Qik Interview by Robert Scoble [en]

Yesterday morning, Robert caught me for an express interview on Qik with his cellphone. Here it is. I speak about the beginning of my LIFT08 experience, and about Going Solo, of course.

Here is my blog post about the open speech talk I gave just earlier.

Interview with Serbian Magazine [en]

[fr] Une interview que j'ai accordée il y a un mois environ au magazine serbe InfoM pour leur numéro de décembre.

I gave this interview to the Serbian magazine InfoM about a month ago, for their December issue. I thought you might be interested in hearing what answers I gave to their questions.

1) What do you think about serbia and serbian bloggers?

Honestly, I haven’t seen much of Serbia or Serbian bloggers, besides
what I saw at BlogOpen. The people I met were nice. It seems to me —
from the outside, but as I don’t understand a word of Serbian, this
has to be taken with a grain of salt — that blogging in Serbia is
only beginning to make itself known. For example, the whole
“journalists vs. bloggers” debate seems very old to me.

2) What needs to be done to make this kind of communication more
popular?

More people need to blog 🙂

3) What is your opinion on recent comments that bloggers are not
“serious” journalist?

It’s an old and tired debate. Being a journalist is a profession,
particularly if you think of high-quality investigative journalism.
Not all bloggers are interested in news or commentary on the world, so
what they do has not much to do with journalism. For the bloggers who
do, however, comment on the news or even break it, they are doing a
job similar to that of journalists, though they often aren’t being
paid.

More and more, people are turning to blogs as their primary news
source — if “journalism” is just the re-hashing of press releases,
then yes, journalism is right to be “afraid” of blogging. Serious
investigative journalism will not disappear, but superficial or
manipulative journalism is directly challenged by the work of some
bloggers — and I think this is a good thing.

4) What is commercial potential of blogging in small countries like
Serbia?

I think it’s like everywhere else: people won’t make money “with”
blogs, but “because” of blogs. Freelancers can use a blog to
demonstrate their expertise, whether they live in a large or small
country does not change anything to that. Companies can use blogs to
engage differently with their customers and users. They can use blogs
internally to build new relationships with their employees.

5) Could you give me definition (and example) of successful blog?

A successful blog is a blog that has an influence, in a very general
way. People write blogs for different reasons, so their measure of
success will vary. If I want to connect with other people who have the
same interests as me, my blog will be successful if it allows me to do
so.

Things like counting comments, visitors, incoming links are in my
opinion very superficial (and sometimes dangerous) ways of measuring
how successful a blog is.

Blogging is about opening conversations, and building relationships.
How do you measure that?

6) What is blog consulting and where emerged the need for this kind of
experts from?

Blogging (and the rest of social media) is a new media. Not everybody
understands its characteristics — actually, only a rather small
number of people really do. A social media consultant like myself
steps in when there is a need for specialised knowledge about blogging
or other social media.

For example, if you have a company, and you’re wondering “how could I
use blogging in my company?” or “what are the advantages of blogging
for somebody in my situation?” or even “I want to start blogging, but
how do I do it?” — that is where a social media or blogging
consultant will be able to help you.

7) Where bloggers want to see themselves? Is blogging just the road to the
goal or goal itself?

One important aspect of blogging is passion. You need to be passionate
about the things you’re blogging about. In that respect, blogging is
the goal. You’re passionate about something, and you want to share it.

But blogging is also a means to an end. However, if it is done /only/
as a means to an end, without real, authentic passion, it will fail.

Stowe Boyd on Experiential Marketing [en]

[fr] Quelques citations (audio et texte) de Stowe Boyd sur ce qu'il appelle "experiential marketing" (marketing expérientiel en français). J'ai eu quelques discussions récentes avec des clients pour des mandats de cette nature, et je prépare une page d'explications à ce sujet pour ma section Focus (pas encore en français, désolée). Si vous êtes curieux, manifestez-vous dans les commentaires, ça me donnera probablement l'occasion de parler de tout ça en français!

