Digital Natives Forum Series >

sep
3
2008

Digital Natives Forum Series: the impact of digital technologies upon young people’s civic engagement

with Dr. Sunshine Hillygus, Keli Goff, Paul Selker, Nasser Wedaddy, and Judith Perry.

Wednesday, September 3, 12:30 PM – 2:30 PM
Main Conference Room, 23 Everett St, 2nd Floor, Cambridge, MA 02138

Digital Natives Forum is a series of cross-discipline discussions hosted by the Digital Natives Project, moderated by John Palfrey, Principle Investigator and Faculty Co-Director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society on topics related to young people and their use of technology in their daily lives.

Connecting theory to practice:  How can digital media tools enable youths to motivate one another to create meaningful change?

We aim to bring together academics across disciplines, activists and educators to discuss the potential of digital tools for civic engagement among young people.  By connecting "theory to practice" we hope to engage both academic and "on the ground" knowledge to inform and learn from each other.

Discussion was interspersed and prompted by short academic and activist organization presentations.  Format was such that every participant was encouraged to speak.

Speakers:

• Dr. Sunshine Hillygus
  Frederick S. Danziger Associate Professor of Government
  Director of the Harvard Program on Survey Research
  Harvard University. 
  Her research and teaching interests include American voting behavior, campaigns and elections, survey research, and information technology and society. 

• Keli Goff is an expert political analyst on youth and minority voters and author of Party Crashing: How the Hip-Hop Generation Declared Political Independence. She is also a popular blogger and commentator.

• Paul Selker
  Paul Selker is Director of Outreach and Communications at Obama Works, a national grassroots organization at the intersection of community service and politics.  Obama Works empowers Senator Obama's supporters to enact meaningful change in their communities while supporting their candidate of choice

• Nasser Weddady
  Director of Outreach at HAMSA (Hands Across the Mideast Support Alliance) HAMSA unites Americans of all backgrounds to support the movement to secure civil rights in the Middle East. A long-time activist in the struggle to end slavery in his homeland, Nasser has organized conferences for young activists across the Middle East.
  

• Judith Perry
  Research Manager
  MIT Scheller Teacher Education Program.
  Perry’s research focuses on the use of handheld computers in educational settings. Her research projects include Palm-based participatory simulations, which embed participants in game-like simulations.  Perry will be presenting TimeLab, an augmented reality game that engages players to think about implications of climate change and debate related ballot initiatives.

Digital Natives is an interdisciplinary academic collaboration of the Research Center for Information Law at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School.  The Digital Natives project focuses on the key legal, social, and political implications of a generation "born digital" - those who grow up immersed in a networked world, for whom a life fully integrated with digital devices is the norm. Through qualitative research, legal analysis, and collaboration with educators, we investigate how the culture of digital natives – a culture of connectivity, of public display, of sharing, of feedback, of constant availability and of global citizenship – impacts and will continue to impact our world. In particular, we focus on the influence upon institutions of education and government, while also extending inquiry to impacts on business, relationships, and mental health.