Reijo Kupiainen

Young People’s Narratives of Media and Identity : Mediagraphy as Identity Work in Upper Secondary School

Abstract The article explores how upper secondary students use the learning activity mediagraphy to reflect on their identity and on media as constraining and enabling factors in their social practice. In mediagraphy, the students research four generations of their own families, including themselves. They write a mediagraphy essay on the differences and similarities across the generations in media use and turning points in individuals’ lives, in addition to societal and media-related developments. Data from student products and interviews are analysed through three “identity dilemmas” that any identity claim faces: the constant navigation between 1) continuity and change, 2) sameness and difference with regard to others, and 3) agency as “person-to-world” and “world-to-person”. The findings suggest that mediagraphy is a type of identity work that can potentially help students develop an agentive identity in a time of insecurity, with rapidly shifting social and cultural conditions and increasing media density.

Young people’s creative online practices in the context of school community

This article concentrates on young people’s creative online practices, such as making videos, writing lifestyle blogs, and engaging in online role-playing games. It also looks at their relations to different audiences, privacy, and the school community as a central social environment in young people’s everyday life. The research was conducted as an ethnographic study in one public secondary school in Finland during the academic year 2009–2010. The ethnography is preceded by a quantitative survey on media use among school students (N = 305). EU Kids Online research data (N = 1012) regarding Finland was used in the analysis of young people’s internet use as well. The internet offers different possibilities for young people to publish, share, and participate online. Although the study shows that the majority of young people are not especially eager to share their creative productions on the internet, some of the teens studied had a strong interest in creative media production and online activities. The case study shows that young people’s creative online activities vary from individual activities, such as school-community–based communal activities, to collaborative activities with peers. In order to control their privacy online, young people try to manage their self-presentations, their audiences, and their spaces where they share their productions. It also seems that active and creative internet users get more support for internet safety from their peers and teachers.

Nuorten luovat mediakäytännöt kaupunkitilan heterotopioina

Artikkelissa tarkastellaan kaupunkitilaa Michel de Certeaun taktiikkaja Michel Foucault’n heterotopia-käsitteiden valossa. Näkökulma kohdistuu heterotopioiden luomiseen erilaisten luovien mediakäytäntöjen avulla, jotka ovat olennainen osa erityisesti nuorten elämismaailmaa. Nuoret luovat uusia julkisuuden alueita tekemällä videoita, valokuvaamalla, kirjoittamalla blogitekstejä tai harjoittamalla muita luovia mediakäytäntöjä. Mediatuotanto yhdistyy usein ruumiilliseen rytmiin ja liikkeeseen kaupungissa, kuten parkouriin, rullatai jopa lumilautailuun tai pelkkään kävelyyn ja oleskeluun. Nämä toiminnan muodot luovat nuorille omia paikkoja ja tiloja ja haastavat näkemään kaupunkia ja toimimaan kaupungissa uusilla tavoilla. Heterotopiat ymmärretään artikkelissa vaihtoehtoisina sosiaalisina järjestyksinä, jotka luovat moniulotteista mediakaupunkia, jossa fyysisen ja virtuaalisen rajat hämärtyvät. Kaupunkitila näyttäytyy moninaisena inhimllisen toiminnan ja vuorovaikutuksen alueena, jossa toiminnan luonne määrittää ja muokkaa tilaa. Luovissa mediakäytännöissä rakentuvat identiteetit ovat spatiaalisuuden muotoja, joista nuoret neuvottelevat suhteessa ympäristöön. Kaupunkitilassa toteutetut ja verkossa jaetut mediasisällöt tuottavat affiniteettitiloja, joilla on oma erityinen merkityksensä osana kaupunkitilaa ja kommunikaatiota.

Dissolving the School Space: young people's media production in and outside of school

Young people bring their own media and literacy practices to school as an important part of their identity, taste and social life. These practices are changing the media ecology of schools, making the physical boundaries of schools more permeable and creating new, unofficial spaces at school. During peer-based learning, the enhanced media practices of students often get incorporated into the school environment and the learning process in different ways. In this article the author especially highlights youth media production practices, which may relate to school in three different ways: they may be school community-based practices, curriculum-based practices or out-of-school practices. This study shows how these practices create a dialogue between informal and formal learning and make space-time at school more dynamic and hybrid.