I’m preparing a page on experiential marketing for my Focus series, as I’ve been in discussion about this kind of work with a couple of clients lately. It’s a term/concept coined by Stowe Boyd (not to be confused with the related but different independently named experiential marketing you can read about on wikipedia), so I dug around in his archives to see if he had blogged anything significant about it.

I found a few quotes in blog posts, but most interesting was this audio interview he gave Daniela Hinrichs in April 2006. Start listening just before the middle of the interview (the first half is about other stuff). Oh, and keep on listening after they’re done on the topic of experiential marketing — Stowe tells the story of why he wears a cap. 😉

It’s interesting to see how the idea evolved from the moment of this interview, just after he came up with the idea, and subsequent incarnations which he blogged about between then and now. Here are a few quotes I picked up:

Experiential marketing — as an increasing social consciousness pervades the online marketing world, advertisers will realize that ads are becoming less effective, even when streaming and animated. One answer is what I am calling experiential marketing: individuals or groups will be solicited and directly compensated to try out products and blog or otherwise chronicle their use. With highly trusted advocates acting on behalf of the community these campaigns will become a mainstay of product marketing 2.0.

Stowe Boyd, 15.06.2006

So, I will be posting on this “experiential marketing” project over the next few months, as I attempt to follow the advice of OpenBC’s staff and most knowledgeable users about how to achieve these aims, and I will examine everything involved: from the creation of a detailed profile, to developing a personal network, and the ins and outs of trying to use the system to accomplish real business goals. Because my goal is to spend more time in Europe, I am calling this the “More Europe” project.

As I said, I will be candid and critical. If I think some aspect of OpenBC’s user experience is dumb, I will say so. If I start drowning in social spam, I will write about it. If I get no traction on my plan, I will chronicle that.

Stowe Boyd, 20.07.2006

As I announced a few weeks ago, I am doing a new experiential marketing program for the folks at Blogtalkradio.com, one that entails me running a talk radio show. The first show was Thursday, and I had a great time interviewing Ted Rheingold of Dogster about Online Community (see /Talkshow Tomorrow: Ted Rheingold of Dogster on Online Community).

I started using the term experiential marketing a few years ago, in a project I was doing for GoToPC, and then again last year in the “More Europe” project for OpenBC (now Xing). The premise is that true understanding of a product or service can’t be gained from a half-hour demo: it requires hours, and perhaps weeks of use.

In this project I will be running a web-based talk show relying on the Blogtalkradio.com technology platform. Along with doing the show, I will be writing up my experiences with the software, recommendations for its improvement, and guidance for others trying the software.

Stowe Boyd, 14.04.2007

More details on all this when I put the Focus page online!

Multilingual Interviews [en]

[fr] Deux interviews que j'ai donnés récemment au sujet de la conférence que je donne à Copenhague sur le multilinguisme sur internet la semaine prochaine.

I was interviewed twice during the last week about the multilingual stuff I’m going to be talking about this week at reboot9:

Enjoy, and hope to see you at reboot!

Video: BBC Interview (Teenagers, Facebook) [en]

[fr] Une interview que je viens de donner à la BBC sur les parents qui jouent aux détectives privés pour "surveiller" leurs adolescents sur internet. Dialogue, dialogue!

I was contacted this morning (thanks, Suw!) to appear in a short interview on the BBC News, about how parents are increasingly signing up to social networking sites like Friendster to “stalk” their kids online.

Here’s the little video segment of my interview:

(Thanks to Euan for the video, and to the BBC folks for sending me a copy too — though it arrived later and I used Euan’s here.)

For those of you interested in the whole “online predator issue is overblown” thing, I urge you to read Just The Facts About Online Youth Victimization by danah boyd, and in particular what David Finkelhor has to say at the beginning of his presentation (numbers! numbers!) about how the general ideas the public has about online predators have little to do with reality.

And talking of videos, episode 6 of Fresh Lime Soda (video!) is online at viddler.com.

Vidéo: le blog de Josef Zisyadis et moi [fr]

[en] In this video, I give the story of how I was contacted by a local politician who hired me to help get him and his team blogging. A few words too about blogging and politics, here in Switzerland.

