Tim's Blog

I've been thinking a lot recently about the role of technology, multimedia and social media in youth participation. How goes a video project really engage young people? What role does the video play? What about an online forum or a twitter-network? How can we make sure multimedia and social media really enhance the voice of young people in decision making? So, on a delayed train yesterday I sat down to sketch out the different ways in which technology and participation can mix.

The result was the 7 Cs of social media for participation.

Multimedia and social media can be used for:

• Context setting – well prepared online videos, presentations and serious games can provide young people and adults with insights into an issue.

  For example: Creating a common craft style 2 minute video to explain a local area agreement process; Getting the young people from last years youth council to record a training video for next years youth council.

• Creative expression – Article 13 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child gives young people the right to “receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the forma of art, or through any other media of the child's choice.” In other words – young people a right to share their views through rich and creative multimedia presentations rather than long and boring reports. Social media and multimedia tools afford massive opportunities for young people to share their views and their stories authentically and creatively.

  By preparing a creative high-impact multimedia presentation for a local authority or management board in advance, a group of young people can be sure their message won't get lost on the day.

  For example: Instead of a Q&A session with young people and bosses, recording a podcast interview with them; Exploring different ways for young people to share their stories online and to help decision makers understand how policies and practices affect them;

• Consultation – it's not just about online surveys. Multimedia consultation might involve electronic voting at events, text-message questionnaires, choosing between options in an online power league, or responding to context-setting audio and video to express a view. Multimedia platforms massively increase the range of ways in which you can ask a question and get in answers from young people.

  For examples: Inviting young people to prioritise an organisations spending using a Power League; Using online maps to consult on where to build new youth provision; Creating dynamic online survey about the local area including pictures and videos to explain each question; Building a 'consultation widget' that can collect ideas from young people across a wide range of websites.

• Conversation – in consultation you ask, you listen, you (hopefully) act. In conversation, you ask, you listen, you get into the details, you talk some more, you explore ideas and you come up with creative new solutions. Blogs, online discussion forums, web chats and video conferencing all provide ways to open up the conversation to a wide group of young people and create a great record of the conversation for all to see.

  For example: Using an online discussion forum to develop an agenda and campaigns with a youth parliament.

• Collaboration – youth participation should involve young people sharing in decision making – or should involve young people developing and leading their own projects (with appropriate support). The involves collaboration. And providing platforms for collaboration is something social media is good at. Whether it's a TakingItGlobal project site used to co-ordinate meetings, a facebook group used to send updates to project members or a Google Apps account used to put together a document or presentation – collaboration tools abound online – and provide new opportunities to transparently and participatively build upon conversations and to build towards action.

  For example: Using a project collaboration website to keep work on an issue going between face to face meetings; Developing presentations and documents collaboratively online.

• Campaigning – social media provides a wealth of ways to communicate a campaign message with a wide audience, and to get people involved in calling for change. Online petitions and pledges, viral videos, online campaigning toolkits, linking with and learning from other campaigners – all are ways in which multimedia and social media can be used in campaigns.

  For example: Creating a viral video to spread a campaign message; Creating an online pledge to gain community support.

• Change – you can't have a list related to participation without having Change. Especially not a list of Cs. Using the latest and greatest tools for youth participation only means something if there is the possibility of, and movement towards, change for the better for young people.

  Of course, change is also on this list for another reason. You should certainly make sure you video, blog, podcast and photostream your stories of change as an inspiration to others…

So – what do you think? Would you add any more Cs? Have I got too many? What, for you, is the value of social media and multimedia for participation and engagement?

[Summary: Extract from a draft literature review on Youth Work and Social Networking – looking at different responses to risk – and the role of Positive Youth Development responses in particular]

I'm in the middle of putting together a literature review on young people's Online Social Networking, and the possible roles and responses for Youth Workers to take to this emergent phenomena. In the literature review I'm seeking to tread a balanced path between talk of opportunities of Online Social Networking, and talk of risks – so this afternoon I've been looking to construct for a good model to use in pursuing a balanced exploration of responses to online risk.

