This is the postprint version of: Lim, S. S. (2008) Youth and New Media – Exploring, Consuming, Producing. In S. S. Lim, R. Sison & D.Y. Kim (Eds.) The Promise of ICTs in Asia: Key Trends and Issues, Seoul: Jimoondang. 93-108.

Youth and New Media: Exploring, Consuming, Producing Sun Sun LIM

Introduction Much has been said about how Asia leads the world in terms of media consumption, and that Asian youth cultures provide a seductive glimpse into future trends in media engagement. Going beyond the hype, how are young people in Asia engaging with the media, particularly new media like online and mobile communications? What functions do the media serve for today’s youth? How does their media use factor in their personal development and peer relations? Having been born into the information age, today’s youth are exposed to media in many aspects of their daily lives. Principally, media serve the youths’ information, communication, education and entertainment needs. The view of youth as media consumers has evolved from that of the passive victims of media effects to that of empowered and thinking individuals with free choice in what they watch, hear and use. Nonetheless, as media and ICTs advance further, parents, policy makers and academics cannot help but raise the alarm at the concurrent opportunities and risks that new media present to young people. Rather than stoke the flames of these moral panics, what is more productive is to actually understand the place of media in the lives of youths, their motivations for media use, and the gratifications which they derive from it. This paper will begin with a discussion of what is new about new media and its affordances. It will then present a review of social psychological insights on the development of youths. It will subsequently focus on youths’ media use for identity formation, social networking and cultural consumption/production, and draw on theories of media use to consider why the affordances of new media make such activities particularly compelling. In conclusion, the paper will consider the opportunities and risks which new media present to today’s youth, and explain the need for fostering in them critical media literacy.

How is ‘new media’ new? What is ‘new media’, and how are its affordances novel and unprecedented? The constellation of media and ICTs available today, which is accessed and used by youths, is constantly expanding. The media environment of today’s youth is a rich, multifaceted one involving both “old, passive media” – television, radio, newspapers, magazines etc. and “new, active media” – Internet, mobile communications, digital gaming etc. Whereas older media is based on broadcasting with little or no audience customisation, newer media offer narrowcasting and audience customisation, catering also to niche audiences. The level of interactivity offered by older media is also significantly more

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limited. While radio phone-in programmes were once considered interactive, reality television programmes like American Idol are seen as more interactive, in the sense that the audience can vote for the winning contestants. Such interactivity, however, cannot compare to that offered by new media, where audiences may actually experience a greater sense of control over their media environment. Audiences can interact with news and information providers, for example, they can post their responses to news reports on websites, participate in straw polls, interact with interfaces, e.g. in computer games, or customise the appearance of particular websites, or they can even interact with other users. It is in peer-to-peer interaction via new media that audiences experience a strong sense of empowerment. Services like instant messaging, online chat, discussion fora, blogs, file-sharing sites and podcasts enable users to engage in one-to-many, many-to-one and many-to-many interaction. The convergence of mobile and online media only makes such communication more seamless, creating a lifestyle where media are always-on and always-available. The centrality of media in the lives of today’s youth as compared to yesterday’s, also differs sharply. While “old” media entertained and informed, today’s “new” media do that and more, e.g. facilitate the airing of opinions and sharing of information, coordinate social interaction, aid identity formation etc. As technological innovation continues unabated, the affordances of new media are set to become more versatile and complex. They offer much more freedom, autonomy and, indeed, democracy to the user/consumer. In which case, the more significant question to ask is how is ‘new media’ new in its social and societal impact, particularly amongst the youth, who are avid new media adopters.