J’ai parlé du lancement du blog de mon client Josef Zisyadis, mais comme je le sais bien (et je me tue à le répéter), les gens ne lisent pas trop sur le web. Le lien vers cette petite séquence vidéo où j’explique comment j’ai été contactée pour ce mandat, et aussi quel sens cela a pour un politicien de bloguer, aura donc possiblement échappé à la plupart des gens qui transitent par ici. (Sans rapport, mais quand même, Google Analytics, installé récemment, m’indique que 99% des visiteurs de ce site ne reviennent jamais. J’ai du boulot côté fidélisation de la clientèle, on dirait.)

Donc, voici la vidéo, brut de chez brut (zéro préparation, zéro montage si ce n’est un générique). Un grand grand merci à Thierry qui a gentiment accepté de fournir le matériel, de filmer, et même, devant mon angoisse de l’objectif noir, d’improviser quelques questions, transformant la petite séquence en interview. Les deux premières minutes ont été projetées sur grand écran (ouille, mon fond de teint!) lors de la conférence de presse de mercredi.

Et en passant, comme je suis là, voici un petit tour de la couverture blogosphérique du lancement de ce fameux blog (si j’ai oublié quelqu’un, faites signe):

Lancement du blog de Josef Zisyadis [fr]

[en] The site (blog, of course!) of my first political client, Josef Zisyadis is now live. Interested to see where it will go!

Il y a quelques mois, un ami commun a proposé à l’équipe de Josef Zisyadis de faire appel à mes services pour la mise en place d’un blog. En effet, Josef Zisyadis et son équipe désiraient utiliser efficacement internet dans le cadre de sa campagne pour les élections.

On s’est rencontrés, on a parlé, on m’a proposé un mandat (payé), je l’ai accepté. On a organisé quelques demi-journées de formation “De l’importance d’une formation blogs, en vidéo.”, de réflexion stratégique, de bataillage avec WordPress et divers serveurs. J’ai trouvé Josef Zisyadis et les membres de son équipe tout à fait réceptifs à ce nouveau média et je pense qu’ils sauront en tirer parti.

Donc, aujourd’hui — enfin, cette nuit — nous avons rendu le blog/nouveau site public. Comme vous pouvez le voir, cela fait déjà un petit moment qu’il est alimenté de billets et de contenus divers. Vous noterez également qu’il contient le contenu plus “classique” d’un site internet (question que me posent souvent mes clients: “mais si je fais un blog… je peux aussi avoir un vrai site?”): une page de contact, une biographie, une page Presse/Caricatures, etc. Aussi, pour les amateurs, une collection de textes divers, poésies et recettes de cuisine

La navigation dans le site n’est malheureusement pas tout à fait aussi bonne qu’on l’aurait souhaité (et même, qu’on ne l’avait prévu): une incompabilité d’humeur de dernière minute entre le serveur hébergeant le site et K2, le thème WordPress (entendre “le look”) que nous avons utilisé comme base pour le design du blog. On va tenter d’y remédier, mais pour le moment, ce n’est malheureusement pas aussi bien que cela pourrait l’être, mais au moins on en est conscients 😉

Comme je ne pouvais pas être présente à la conférence de presse donnée aujourd’hui, j’ai préparé une petite séquence vidéo. J’ai demandé à Thierry aka James s’il pouvait me filmer — et il a fait même plus, vu qu’il m’a “fait parler” à coup de questions. Résultat: une interview d’environ sept minutes, où je parle de mon implication dans le projet Z-blogue et de l’utilité des blogs en politique, de façon générale. Donc, merci Thierry, et filez écouter (y’a pas grand-chose à voir) la vidéo si vous voulez en savoir un peu plus!

Interview "LeWeb3" en ligne [fr]

[en] Interview (in French) I gave at the end of LeWeb3 last month in Paris.

Pour mes lecteurs francophones qui s’inquiéteraient (comme Isa) de la récente anglicisation dramatique de mon blog, je tiens à vous rassurer: je change de langue comme de chaussette, et des fois je porte la même paire pendant un peu trop longtemps. OK, mauvais exemple, mais vous voyez l’idée. En l’occurence, entre voyages en Angleterre et aux Etats-Unis, ma vie a été très anglophone ces derniers temps.

