Berkman Luncheon Series >

may
15
2007

Digital Natives: Participatory Culture or Self-Representation?

Corinna di Gennaro, Berkman Fellow

The growing diffusion of internet adoption and use and the popularity of internet applications from blogs to social networking sites which allow people to actively create content online has sparkled a revolution in the way people gather and share information leading to utopian visions of a new participatory culture.

But is the euphoria surrounding Web 2.0 backed up by actual changes in social practices? Are these changes bringing about a new participatory culture or are they just furthering self-representation? And are digital natives leading the revolution? This talk will look at these questions with a particular focus on how the Internet is reshaping notions of citizenship and people’s participation in the democratic process.

About Corinna

Corinna di Gennaro is a sociologist working on the social implications of Internet adoption and use for civic engagement and political participation. She is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California.

Corinna received a PhD in Sociology from the University of Oxford (2004). Prior to joining USC she was a fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, where she worked on the design and analysis of the Oxford Internet Surveys.

Links

+ Corinna’s Blog