Social psychological perspectives on youths In considering the role of new media in the lives of youths, it is also imperative that we understand what it means to be a youth. An appreciation of the choices and pressures confronting today’s youths, as well as the nature of their social and familial networks, will better contextualise our understanding of their media engagement. ‘Youth’, ‘teen years’, ‘puberty’ and ‘adolescence’ are terms that are commonly used to refer to young people between the ages of 13 to 21. These years are a challenging period of growth for the young person, where s/he will have to deal with issues of maturation, belonging, identity and peer pressure. As youths begin to transition into adulthood during adolescence, they may be granted more adult privileges and responsibilities. In coping with such changes, youths inevitably dabble in some experimentation and risky behaviour, e.g. alcohol and drug use, smoking and sex. It is also during this period that their relationships and peer culture take on heightened importance, helping to explain why youths may make healthy or harmful choices (Wolfe and Jaffe et al. 2006). Youths are therefore caught between keeping up with peer group norms and maintaining allegiance to family values, which are often not mutually consonant. Peer culture is further mobilised by the introduction of multiple, diverse channels for youths to communicate with one another, increasing the potential for peer relationships to be expanded and deepened.

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Coupled with peer culture is pop culture, together constituting a ‘second family’ that competes with the youth’s family for influence over the youth (Taffel, M. 2001). Pop culture comprises consumer and media culture, the knowledge of which is key to understanding today’s inter-generational relations (Kenway and Bullen 2001). Youths are veritable consumers in their own right and their consumption of toys, fashion and media are the core of the ‘matrix of forces’ that socialise them (Kline 1993). New media forms and products constitute the cultural artefacts which young people employ in their communication, comprehension of the world, an understanding of self and how they relate to others (Kenway and Bullen 2001). As youths are faced with a changing environment and their own development, they will invariably grapple with issues of identity and belonging. In this regard, youths venture into role experimentation where they explore different roles in pursuit of their ‘true self’ (Wolfe and Jaffe et al. 2006). At the same time, they are also extremely concerned about their public selves as they are “vulnerably preoccupied with their ‘self image’ and ‘issues of social impression management’” (Cohen 1998, p. 165). Given the many challenges facing youths, the family is seen as their bedrock of support, and youth counsellors prescribe greater parental involvement and more fluid intra-family communication. Family communication has been identified as a key activity in which children acquire social interaction experiences, communication skills and lessons in negotiation, identity assertion, problem-solving and decision-making.

Exploring, Consuming, Producing Today’s youth are more than just mere consumers of media, they are also media producers in their own right, harnessing the full range of affordances which new media provide. They publish their opinions via blogs, record their experiences on video files, share them through websites and air their rantings and ravings over podcasts. In this process of exploration, consumption and production, their identities are shaped as they clarify their thoughts and find their voices. Given that new media are such key platforms of self-expression and identity formation, it comes as no surprise that youths are also making friends and acquaintances through social networking sites like Friendster and MySpace. In the following sections, we will consider youths’ motivations and gratifications in using new media for identity formation, social networking and cultural consumption/production. Identity formation As youths seek to come to terms with their own identities, new media offer them outlets for role-experimentation and identity exploration. Around the world, personal homepages and blogs are an increasingly common means of self-presentation and identity construction (Cheung 2000). The affordances of blogs and personal homepages make them excellent platforms for role-experimentation and identity exploration. Being easy to modify, blogs and homepages are ephemeral in nature, thus enabling their owners to refresh their identities periodically (Walker 2000). They therefore reflect the changing identities of youths as they encounter more experiences and pass different developmental milestones. As expressed by a Singaporean student in an online discussion on blogs which I conducted in 2003:

