvine, also support production and open access for this series.
By Any Media Necessary: The New Youth Activism
Henry Jenkins, Sangita Shresthova, Liana Gamber-Thompson, Neta Kligler-Vilenchik, and Arely M. Zimmerman
By Any Media Necessary
The New Youth Activism
Henry Jenkins
Sangita Shresthova
Liana Gamber-Thompson
Neta Kligler-Vilenchik
Arely M. Zimmerman
With an Afterword by Elisabeth Soep
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York
© 2016 by New York University
All rights reserved
References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.
ISBN: 978-1-4798-9998-2
For Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data, please contact the Library of Congress.
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Also available as an ebook
Contents
Acknowledgments
1 Youth Voice, Media, and Political Engagement: Introducing the Core Concepts
2 “Watch 30 Minute Video on Internet, Become Social Activist”? Kony 2012, Invisible Children, and the Paradoxes of Participatory Politics
3 “Decreasing World Suck”: Harnessing Popular Culture for Fan Activism
4 Between Storytelling and Surveillance: The Precarious Public of American Muslim Youth
5 DREAMing Citizenship: Undocumented Youth, Coming Out, and Pathways to Participation
Liana Gamber-Thompson and Arely M. Zimmerman
6 Bypassing the Ballot Box: How Libertarian Youth Are Reimagining the Political
7 “It’s Called Giving a Shit!”: What Counts as “Politics”?
Henry Jenkins and Sangita Shresthova
Afterword: Necessary Learning
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Authors
Acknowledgments
We would like to collectively acknowledge those who have critically engaged with this work and offered constructive suggestions about how to improve it, including Nico Carpentier, Nick Couldry, Mimi Ito, Joseph Kahne, Peter Kramer, Diana Lee, Sonia Livingstone, Lissa Soep, S. Craig Watkins, and Ethan Zuckerman. Each of you have helped us to clarify core concepts, frame central arguments, rethink wrong-headed assumptions, and otherwise brought greater nuance to this work.
This book would not have been possible without the support of Connie Yowell and others at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, who have had the vision over the past decade to support so many initiatives in the space of connected learning and participatory politics. As we discuss throughout, this work emerged from our collaboration with the larger Youth and Participatory Politics (YPP) Research Network. So we want to acknowledge here the network’s fearless leader, Joseph Kahne, his capable team (among them, Chris Evans, Erica Hodgin, Ellen Middaugh, and Sandra Mistretti), and the network members (Danielle Allen, Cathy Cohen, Jennifer Earl, Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, Howard Gardner, Mimi Ito, Lissa Soep, and Ethan Zuckerman). Many of the ideas here—far too many to acknowledge individually—emerged from our regular brainstorms and administrative meetings. We also want to acknowledge YPP’s sibling network, the Connected Learning Network (Dalton Conley, Kris Gutierrez, Mimi Ito, Sonia Livingstone, Vera Michalchik, Bill Penuel, Jean Rhodes, Juliet Schor, and S. Craig Watkins) with whom we have maintained close and cordial relations throughout this process.
At USC we are deeply grateful to Gabriel Peters-Lazaro, Holly Willis, and others at the USC School of Cinematic Arts Media Arts + Practice Division. We also acknowledge Alexandra Margolin for her ongoing work on our project.
We want to signal our deep appreciation for the research assistants who worked on this project (Raffi Sarkissian, Karl Baumann, Samantha Close, Diana Lee, Ritesh Mehta, Kevin Driscoll, Rhea Vichot, Alex Leavitt, Zhan Li, Yomna Elsayed, and Lana Swartz)—each of you have made significant contributions to the evolution of this manuscript. We have also benefited through the years by being able to bounce ideas and get feedback from Mike Ananny, Kjerstin Thorson, and several generations of members of the Civic Paths research group at USC (Melissa Brough, Kevin Driscoll, Alex Leavitt, Zhan Li, Lori Kido Lopez, Joshua McVeigh-Schultz, Andrew Schrock, Benjamin Stokes, Chris Tokuhama, Rhea Vichot, Christine Weitbrecht, Samantha Close, Raffi Sarkissian, Michelle Forelle, Nathalie Marechal, Nicholas Busalacchi, Kate Miltner, Carla Mendonca, Kari Storla, and Neha Kumar) and more recently, from those who have participated on the Civics and Social Media collaboration grant, especially Paul Lichterman and Nina Eliasoph.
We want to thank Eric Gordon and Paul Mihailidis from the Civic Media Reader project, who have been important thinking partners as we have sought to better understand how to design and deploy the digital extension