Fisk-Memo25

As I mentioned in a number of previous memos, I believe the shifts in the sign systems which constitute “youth Internet safety” are driven by (what I've started calling) the disaggregation and reconstitution of youth Internet use (and culture) by dominant discourse. Basically, when youth Internet use is viewed through dominant discourse, specific types of activities – those which correspond with discourses of technology-as-progress and technology-as-risk – become visible, while others which better reflect the day-to-day use of the Internet by youth are obscured. Those activities which are made visible by dominant discourse are then recategorized within dominant discourse, reconstituting youth Internet use (and culture).

Currently, I think we're only at the first step of that process – disaggregation. Various aspects of youth Internet use are being made visible (pulled out of context) within dominant discourses, including “sexting,” “cyber-bullying” and exposure to “strangers” as deviant/risky behavior, and social networking, “twittering,” and user-generated content as progress/“21st century” behavior.

Note (for Nate): - Moral panics not disproportionate when viewed as threat to assumptions which provide foundation for dominant discourses (sexuality, property...)

From HASS: Currently, I hypothesize a model in which subcultures of users form around particular technologies – in this case Internet technologies – in partial isolation or distance from dominant discourse. This is followed by a discovery event, which brings the subculture into the view of dominant discourse. In the case of youth Internet safety, this event, or series of events, likely coincides with the airing of Internet predator specials on television. Finally, dominant discourse attempts to make sense of the subculture, with the dominant frame making visible certain elements and obscuring others, leading to categories of deviance and policy actions which appear as disproportional. In such a model, youth identity emerges in part from tensions between the categories imposed by dominant discourse – caught between shifting frames of innocence and deviance. Similarly, those technologies which created a space for the development of the subculture are also categorized by the dominant discourse. Forms of information technologies popularized by youth are framed as both the innovative tools of the 21st century and as a gateway to crime, illicit content and sexual predators.

From E-mail with Brent: First, I think it can be argued that dominant discourses must be implicated in the "harm" caused by activities such as sexting. Such activities are not, I believe, inherently harmful. Any resulting harm from engaging in such activities comes from the violation of dominant social norms, not from the activity itself. It is not psychologically harmful, it is socially harmful - which is evidenced by the very fact that those who engage in such activities (may) experience lowered self-esteem and self-worth. Those who engage in public or semi-public displays of sexuality are made to feel ashamed - particularly in cases where youth are involved. The reason they feel ashamed is because dominant discourse is just that - dominant - and only once activities such as sexting and those who participate in them are reframed through dominant discourse is there something to be ashamed of.

Second, the main thrust of my argument is that sexting and posting nude photos are simply aspects of a larger youth (sub?)culture which are made visible and decontextualized when "viewed" through dominant discourse. Those activities which "fit" with dominant discourse, or are at the very least not considered deviant, are obscured. Youth subculture isn't "resisting" dominant discourse, but it has developed in spaces where dominant discourse is less dominant. There is nothing there to resist, until dominant discourse "discovers" a problem, and begins to "fix" it.

So, in essence, my argument is rooted in a critique of the dominant construction of youth sexuality. Which is what I meant, I suppose, by "following it all the way down."