Lenny Gonzales

By Lillian Mongeau

Nearly seven million young people will be newly eligible to vote this November. And contrary to what most might think, a recent study of how these voters engage in politics using new media shows they’re paying close attention.

“A lot of what we’re trying to understand is the way in which [using new media] might be related to the ways in which young people are being active politically,” said the study’s co-author, Joseph Kahne.

Of the 3,000 young people age 15-25 surveyed in the study, Participatory Politics: New Media and Youth Political Action, 41 percent reported using these online activities to engage in political discussions or actions. That could be anything from sharing a video of Mitt Romney giving a speech to the NAACP, to signing a petition on Change.org asking Seventeen Magazine to quit photo-shopping pictures of its models, to tweeting about the violence in Syria.

“Lots of the sort of fundamental things that people have to do to be politically active happen online” now, said Kahne, a professor at Mills College in Oakland, California, who’s part of the MacArthur Research Network on Youth & Participatory Politics (YPP). “If they think that sending an email to their friends is the same as showing up and voting, that could be a problem. But in fact, what we found in our study is that young people who were engaged in participatory politics were twice as likely to report voting as people who weren’t engaged.”

Last winter, “online activism” became the subject of searing critique after a video about African warlord Joseph Kony made the rounds. The error-ridden video racked up close to 20 million views on YouTube and Vimeo in just a few days and raised millions in real dollars for the non-profit that produced it. Critics were quick to site ill-informed youth as the primary culprits.

Kahne’s study, which was co-authored by Cathy J. Cohen of the University of Chicago, focused more on the fact that the conversation was taking place, and its real-world impact, than the content of the conversation young people were having.

“Even when [using new media] is becoming a part of all our practices, we still often imagine it the way they used to be,” Kahne said. This, he said, is a mistake. So much of the flow of information and discussion of new ideas and mobilization of movements from Occupy to the Tea Party are happening online now, and it would be folly to ignore the shift.

WHAT DIGITAL DIVIDE?

The other primary finding of the study showed that the digital divide between young people of different ethnicities appears to be shrinking.

“Overwhelmingly, white (96%), black (94%), Latino (96%) and Asian American (98%) youth report having access to a computer that connects to the Internet,” the study reported.

And when all types of political engagement—participatory politics and institutional politics like voting or helping with a campaign—are taken into account, it’s black youth who are the most engaged.

“So overall, we think that we really have to rethink the digital divide,” Kahne said. “It doesn’t follow this kind of conventional wisdom that says whites or upper-income people are the ones doing all of this stuff.”

Several youth organizations in Oakland, where Kahne is based, have taken the task of getting kids engaged in politics to heart. In partnership with the school district’s educational access television station, KDOL, these organizations have hosted several conversations between students and local leaders.

Seventeen-year-old Damari Lawrence participated in one of these panels with Oakland Mayor Jean Quan last year. After the interview, he said, “I saw that I really wasn’t caring about politics and what goes on in the world. I understood then that these politics have effects—immediate and sometimes long-term—on me and the community.”

Lawrence interns for the KDOL-based Media Enterprise Alliance, which teaches students video and multimedia production skills. The program also helps students create news reports on issues of interest to them and their peers.

Lawrence said a lot of kids may think they aren’t interested in politics. “But there’s a good, significant portion of teenagers out there who have an interest that could be built upon,” he said.

The message to politicians hoping to pull in the youth vote this fall? Get online. The kids are waiting for you.

YOUmedia

Earlier this month, we covered the Fayetteville Free Library‘s new Fab Lab, the public library’s plans to build a “makerspace” where library patrons could gain hands-on experience using 3D printers and other tools and could take programming and “shop” classes.

It’s part of a larger movement to rethink and re-imagine what a public library will look like and what functions it will serve. While many people do see libraries solely as book repositories, it’s clear that the library is much more than that. For many, it’s an important community center and a place that offers access to digital tools and media.

A new competition sponsored by the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has just announced 12 winning libraries and museums that will receive $1.2 million in grant money help push the boundaries of what these institutions look like, specifically helping to create facilities that are better “learning labs” for teens.

The idea was inspired by YOUmedia, a teen learning space at the Chicago Public Library’s downtown center. YOUmedia provides teens with access to thousands of books. But it also contains over 100 laptop and desktop computers — machines that are equipped with various media creation software — as well as an in-house recording studio with keyboards, turntables and a mixing board. YOUmedia also provides classes and connections to mentors so that teens can learn how to use the equipment.

Recognizing the importance of museums and libraries as sites for hands-on learning, the MacArthur Foundation and IMLS-sponsored competition plans to take the YOUmedia model and spread it nationally. The hope is for the new learning labs to serve as places where teens can explore science, technology, art, and literature — not just to not just to read about it — through building and making.

New teen learning labs will be built in San Francisco, CA; Thornton, CO; Columbia, MD; St. Paul, MN; Kansas City, MO; New York, NY; Columbus, OH; Portland, OR; Allentown, PA; Philadelphia, PA; Nashville, TN; and Houston, TX.

In Portland, for example, the Multnomah County Library will team up with the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) to build a Community Maker Center. The city’s Teen Advisory Council is helping plan the design and operation of the Maker Center with other local partners that include the mentor-based workshop TechShop and the robotics program FIRST.

The St. Paul Learning Labs Project will bring together the city’s public library with its partners at the St. Paul Parks and Recreation Department to create a new facility, as well as a mobile lab and an online portal. Twenty-five percent of St. Paul’s population is under age 18; 72% of its student population qualifies for free or reduced lunch; and 36% are English language learners. The new teen learning spaces will provide a safe and resource-rich environment for at-risk youth to “hang out, mess around, and geek out.”

The New York Hall of Science in Queens plans to create a Digital Making program within its new Cognizant Maker Space. The program aims to boost teens’ interest in STEM topics through programs that will encourage them to work with music, video, and games. The New York Hall of Science has been the site of the New York Maker Faire, and as such, the new learning lab will tap into a larger community of makers and builders to help act as mentors and resources for the teens.

While the grant recipients all plan on building different sorts of programs that meet community needs and match community resources, in general the emphasis is on providing a free and open community space for teens to explore digital media and technology — and to do so on their own terms. This sort of informal learning can hopefully foster creativity and experimentation and offer both STEM learning and play that doesn’t always happen in schools.

It’s that element — “as informal learning institutions” — that OMSI’s David Perry, Director of Museum Education points to with the Portland project, one that combines the library and museum’s respective strengths in engaging teens and creating hands-on experiences. “Digital media and production tools are changing the way people, especially teens, interact with each other and the world around them,” says Perry, and it’s now more libraries and museums are thinking how to foster learning experiences for their teenage visitors.