Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

3.4.10 | “African American youth are just as likely to use social networking sites as any other young population in the United States,” says S. Craig Watkins, associate professor of media studies at the University of Texas at Austin. “The access gap more or less has been addressed, and now what researchers are turning their attention to is what we call the participation gap.”

This “participation gap” refers to how youth of color engage with digital media. The concern is that they may be using technologies and tools that are less likely to encourage the development of sophisticated skill sets and literacies.  Watkins was the keynote speaker at a public forum, “To Be Young Digital and Black,” held at Morehouse College in February and sponsored by the United Negro College Fund with support from the MacArthur Foundation.

He discussed how mobile technology has been one of the unexpected drivers in closing the access gap, but there are questions about the limited opportunities it provides for dynamic engagement and exploration. Watch the video for interviews with forum participants and students, as well as excerpts from Watkins’ talk. For more on this topic, read Spotlight’s interview with Watkins.

The forum was the first in a series, “Digital Media and Learning in Multicultural Contexts,” designed to provide arenas for discussion of how youth, especially youth of color, use new digital media and social networking tools.

The next forum, “New Networked Learning Environments,” is scheduled for March 25 at Huston-Tillotson University in Austin. The series will conclude April 8 with a forum at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, N.C., with a forum on the application and policy implications of digital media and learning.