Digital Natives
As younger generations growing up in emerging information societies learn to engage with their geo-political and socio-cultural environments, a form of technology-mediated identity, popularly dubbed as the Digital Native, has been the discussion of a growing public and intellectual debate. These digital natives are transforming the ways in which they understand themselves as well as the world around them while engaging with Internet and digital technologies. Younger users of technology are moving towards a reconfiguration of the world, where questions of identity, political participation, social transformation, cultural production, education, and livelihood are being restructured. The Digital Natives Research Programme focuses on producing new knowledge frameworks, vocabularies, and lexicons to understand, investigate and support these new citizens who shall be the agents of change in the future.
Nov 12, 2009
Digital Natives with a Cause?
Digital Natives With A Cause? - a product of the Hivos-CIS collaboration charts the scholarship and practice of youth and technology with a specific attention for developing countries to create a framework that consolidates existing paradigms and informs further research and intervention within diverse contexts and cultures.
The Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore and Hivos have assessed
the state of knowledge on the potential impact of youth for social
transformation and political engagement in the South. This report ‘Digital Natives with a Cause?’
charts the scholarship and practice of youth and technology and informs
further research and intervention within diverse contexts and cultures.
The report displays that digital natives have a potential impact as agents of change. It concludes that multidisciplinary theoretical approaches venturing beyond the cause-and-effect model and providing the necessary vocabulary and sensitivity are crucial to understanding Digital Natives. The lament that youths are apolitical is a result of insufficient attention to activities that do not conform to existing notions of political and civil society formation. Digital Natives are sensitive and thoughtful. It is time to listen to them and their ideas, and to focus on their development as responsible and active citizens rather than on their digital exploits or technologised interests.
The report specifically focuses on youth as e-agents of change within emerging information societies to explore questions of technology mediated identities, embedded conditions of social transformation and political participation, as well as potentials for sustained livelihood and education. It identifies the knowledge gaps and networks and further areas of intervention in the field of Digital Natives.
As a first step in working towards enabling Digital Natives for social transformation and political engagement, Hivos and CIS will organize a Multistakeholder Conference Fall 2010.
A summary of the report, as well as the detailed narrative are now available for discussion, debate, suggestions and ideas.
Digital Natives with a Cause? - Report Download Pdf document Here
Digital Natives with a Cause? - Report Summary Download Pdf document Here
The report is also available at http://http://www.hivos.net/Hivos-Knowledge-Programme/Themes/Digital-Natives-with-a-Cause/News/New-Publication-on-Digital-Natives