I'm sharing the draft of that model here for two reasons:

1. I'd really welcome feedback on whether this captures the relevant distinctions adequately – or suggestions for other models I should look at / adopt / consider.

    

2. Going through this process demonstrated to me the value of the Positive Youth Development approach in giving a policy logic (see the 'a different logic' slide in this presentation) that can push us back beyond the obvious interventions (digital media literacy building) to more holistic capacity building interventions and support for young people (building core competencies, self-belief etc.).

    

   I realise I've not offered an argument or evidence for the PYD model being appropriate below (that will hopefully come in a later part of the literature review which I'm yet to draft) – and I wanted at this point to offer an opportunity for those familiar with other theories of intervention that operate at level (C) where I have PYD in my draft to suggest/explain them as alternative theoretical frameworks here.

So, here's the draft:

Draft extract from a literature review on Youth Work and Social Networking (Feb 25th 2008)

The safety is children and young people is a high priority for the UK Government and is an integral theme running through Every Child Matters and Youth Matters, most recently resulting the Staying Safe Action Plan (2008) which notes the "new opportunities for children to come to harm" from the internet in particular. In exploring possible responses to risks of Online Social Networking drawing a distinction between three different types of response is useful:

A) Managing the source of risk:
The Staying Safe Action Plan adopts a dialogue of 'safeguarding', managing risks and creating safe environments – changing and engineering the setting to remove these emergent risks so that young people are exposed to as few instances as possible where harm may result.

B) Addressing directly related skills and knowledge:
Where a risk management approach identifies and focuses on controlling and limiting the source of a risk, it is also possible to respond to concerns about risk by focussing on resourcing and equipping the person potentially 'at risk' to respond appropriately. Becta, in their report "Safeguarding children in a digital world" (2006), recommend developing and delivering "e-safety education and digital literacy skills". Digital literacy, it is suggested, will help young people to:

"…become safe and responsible users of new technologies, and allow them to be discriminating users of both the content they discover and the contacts they make when online."

Such digital literacy approaches address themselves at increasing young people's skills and knowledge directly related to the source of risk – in this case, the internet. However, as Bober and Livingstone (2005) argue in the UK Children Go Online report:

"Opportunities and risk go hand in hand: there is a strong, positive association between opportunities and risks – the more children and young people experience the one, the more they also experience the other, and vice versa."

The suggestion here is that building young people's digital literacy increases their effective use of the internet, but also increases their exposure to risk.

C) Addressing wider capacities and responses to risk:
Positive Youth Development (PYD) responses to online risk, by contrast to digital literacy building approaches, would seek to take a holistic look at all the relevant factors that could lead exposure to risk to impact negatively upon young people's development and thriving (Davies and Schulman, 2007). They would then propose developmentally appropriate capacity building interventions that may at first appear only loosely connected to the risks that first raised a concern. For example, a Positive Youth Development programme may design activities to build young people's self confidence and self-esteem across a variety of settings and with a variety of peers and adults in order to address concerns about young people's self-publishing of potentially harmful information online.

Positive Youth Development does not suppose all risk to be bad – and indeed suggests that navigating some risks can be an essential part of positive adolescent development. It's concern is with equipping young people with the resiliencies, competencies and development assets that ensure exposures to risk do not have a lasting harmful impact on an individuals thriving.

Youth Work Responses:
Youth Work in the UK, of the form advocated by Bernard Davies, broadly takes this holistic developmental approach – although it tends to situate its interventions in a sociological framework focussed on the group and community rather than an adolescent development/PYD framework which focuses on the social individual. Positive Youth Development potentially offers a dialogue and rigorous evidence based framework in which to explore and articulate how particular developmental interventions and supports for young people can more effectively address many of the concerns about risk that drive policy makers, parents, managers and practitioners to adopt the sort of limited risk management (A) and educative (B) interventions noted above.

As mentioned above, I'd really welcome your feedback on the model, and in particular, on the appropriateness of including PYD as part (C).