Tiens, ce serait intéressant d’analyser (pas trop d’idée comment pour le moment) la répartition du français et de l’anglais dans mes billets au fil du temps.

Mais bon, pour le moment, je voulais simplement vous signaler la mise en ligne de l’interview que j’ai donnée à Thierry Weber à la fin de la conférence LeWeb3 à Paris le mois dernier.

J’ai des tas de choses à bloguer, et je vous promets que certaines en tous cas seront en français!

Edit: Oups, j’ai commencé par publier me plaintes concernant les vidéos LeWeb3 dans ce billet avant d’en faire un séparé. C’est mal! Désolée.

Interview Online at BloggerView [en]

[fr] Hugo m'a interviewée par e-mail et a publié le résultat sur son blog.

Hugo interviewed me by e-mail last week (or was it the week before?) I wrote up some answers during the jetlag time I had in Portland, so I really hope they make sense and I won’t be biting my fingers when I re-read the interview.

Head over to lisbonlab to read the interview online.

Adolescents, MySpace, internet: citations de danah boyd et Henry Jenkins [fr]

[en] Citations and some French comments/paraphrasing of danah boyd and Henry Jenkins's interview "MySpace and Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA)". Must-read if your life has anything to do with teenagers.

Je viens de finir de lire ce fascinant interview de danah boyd et Henry Jenkins au sujet des adolescents et d’Internet, intitulé “MySpace and Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA).” Si vous travaillez de près ou de loin avec des adolescents, ou si vous êtes parent d’adolescent, prenez vingt minutes pour le lire. (PDF pour imprimer.) Voici les passages qui me parlent le plus, avec quelques commentaires. La mise en évidence est de moi. (Avertissement: tartine ahead.)

Cela fait bientôt deux ans que je fais régulièrement des conférences dans des écoles, pour faire de la “prévention blogs” ou “prévention Internet” en général. Ce qui me dérange depuis longtemps, c’est cette idée reçue qu’Internet grouille de pédophiles et est par définition un espace dangereux.

J’ai beaucoup apprécié de retrouver dans les paroles de ces deux chercheurs des choses que je pense ou dis, sans avoir fait autant d’études formelles à ce propos. Jolie confirmation de mon intuition et de ce que j’ai pu déduire de mes expériences directes.

J’essaie souvent, un peu maladroitement, de mettre en avant le rôle de construction sociale que jouent ces espaces sur internet. Voici ce qu’en dit danah:

These sites play a key role in youth culture because they give youth a space to hang out amongst friends and peers, share cultural artifacts (like links to funny websites, comments about TV shows) and work out an image of how they see themselves.

(danah)

Une autre thèse que je défends et que ce ne sont pas ces espaces qui créent les comportements “déviants” des adolescents, mais qu’internet nous donne simplement accès, en tant qu’adultes, à des choses qui étaient auparavant cachées. A noter qu’une bonne partie de ces comportements font partie intégrante des processus de socialisation des adolescents, même s’ils ne sont pas plaisants.

While integrating into cultural life is a critical process that takes place during these years, the actual process is not always smooth or pleasant. Bullying, sexual teasing, and other peer-to-peer harassment are rampant amongst teenagers, as these are frequently the tools through which youth learn to make meaning of popularity, social status, roles, and cultural norms. MySpace did not create teenage bullying but it has made it more visible to many adults, although it is not clear that the embarrassment online is any more damaging to the young victims than offline. […] No one of any age enjoys being the target of public tormenting, but new media is not to blame for peer-to-peer harassment simply because it makes it more visible to outsiders. In fact, in many ways, this visibility provides a window through which teen mentors can help combat this issue.

(danah)

Le vrai problème, ensuite, est la réaction que vont avoir les adultes face à ces comportements auxquels ils sont confrontés, et qu’ils ne peuvent plus nier.

