The Jenkins video helped to solidify some of the reading for me. Participatory culture. Participatory media & technology. New digital literacies. Civic engagement. All of these are, in my opinion, centered around the idea of discourses as discussed in Lankshear and Knobel and how they directly tie into today's growing need to teach and understand digital literacy specifically, “literacies as socially created constitutive elements of larger human practices - discourses - that [we] construct around [our many] purposes and values.” [Lank shear & Knobel, p76]
This, I think, transcends the idea we have today regarding the concepts of digital immigrant and digital natives. The Internet provides a venue for young and old to meet and share common interests and to be active or passive in the idea of participatory culture but nonetheless require the need for new literacies.
At first I wasn’t seeing the relationship of Peter to Peter Parker - Spiderman - when Jenkins first began. Peter is involved in identity planning, a part of his community, uses Flickr, gets the attention of the local newspaper and begins to submit photos for them. And finally, just before he tells us who he is really describing, I got it and I began to finally understand some this reading that has been somewhat confusing for me up to now. Not that I am good to go, heavens no, but things are more focused.
Jenkins goes on to talk about zines in the 1800’s and then amateur radio and so on. It was fascinating to find out that the language they used was simple - similar to the form of text-speak net lingo acronyms we use today - especially since they had to hand set the type. They understood that a particular level of literacy was necessary. Specifically that they needed to be able to speak to their peers interested in the material or movement, but that they were living in a virtual world - although we certainly may not have used that term in that time period.
The requirement to understand radio frequencies and how transmission and reception worked was an interesting time, because not only did teens have to learn the language that amateur radio users already had in place, they needed to immerse themselves in the world and yet another virtual space was created.
The most amazing part is the need for teens to feel a part of the presumed adult culture when using the technology and they eagerly became part of the culture. The Internet is practically ubiquitous with being alive and breathing unless you were born in a location that simply has no technology. When compared to the printing press and the amateur radio, it is easy to see how a technology can permeate and become an embedded part and necessity in participatory culture.
Moreover, whatever technology is feeding their desire to participate, it fits in perfectly with Green’s model of Operational, Cultural and Critical. It is through their participatory culture that they are using the language, receiving and transmitting meaning, and asking the difficult questions necessary to participate in this world.
I have had to use many pictures with relational conceptual representation to explain a deeper understanding. However, these are mainly in the programming language area, so forgive me if these are not the best examples. Below are two picture. The first is related to the concept of copying content between two objects with the references pointing to each object.
Then to show the deeper relationship that since names (but not numbers) are also objects the true picture is revealed.
Jenkins, Henry. "TEDxNYED - Henry Jenkins - 03/06/10." Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFCLKa0XRlw. January 29th, 2015.
Lankshear & Knobel, (2011). Literacies: Social, Cultural and Historical Perspectives.
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