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“I find that blogging helps me to remember activities and events which I might otherwise forget and this helps to chart my emotional and mental growth as I look back on the things which I have written in a certain period.” Unlike diary writing which is a solitary exercise, blogs and homepages have a social dimension as they are publicly accessible, and some bloggers are highly reflexive about their readers’ feedback (Zuern 2003). In this regard, blogging can be both a boon and bane to youths. Positive feedback that is affirming can greatly enhance their selfesteem and aid in their personal development. Negative feedback, however, is potentially damaging, especially for youths who are insecure and diffident to begin with. This is compounded by the tendency for bloggers to engage in a high level of selfdisclosure (McNeil 2003). It has been argued that the anonymity of computer mediated communication predisposes individuals to disclose a great deal of information about themselves, sometimes beyond what is deemed socially acceptable (Wallace 1999; McKenna and Green et al. 2002). In sharing details about themselves online, youths may put themselves at risk by revealing too much in the ostensibly safe online environment. At the same time however, this anonymity may be highly liberating for concealable-marginalised identities. Studies have shown that participation in online groups provide rare opportunities for marginalised people, e.g. homosexuals, single mothers etc. to find likeminded souls, thus achieving greater self-acceptance and less alienation (McKenna and Bargh 1998). An interesting case in point is the blog of a young, gay Singaporean couple known as Colin and Kero. For a brief period last year, their blog attained a cult following in Singapore, popular amongst both homosexual and heterosexual youths. In this blog, jointly written by the two, they chronicle the development of their relationship, often sharing intimate details about their daily lives, illustrated with photographs of themselves engaging in various activities. In publishing these photos, the two made no effort to conceal their identities, enabling some of their readers to recognise them and to even approach them in public. In the process, Colin and Kero publicly revealed their homosexuality, even though they had not done likewise with their own families. Colin and Kero’s blog was targeted by anti-gay, hate inciting messages, leading the bloggers and sympathetic readers to articulate their disgust and defiance against such posts. A Colin and Kero support group also emerged on Yahoo, pledging to support the gay couple and other homosexuals who wished to ‘out’ themselves. (See Figure 1 for a screen-shot of the support group’s welcome page.) The blog allowed Colin and Kero to assert their sexual identities and experiment with the climate of public opinion, in the process receiving support and affirmation for their relationship.

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Figure 1. Welcome page of the Colin and Kero support group

Social networking Broadening one’s circle of friends and acquaintances via social networking services like Friendster, MySpace, Xanga, Multiply and Who Lives Near You is becoming more common amongst youths. These services allow users to profile themselves by putting up photographs, noting their demographic information and interests, charting the breadth of their social circles and sharing blogs, music and videos. There is also space for other members to leave messages for, or about them, and these messages can be read by other members. Some services like Who Lives Near You have slightly different features, being able to identify for users which of the site’s other users live in their neighbourhoods. In general though, these sites offer similar services and are premised on the assumption that people seek to grow their social networks through connections with friends and friends of friends and so on. Friends can also post testimonials about each other. For example, A may have friends B, C and D. B has friends A, E and F. If all of them have Friendster profiles, A can learn of B’s friends and vice versa. Individual B can browse A’s list of friends and B, A’s list (up to a maximum of four degrees of separation). If B finds C and D interesting based on A’s testimonials, he can approach them and ask to be their friend. If they say yes, B’s photo would appear on C’s and D’s profiles and so on. Relationships forged on such networks can remain at a superficial level or be deepened at the initiative of the individuals concerned. Users of the service have been known to make statements such as “She’s not my friend, but she’s my Friendster” (Boyd 2004), alluding to the weak ties in their social networks.