Adults are confronting images of underage drinking or sex, discussions of drug use, and signs of bullying and other abusive behavior. […] In many cases, schools are being forced to respond to real world problems which only came to their attention because this information was so publicly accessible on the web. […] Much of the controversy has come not as a result of anything new that MySpace and the other social software sites contribute to teen culture but simply from the fact that adults can no longer hide their eyes to aspects of youth culture in America that have been there all along.

(Henry)

Pour le moment, malheureusement, la réaction la plus répandue semble être une forme de panique morale (“internet c’est dangereux”, “les adolescents ont des comportements criminels sur leurs blogs”). Je me réjouis de lire les conclusions de danah concernant les causes du vent de panique gravitant autour des modes de socialisation de notre jeunesse. Je pense personellement qu’il y a également une autre piste à explorer, et qui tourne autour de ce qu’on pourrait appeler la “culture de la peur”.

Understanding why moral panics emerge when youth socialize is central to my research.

(danah)

Les outils de l’internet social sont de plus en plus utilisés dans le monde professionnel. Même si à mon sens c’est plus un problème dans le monde Anglo-Saxon qu’en Suisse (quoique… ça nous pend au nez), les écoles devraient apprendre aux enfants à exploiter le potentiel de ces outils et gérer les risques que peut comporter leur utilisation, plutôt que de les interdire ou les ignorer comme étant “des jeux d’enfants”.

Social networking services are more and more being deployed as professional tools, extending the sets of contacts that people can tap in their work lives. It is thus not surprising that such tools are also part of the social lives of our teens. Just as youth in a hunting society play with bows and arrows, youth in an information society play with information and social networks. Our schools so far do a rather poor job of helping teens acquire the skills they need in order to participate within that information society. For starters, most adult jobs today involve a high degree of collaboration, yet we still focus our schools on training autonomous learners. Rather than shutting kids off from social network tools, we should be teaching them how to exploit their potentials and mitigate their risks.

(Henry)

De même, si effectivement ces espaces numériques sont terriblement dangereux, il est important que l’école enseigne aux adolescents comment gérer leur présence en ligne, plutôt que de les encourager à l’éviter. La citation qui suit est une allusion directe à la volonté de certaines instances aux Etats-Unis (et ailleurs) de bloquer l’accès aux sites de “réseautage en ligne”, comme MySpace, depuis les écoles.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that MySpace critics are correct and that MySpace is, in fact, exposing large numbers of teens to high-risk situations, then shouldn’t the role of educational institutions be to help those teens understand those risks and develop strategies for dealing with them? Wouldn’t we be better off having teens engage with MySpace in the context of supervision from knowledgeable and informed adults? Historically, we taught children what to do when a stranger telephoned them when their parents are away; surely, we should be helping to teach them how to manage the presentation of their selves in digital spaces. The proposed federal legislation does nothing to help kids confront the challenges of interacting with online social communities; rather, it allows teachers and librarians to abdicate their responsibility to educate young people about what is becoming a significant aspect of their everyday lives.

(Henry)

Je vous cite maintenant un long passage dans lequel danah parle de la question des prédateurs sexuels sur MySpace, de la couverture médiatique de ce phénomène (qui contribue à créer un climat d’alarme déconnecté de la réalité), et des chiffres sur lesquels on se base aux Etats-Unis pour justifier l’inquiétude ambiante à ce sujet.

Il y a quelque temps, j’avais moi-même été à la recherche de matière première (chiffres, enquêtes, etc) concernant les prédateurs sexuels sur internet. Depuis des années que je baigne dans la cyberculture, je n’avais en effet jamais rencontré ni entendu parler d’une seule histoire du genre, ce qui me paraissait en décalage avec la frénésie médiatique et les opérations de prévention à grande échelle dont j’étais témoin.

Sans grande surprise, je n’ai pu mettre la main que sur une seule étude (celle-là même dont parle danah) qui fournissait des chiffres alarmants. Mais en regardant de près l’analyse des résultats fournis, j’avais été quelque peu sidérée de voir des choses comme “une fille de 13 ans à qui on a demandé sa taille de soutien-gorge” rentrer dans la catégorie “unwanted sexual sollicitation”, sans précision de l’âge ou du sexe de la personne posant la question. De plus, j’aurais apprécié une étude comparative de la quantité de “sollicitations sexuelles non désirées” dont sont victimes les ados à l’école, dans la rue, ou dans leur club de sports. Dans le troisième paragraphe que je cite, danah fait le même genre de critique.

