Fisk-Memo32

Prologue - “The World of Data Confronts the Joy of Hacking” This chapter sets the stage for the discussion of youth Internet safety by following the discourses of hacking through history. The story of hacking, from the late 1950's to the early 2000's, shares a variety of similarities with that of youth Internet safety as a deviant subculture, centered primarily on youth which was “discovered” by dominant discourses and framed as a social problem.

Chapter 1 – “Nobody can say no...” (Primary Investigator, RRCSEI) The introductory chapter provides an overview of the youth Internet safety story as it has played out in upstate New York and the United States. Drawing upon discourse analysis and interview data, youth Internet safety discourses are demonstrated to disaggregate and reconstitute youth culture online, reordering the technologies and “residents” of cyberspace to support the reproduction of power networks. The book is organized temporally, moving through the development and mobilization of youth Internet safety discourses within dominant institutions.

Chapter 2 – “...your growing network of mutual friends” (MySpace.com, Launch Day) Chapter 2 documents the emergence of social networking technologies and the youth subcultures which formed around them. Specifically, this chapter focuses on the ways in which social networking technologies facilitated the development of subcultures which were distanced from dominant discourse.

Chapter 3 – “Online Enemies Already in Your Home” (Chris Hansen, NBC) Chapter 3 analyzes the initial discovery and portrayal of youth Internet safety issues by the mainstream news media. Here, the focus on sexual predation and pornography is developed as the popularity of NBC specials on internet safety rise.

Chapter 4 – “We want to know what you think, and what you have to say...” (RRCSEI Survey) Chapter 4 examines the research projects which focused on youth Internet safety issues in the wake of media “discovery”. While this chapter will examine a variety of youth Internet safety research, it will focus primarily on my experiences as a member of the Rochester Cyber Safety and Ethics Initiative (RRCSEI). The RRCSEI surveyed over 40,000 K-12 students in the Rochester, NY area in 2007 and 2008, providing reports to local school districts and acting as the basis for a number of national presentations.

Chapter 5 – “SHUTTING DOWN THE INTERNET CHILD PORNOGRAPHY PIPELINE” (Andrew Cuomo, NY Attorney General) Chapter 5 analyzes the construction of state and national youth Internet safety legislation. In addition to formal legislation, extralegal actions taken by legislators and private industry leaders in the name of protecting children online will also be analyzed. Drawing on the agenda setting literature, the range of responses to youth Internet safety issues are framed as mechanisms by which dominant orders are reproduced within cyberspace.

Chapter 6 – “Teaching 21st Century Skills” (Board of Cooperative Educational Services) Chapter 6 describes the obstacles faced by teachers and school administrators in New York State, who are simultaneously tasked with “protecting children online” and “teaching 21st century skills” – further dividing youth culture. Teachers and administrators express frustration and confusion over youth use of the Internet, having little understanding of social networking technologies or the motivations for their use.

Chapter 7 –  (Student) Chapter 7 presents the experience of youth Internet safety measures from the perspective of youth Internet themselves...

Chapter 8 –  (???) The concluding chapter summarizes the findings of the book, calling for a rexamination of moral panic literature in terms of the defense and reproduction of dominant culture, rather than in terms of disproportionality.