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Interactions may be either online only, or complement and/or be supplemented by offline face-to-face interaction. The use of social networking sites for expanding one’s social network has obvious appeal for youths. Users have great flexibility in impression management – enjoying the luxury of time to consider how they wish to present themselves to the world so that they can achieve desirable outcomes (O'Sullivan 2000). Taking the Friendster situation, users can post attractive photos of themselves and list interests that can boost their appeal to potential friends. They can also ask their friends to write them positive testimonials and offer to return the favour. As mentioned earlier, peer relationships are especially important to youths. Social networking services can thus help youths to enlarge their social circles in an environment in which they have arguably more control than in that of face-to-face interaction. The pressures of socialising face-to-face, with its risks of rejection, are less pronounced online. On the other hand, an online record of the wealth or paucity of one’s social network can also affect one’s public image and sense of self-esteem. Youths may therefore feel pressured to ensure that their social networks appear extensive and include the ‘right’ people. Of course, other insidious dangers such as the possibility of being ‘groomed’ by online predators also exist on such sites. Beyond social networking websites, new media offer a wide variety of channels for mediated communication, from ‘older’ services like email and discussion groups, to newer ones such as blogs, instant messaging, interaction within online games and SMS chat via mobile phones. Again, such services also offer interaction contexts which are visually anonymous, coupled with either asynchronous or slightly delayed communication, thus facilitating greater impression management. Hyperpersonal communication may also arise, where the communication is ‘more socially desirable than we tend to experience in parallel FtF interaction’ (Walther 1996, p. 17). It is argued that in visually anonymous and asynchronous communication, people can focus solely on the communication, as they are not distracted by other goings-on as in face-to-face communication. They also have more time to spend crafting their communication message carefully. In the process, as interaction progresses, positive impressions of the opposite party are magnified as there are no visual cues to detract from them or to suggest otherwise. Hence, a virtuous cycle of positive communication, positive impressions and positive reaffirmations lead to hyperpersonal communication. These characteristics of computer mediated communication (CMC) are also likely to resonate with the needs and wants of youths. At an age where they are trying to come to terms with their changing bodies and hormonal fluctuations, face-to-face interactions are likely to be discomfiting. Shy youths would also find face-to-face socialising stressful. Visual anonymity and asynchronous communication in CMC free youths from such pressures. Massively Multi-player Online Role-Paying Games (MMORPG) also present novel environments with unique forms of social interaction. World of Warcraft for example, is set in an animated fantasy world where players role-play as orcs, dwarves and dragons. Players play and communicate with one another through their on-screen avatars and can initiate collective actions such as monster killings or guild formations.

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There are also avenues for social chatting and trading in weapons. In such interactions, youths can ‘meet’ individuals from around the world and derive a sense of power and self-efficacy as they collaborate with other players to achieve shared goals within the game (Yee 2006). The role experimentation and social networking within such games can be extremely diverse and potentially enriching for youths. Cultural consumption/production Consumer and media culture play a significant role in socialising youths, and is an important dimension of their peer relations as well. Cultural consumption for today’s youths has become particularly interesting with the advent of narrow-casting. New media forms are generated through an ever expanding number of channels. The latest trend is Web 2.0, i.e. websites where content is generated by users and is shared on a peer-to-peer basis. Web 2.0 is being avidly embraced by youths around the world. File sharing services such as Flickr (for photographs), YouTube (for videos) and Gnutella (for music files and software) are especially popular. This popularity is due in no small part to the fact that with such sites the individual is vested with greater semiotic democracy and almost complete creative licence in the media content that they wish to put up. With new media, youths are at liberty to incorporate existing media into their own creations, in the process subverting conventional media and infusing it with their own ideas and values. “On YouTube, you can see two boys reinterpret the Pokemon theme tune, or a six-minute retelling of The Shining, this time with a happy ending, or a compact splicing-together of The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. The creative urge goes beyond video. On Second Life, a 3-D online networking game, one member has recreated the whole of the city of Dublin for other members to see including cafes, squares, bookshops and streets.” (Bowley 2006) Media consumers today enjoy the luxury of bricolage – the ability to manipulate objects in one’s milieu to incorporate ideas – due to the multifarious affordances of new media (Shih 1998; Turkle 1995). The digitisation of new media content and the easy availability of DIY text, image, video and audio creation/editing software facilitate the practice of bricolage. As youths are often rebellious and not accepting of the status quo, the bricolage which they enjoy in their media consumption can be empowering. Indeed, the creative energies of media consumers have not gone unnoticed, and the media industry is keen to understand audiences’ creative (re)interpretations (Jenkins 2002). Beyond bricolage, the social networking enabled by new media has also facilitated the proliferation of online fan communities, allowing youths to take their consumption of conventional media to a different plane. While fan groups are not new, the Internet has made it easier for fans of movies, music, art, literature etc. to get in touch with one another, communicate regularly, and even initiate fan activities (Baym 2000). Take for example anime fanclubs which have emerged throughout the world, including Southeast Asia. Citizen journalism is another fascinating trend in media consumption. Where conventional news channels fail to cover newsworthy events, or conventional media coverage may reflect institutional biases, media consumers can restore the balance by