Elle nous rappelle également que la grande majorité des enlèvements aux Etats-Unis sont l’oeuvre de personnes connues de l’enfant. D’un point de vue statistique, les enfants courent plus de risques en allant aux scouts ou à une sortie de catéchisme qu’en traînant sur MySpace. De plus, elle nous rappelle que la peur des prédateurs, régulièrement utilisée pour priver les jeunes d’espaces publiques (numériques ou physiques), sert aussi à détourner notre attention d’abuseurs statistiquement plus significatifs. Les jeunes courent plus de risques d’être victimes d’abus à leur domicile ou à celui de leurs amis que dans les espaces publics.

Voilà, grossièrement résumé, les arguments principaux de danah boyd dans les paragraphes suivants.

The media coverage of predators on MySpace implies that 1) all youth are at risk of being stalked and molested because of MySpace; 2) prohibiting youth from participating on MySpace will stop predators from attacking kids. Both are misleading; neither is true.

Unfortunately, predators lurk wherever youth hang out. Since youth are on MySpace, there are bound to be predators on MySpace. Yet, predators do not use online information to abduct children; children face a much higher risk of abduction or molestation from people they already know – members of their own family or friends of the family. Statistically speaking, kids are more at risk at a church picnic or a boy scout outing than they are when they go on MySpace. Less than .01% of all youth abductions nationwide are stranger abductions and as far as we know, no stranger abduction has occurred because of social network services. The goal of a predator is to get a child to consent to sexual activities. Predators contact teens (online and offline) to start a conversation. Just as most teens know to say no to strange men who approach them on the street, most know to ignore strange men who approach them online. When teenagers receive solicitations from adults on MySpace, most report deleting them without question. Those who report responding often talk about looking for attention or seeking a risk. Of those who begin conversations, few report meeting these strangers.

The media often reference a Crimes Against Children report that states one in five children receive a sexual solicitation online. A careful reading of this report shows that 76% of the unwanted solicitations came from fellow children. This includes unwanted date requests and sexual taunts from fellow teens. Of the adult solicitations, 96% are from people 18-25; wanted and unwanted solicitations are both included. In other words, if an 18 year old asks out a 17 year old and both consent, this would still be seen as a sexual solicitation. Only 10% of the solicitations included a request for a physical encounter; most sexual solicitations are for cybersex. While the report shows that a large percentage of youth are faced with uncomfortable or offensive experiences online, there is no discussion of how many are faced with uncomfortable or offensive experiences at school, in the local shopping mall or through other mediated channels like telephone.

Although the media has covered the potential risk extensively, few actual cases have emerged. While youth are at minimal risk, predators are regularly being lured out by law enforcement patrolling the site. Most notably, a deputy in the Department of Homeland Security was arrested for seeking sex with a minor.

The fear of predators has regularly been touted as a reason to restrict youth from both physical and digital publics. Yet, as Barry Glassner notes in The Culture of Fear, predators help distract us from more statistically significant molesters. Youth are at far greater risk of abuse in their homes and in the homes of their friends than they ever are in digital or physical publics.

(danah)

Henry Jenkins nous rappelle que le décalage entre générations de parents et d’enfants pour ce qui est de l’adoption de nouvelles technologies n’est rien de nouveau. Les parents et enseignants sont souvent effrayés par le fait qu’ils ne comprennent pas ce que les jeunes font avec les technologies de communication d’aujourd’hui, et qu’ils ne sont donc pas en mesure de protéger ou superviser les enfants lorsqu’ils les utilisent.

