MACMILLAN Young People in Digital Society: Control Shift (Studies in Childhood and Youth)

This book adopts a critical youth studies approach and theorizes the digital as a key feature of the everyday to analyse how ideas about youth and cyber-safety, digital inclusion and citizenship are mobilized. Despite a growing interest in the benefits and opportunities for young people online, both ‘young people’ and ‘the digital’ continue to be constructed primarily as sites of social and cultural anxiety requiring containment and control. Juxtaposing public policy, popular educational and parental framings of young people’s digital practices with the insights from fieldwork conducted with young Australians aged 12–25, the book highlights the generative possibilities of attending to intergenerational tensions. In doing so, the authors show how a shift beyond the paradigm of control opens up towards a deeper understanding of the capacities that are generated in and through digital life for young and old alike. Young People in Digital Society will be of interest to scholars and students in youth studies, cultural studies, sociology, education, and media and communications. Review “In this incisive analysis of why “the control paradigm” is so intuitive to adults but so alienating for young people, the authors call for a radical rethinking of society’s approach to all things “young+digital.” Read this book to see why a societal shift is vital and urgent to further the best interests of those growing up in today's digital world.” (Professor Sonia Livingstone, London School of Economics and Political Science and www.parenting.digital)“The importance of this book cannot be exaggerated. Control Shift provides the scholarship we adults need to make the pivot of the 21st century: from dictating to young people to partnering with them to discover together what’s best for them and the planet. Control => shift is literally the imperative of our time: essential, urgent.” (Anne Collier, writer and founder, NetFamilyNews.org & The Net Safety Collaborative) From the Back Cover This book adopts a critical youth studies approach and theorizes the digital as a key feature of the everyday to analyse how ideas about youth and cyber-safety, digital inclusion and citizenship are mobilized. Despite a growing interest in the benefits and opportunities for young people online, both ‘young people’ and ‘the digital’ continue to be constructed primarily as sites of social and cultural anxiety requiring containment and control. Juxtaposing public policy, popular educational and parental framings of young people’s digital practices with the insights from fieldwork conducted with young Australians aged 12–25, the book highlights the generative possibilities of attending to intergenerational tensions. In doing so, the authors show how a shift beyond the paradigm of control opens up towards a deeper understanding of the capacities that are generated in and through digital life for young and old alike. Young People in Digital Society will be of interest to scholars and students in youth studies, cultural studies, sociology, education, and media and communications. About the Author Amanda Third is Principal Research Fellow at the Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University, Australia.Philippa Collin is Principal Research Fellow at the Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University, Australia.Lucas Walsh is Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Education at Monash University, Australia.Rosalyn Black is Senior Lecturer in Education at Deakin University, Australia.