Fisk-Memo16

This study draws upon data gathered largely through interview data and discourse analysis of policy, news media and school administrative documents. An additional component will analyze quantitative data gathered from a 2007 survey of K-12 students on computer crime. This survey data will be used as a basis of comparison for policy documents, as part of an effort to identify discrepancies between policy and the survey data. At an empirical level, this research project will examine power as it operates through configurations of “youth Internet safety,” as a means to both uncover the ways in which dominant institutions strategically reorder cyberspace through discourses of Internet safety, and critically examine the construction and mobilization of criminal and deviant categories online. Discourses of "youth Internet safety" provide a basis for the reconceptualization of moral panic and deviance construction, as drawn from sociological and criminological literatures. Additionally, by focusing on the role of technology in the construction of deviance, this research project advances discussions on the co-production of technology and society which have emerged from the science and technology studies literature. Finally, this project will make a number of practical contributions by providing policy recommendations for legislators and school administrators concerned with protecting youth Internet users and by providing a basis for the development of workshops for parents and teachers across New York state.

ALTERNATE EMPIRICAL STATEMENT: This project will document and analyze the re-ordering of cyberspace through discourses of "youth Internet safety," examining the construction and mobilization of categories of online deviance through interviews with "youth Internet users" in New York State, media accounts of "youth Internet safety," and "youth Internet safety" policies at the state and federal levels.

//FROM "SNAPSHOTS"://
 * At a methodological level, this study will expand on Fisher's policy analysis methods, providing a means by which to recontextualize quantitative data within competing discourses.
 * At an empirical level, this study will contribute to the growing literature on youth and the Internet, examining the ways in which youth shape, and are used to shape cyberspaces and Internet policy, providing a clearer view of youth, deviance and the Internet which is grounded in quantitative and qualitative data.
 * At a conceptual level, this study will attempt to develop a discursive model of (technology-based?) deviance. This model conceptualizes deviance and criminality as...
 * At a practical level, this study will provide policy recommendations for legislators and school administrators concerned with protecting youth Internet users, which has recently developed as a significant concern. Additionally, the information gathered in this study will be developed into workshops for parents and teachers across New York State, providing them with grounding in empirical data, allowing them to more effectively supervise youth Internet users and critically reexamine the discourses of moral panic.

//FROM (preliminary) HASS:// This research project will attempt to address these criticisms of moral panic, making a number of conceptual contributions to both moral panic and STS literatures. First, a new model of moral panic will be developed, drawing heavily from Foucaultian theory, reconceptualizing moral panic as the reconfiguration of subjugated discourse by dominant discourse. Secondly, the role of technology – particularly information technology – in the construction and maintenance of moral panic will be highlighted. At a practical level, this study will provide policy recommendations for legislators and school administrators concerned with protecting youth Internet users, which has recently developed as a significant concern. Additionally, the empirical data gathered in this study will be developed into workshops for parents and teachers across New York State, providing additional grounding in empirical data, with the aim them to more broadly understand youth Internet users and critically reexamine the discourses of moral panic prevalent in news media and legislation.

//FROM (FINAL) HASS:// 3.1 Intellectual Merit In answering the above questions, this research will make the following contributions to scholarly literature:

At the most basic level, this research will contribute to the historical record of Internet policy and regulation. More broadly, this research will contribute to long-standing scholarly efforts to understand how deviance is defined and governed in different historical periods and cultural contexts. This research will additionally provide further insight into the ways “youth” are conceptualized and governed across different periods and contexts. Finally, this research will contribute to scholarly discussions concerned with ways particular social issues – here, Internet youth safety – garner public attention and legislative insight, sometime provoking what researchers have described as “moral panic.”

3.2 Broader Significance Additionally, this research is grounded in a commitment to an audience beyond scholarly work, and will meet the following broader objectives: To provide policy recommendations for legislators and school administrators tasked with maintaining the well-being of children both on- and off-line. To develop curricula for training workshops aimed at parents and educators with youth Internet safety concerns. To recontextualize extant quantitative research on youth Internet safety within the day-to-day practices of youth Internet users.