The Medium Is the Method

Chapter  4 , “The Medium Is the Method,” discusses how participatory research and design with young people present methodological challenges that, when met, help build capacities for critiquing and engaging dominant modes of knowledge production. The prac

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Canaries in the Data Mine “Who’s mining the children? Everybody it turns out. With brilliant insight, Donovan reveals the stealthy, aggressive, and seductive ways that digital environments commodify young people. Exposing information ecologies as cunning arenas of enclosure and dispossession, Canaries cautions that an easily aroused sense of risk around young people encourages and excuses their surveillance, not only fostering kids’ compliance but their ready participation in self-surveillance. Despite the grim possibilities suggested by Donovan’s analysis of internet governance, his lively understanding of digital media and respect for the capacities of young people point to practices of resistance and reformulation that thoroughly charge and animate their interactions, creating exciting fields of civic engagement.” —Cindi Katz, author of Growing Up Global “If we want to redesign our digital worlds so that they contribute to a more equitable society, we will need not less digital engagement, but more critical awareness about the data and social media infrastructures that increasingly govern our lives. This book makes a compelling case for how, by partnering with young people, we can increase that awareness to challenge cyberdominance, foster new solidarities, and bring about a better future.” —Lynn Schofield Clark, Ph.D., President of the Association of Internet Researchers and author, Young People and the Future of News “The current technological world is predicated on maximum data extraction for profit and control. Nowhere is this more evident than in the alluring digital platforms encompassing, guiding, and shaping youth today. In this sharp and engaging book, Gregory Donovan collaborates with youth researchers to confront these logics and chart an alternative course, one that mobilizes critical design literacy for empowerment.” —Torin Monahan, Professor of Communication, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill “Canaries in the Data Mine is essential reading for anyone navigating the treacherous terrain of digital technology in their everyday lives, which is to say all of us. Provocative and prescient, Donovan offers a lucid account of how the private eyes of technology surveil young people’s intimate lives, while profiting from

their hopes, desires and fears. A call to action, Canaries in the Data Mine breaks new ground demystifying the circuits of control, while waking up readers to the possibility of an emancipatory future of critical collective digital engagement.” —Caitlin Cahill, Associate Professor of Urban Geography & Politics, Pratt Institute “Canaries in the Data Mine is a uniquely researched book that offers an important and critical reflection on the ways proprietary social media platforms and practices have developed over the past decade. Donovan offers a poignant analysis of how young people’s perspectives can help us to better understand our contemporary moment and prepare for the future.” —Dr. Jacqueline Ryan Vickery, Director of Research, Youth Media Lab, University of North Texas

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