History shows us a recurring pattern surrounding the adaptation of any new communications technology. Young people are often early adopters: they are more open to new ideas and experiences; they are looking for ways to leave their mark on the world and they are seeking places where they can socially interact with minimal adult interference. Parents and teachers are often frightened by these new kinds of communication technologies which were not part of the world of their childhood: they don’t really understand what their young people are doing with them and they don’t know how to protect or supervise their children while they are engaged in these activities. The situation is thus ripe for moral panic.

(Henry)

Henry continue sur les conséquences désastreuses d’une limitation de l’accès internet dans les écoles et bibliothèques. Cela handicaperait les enfants qui n’ont pas un bon accès internet à la maison et qui n’auraient donc pas l’occasion d’apprendre à utiliser ces outils sociaux s’ils ne sont pas accessibles depuis l’école.

Il ne faut plus maintenant parler de fossé numérique, mais de “participation gap” (décalage participatif — il y a sans doute une traduction meilleure). Les jeunes sont en train d’acquérir d’importantes compétences en réseautage et collaboration qui auront une conséquence sur leur futur professionnel. Ceux qui n’ont accès qu’à un internet filtré n’auront pas cette chance et s’en trouveront prétérités.

What a kid can do at home with unlimited access is very different from what a kid can do in a public library with ten or fifteen minutes of access at a time and with no capacity to store and upload information to the web. We further handicap these children by placing filters on the Internet which restrict their access to information which is readily available to their more affluent classmates. And now this legislation would restrict their ability to participate in social networks or to belong to online communities. The result will be to further isolate children from poorer economic backgrounds, to cut kids at risk from support systems which exist within their peer culture, and to limit the social and cultural experiences of kids who are already behind in acquiring important networking skills that will shape their professional futures. All of this will compound what we are now calling the participation gap. The early discussion of the digital divide assumed that the most important concern was insuring access to information as if the web were simply a data bank. Its power comes through participation within its social networks. The authors of the law are reading MySpace and other social software exclusively in terms of their risks; they are not focusing on the opportunities they offer for education and personal growth. In protecting children from those risks, they would cut them off from those educational benefits.

(Henry)

Il y a des parallèles à faire entre les activités de socialisation de la génération “parents” dans leur jeunesse, et ce que font les ados d’aujourd’hui. Les activités sont déplacées en ligne, mais au fond, c’est assez similaire. D’après Henry, une des conséquences est la diminution des occasions qu’ont les jeunes d’être entre eux hors du contrôle des adultes. Là, je pose une question: si c’est vrai pour les Etats-Unis, qu’en est-il de l’Europe? J’ai le sentiment que cette problématique est peut-être différente.

As I suggested above, most parents understand their children’s experiences in the context of their memories of their own early years. For the baby boom generation, those defining experiences involved playing in backyards and vacant lots within suburban neighborhoods, socializing with their friends at the local teen hangout, and participating within a social realm which was constrained by the people who went to your local school. All of that is changing. Contemporary children and youth enjoy far less physical mobility, have less time outside of adult control, and have fewer physical places to hang out with their friends.

Much of this activity is being brought online. What teens are doing online is no better and no worse than what previous generations of teens did when their parents weren’t looking. The difference is that as these activities are being digitized, they are also being brought into public view. Video games bring the fantasy lives of young boys into the family room and parents are shocked by what they are seeing. Social networks give adults a way to access their teens’ social and romantic lives and they are startled by their desire to break free from restraints or act older than their age.

(Henry)

Il est réjouissant d’entendre que grâce en particulier à la téléphonie mobile, les jeunes sont plus régulièrement en communication avec les membres de leur famille et leurs pairs qu’autrefois.

Because of mobile phones, current college students report greater ongoing communication with their parents than in previous generations. As Misa Matsuda has argued, networked technologies are allowing today’s youth to maintain “full-time intimate communities.” While the socialization that takes place in digital publics is equivalent to that which occurs in physical publics, new media is allowing youth to be more deeply connected to their peers and their family members, providing a powerful open channel for communication and sharing.

(danah)

En ce moment, MySpace et les autres outils de réseautage en ligne sont perçus comme des menaces à l’ordre public, dit Henry. Mais on peut regarder les choses différemment et les voir comme un terrain d’entraînement pour nos futurs citoyens et dirigeants politiques. Il mentionne que les jeunes d’aujourd’hui prennent des rôles publics de plus en plus tôt.