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posting their own reports of such events. Blogs, vlogs and podcasts have been avidly used by citizen journalists to share their views. An excellent example is a post by the widely-read Malaysian blogger Jeff Ooi on a fuel price protest in Malaysia in March 2006 that received scant media coverage. His post consolidated other bloggers’ reports on the protest, complete with commentary, photographs and video files (see Figure 2). The ability of individuals to publish and broadcast with very few resources expands the space for public discussion, breaking the dominance of established media institutions. Youths today therefore have access to a wider range of perspectives, and the ability to share their own perspectives with others.

Figure 1. Malaysia blogger Jeff Ooi’s post on the fuel price protest

Discussion New media offers youths today a mind-boggling array of channels for role experimentation, identity formation, social networking and content creation/sharing. Affordances such as ease of modification and dissemination, visual anonymity and delayed/asynchronous communication resonate with the needs and desires of young people. Aside from this natural fit between new media and youths, youths are also highly technophilic early adopters of technology. However, while new media can be extremely empowering for the young, this new-found power does not come without risks or responsibilities. When they post information about themselves on their blogs or in social networking sites, youths need to be aware of the dangers of revealing too much personally-identifiable information, such that their own safety is compromised. When they receive public feedback on their blogs or online profiles, they have to be mentally prepared that some comments may be demoralising or malicious. When they produce

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content or reinterpret content created by others, they have to be mindful of protecting their own intellectual property rights while respecting others’. When they share their views online, they have to consider that these opinions will enter the public domain and may cause offence if reference is made to particular individuals or groups. To be alert to these risks and respond appropriately, youths need to be vested with media literacy. In this regard, we need to draw a clear distinction between functional and critical literacy, wherein for new media, functional literacy is the ability to operate technological devices and access media content. Critical literacy in turn, is the ability to understand, interpret and evaluate that content (Buckingham 2005). Critical literacy is essential because the wide variety of content and diversity of sources make it difficult to assess the veracity and reliability of media messages. Critical literacy is also required to use new media services strategically, such that users can minimise harm and maximise benefits. With regard to new media, while youths often have functional literacy, they may not always possess critical literacy. This begs the question of how critical media literacy can be imparted to Asian youths. Are parents the most well-placed to inculcate media literacy skills in their children? A discernible thread in the communications literature identifies the challenges which Southeast Asian parents face in exercising supervision over their children’s new media usage. See, for example, the situation in Indonesia (Guntarto 2001), Thailand (Komoselvin 2001), Vietnam (Nguyen and Nguyen 2002) and Singapore (Lim and Tan 2004). There is often a perceptible gap between children’s and parents’ knowledge of new media and ICTs, arising from the tendency for young people to appropriate these new media to a much higher degree than their parents do. This impacts negatively on the parents’ traditional roles as teachers. With older media, this issue was less pressing as it is comparatively easier for parents to oversee activities like television viewing (Bairaj-Ambigapathy, 2000). In this regard, it is imperative that we understand the contexts of youths’ day-to-day media consumption so that critical literacy skills can be effectively imparted to youths. Urban youths who tend to access new media in the home or school environment should be targeted by media literacy training programmes for parents and youths. Rural youths who tend to frequent cybercafés should be targeted by community-based efforts. In order for youths to benefit from new media, it is imperative that the pace of innovation be matched by the rate of acquisition of critical media literacy skills.

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