Note intéressante: la recherche actuelle démontrerait que les joueurs de jeux multijoueurs en réseau ont des aptitudes importantes pour le travail en équipe, une meilleure compréhension de quand prendre des risques et lesquels, de traiter des sources d’information complexes, etc. J’avoue que ça m’interpelle particulièrement, puisque j’ai personnellement plutôt des inquiétudes concernant les conséquences néfastes que pourrait avoir sur des jeunes en développement le fait de faire une partie de leurs expériences de vie dans un monde dont les règles ne sont pas celles de la réalité. A creuser, donc.

De nouveau, Henry relève que les jeunes n’ont personne vers qui se tourner lorsqu’ils ont besoin de conseils concernant les choix et problèmes éthiques auxquels ils sont confrontés dans ces environnements. Une partie du travail fait pour la Fondation MacArthur consistera à proposer aux jeunes, parents, et enseignants des lignes de conduite éthiques qui les aidera à prendre des décisions informées et sensées au sujet de leur vie en ligne. C’est clairement plus constructif que de mettre des filtres sur tous les ordinateurs publics et de laisser les jeunes se débrouiller seuls avec ces questions.

Right now, MySpace and the other social network tools are being read as threats to the civic order, as encouraging anti-social behaviors. But we can easily turn this around and see them as the training ground for future citizens and political leaders. Young people are assuming public roles at earlier and earlier ages. They are interacting with larger communities of their peers and beginning to develop their own styles of leadership. Across a range of issues, young people are using social network software to identify and rally like-minded individualism, forming the basis for new forms of digital activism. Current research shows that teens who participate in massively multiplayer games develop a much stronger ability to work in teams, a greater understanding of how and when to take appropriate risks, an ability to rapidly process complex bodies of information, and so forth. At the same time, these teens are facing an array of ethical challenges which are badly understood by the adults around them. They have nowhere to turn for advice on how to confront some of the choices they make as participants within these communities. Part of the work we will be doing for the MacArthur Foundation involves the development of an ethics casebook which will help parents, teachers, and students work through some of these issues and make sensible decisions about how they conduct their online lives. We see this kind of pedagogical intervention as far more valuable than locking down all public computers and then sending kids out to deal with these issues on their own.

(Henry)

Voici, en très résumé, les conseils principaux que Henry propose aux parents. J’y retrouve le conseil que je répète un peu comme un disque rayé, de conférence en conférance: dialogue, dialogue, dialogue.

Parents face serious challenges in helping their children negotiate through these new online environments. They receive very little advice about how to build a constructive relationship with media within their families or how to help their offspring make ethical choices as participants in these online worlds.

[…]

  1. Communication with your daughter or son is key. Build a trusting relationship through dialogue. It is important to talk with them about your concerns; it is even more important to listen to what they have to say about their online experiences and why these sites are such an important part of their interactions with their peers. […]
  2. Create an account to understand how the site works, but not to stalk your kids. […]
  3. Ask your kids how they choose to represent themselves and why. […]
  4. Talk about private/ public issues with your kids. Help them to understand the consequences of making certain information publicly accessible. Get them to think through all of the possible audiences who might come into contact with their online information. Teens often imagine MySpace as a youth-only world. It isn’t and they need to consider what the consequences would be if their grandparents, their teachers, admissions officers or a future employer read what they said about themselves. […]
  5. Talk through what kids should do if they receive unwanted attention online or if they find themselves the victims of cyberbullying. […]

Voilà. J’ai fait un peu plus de traduction libre que ce que j’avais prévu, et peut-être un peu moins de commentaire — mais la plupart des citations parlent d’elles-mêmes. J’espère que vous aurez trouvé intéressant ce que disent ces deux chercheurs, danah boyd et Henry Jenkins. A nouveau, je ne peux que vous encourager à lire l’interview en entier si vous travaillez avec des adolescents. Si l’anglais est un obstacle infranchissable pour vous, la traduction Google peut vous aider.