Determination of the complementary topics for the survey

Complementary topics for the survey

Appropriation's definition

This research aims at understanding how young people (12-18 years old) seems to appropriate Internet and new audio-scripto-visual media.

Different field of social sciences try to study the appropriation.

Different approaches, according disciplines

• Psychological approach

Jean Piaget has already identified that when a child discover a new object, he appropriates it himself in two dynamic phases and in two directions: assimilation-accommodation.

Assimilation is the integration of a knowledge element or a new object within already built mental structures.

Accommodation of new structures is a modification or a creation under the resistance of characteristics proper to the discovered object.

• Socio-political approach

Patrice Flichy and Thierry Vedel made a theory about the sociopolitics uses. They underscore a dual movement with two dimensions: innovation of production and innovation of use, logic of production and logic of use. They found, here, an interaction of the production and the use, or of the technical and socio-cultural facts. The idea is that the couple "technical-use" mooves, in middle term, under crossed actions of the technical objects by users, and under the users by technical objects.

• Sociological approach

Max Weber approach is focused on social relationship rather than social fact. In that way, he means that human behaviour, like in the appropriation act of a new technical tool, institutes a subjective meaning in the group behaviours. Groups reinvent the uses and re appropriate themselves the tool's functions on the basis of their socialization needs that come from their values and aspirations. We are facing the group inscription in the world and the assertion will of their quality of life or social status.

• "Communitical" approach

The following authors have written about social appropriation theories : Watzlawick, Meier, Sola Pool, Zipf, Meyrowitz in USA, Moles, Balle, Doxiadis, Maffesoli in Europe, Cartier, Cloutier, Ravault et Proulx in Québec.

From their works, it is possible to interpret the new media's appropriation, as moving away and drawing one's inspiration from the sense we have put on that phenomenon in the diffusion and innovation adoption's theories.

"The concept of appropriation, by the nature of transactions, exchanges, decisions and negotiations that it involves, can't be studied in a linear way. It establishes other relations than the relations that appear as observation data. The concept of appropriation as a sociological object (Prouxl, 1988) is not a social fact independent of the social agents, as in the supply-side as in the demand side. This social relation is the result of an activity based on the choice of manners, technological or not, tangible or not, spontaneous or reflexive, in seek of attempting a result, individual or in-group".

P-L. HARVEY, «Communautique et communuticiels : Un nouveau territoire de recherche», UQAM, Montréal, Mai 2000 au Congrès 2000 de l'Association de la recherche en communication du Québec.
http://www.comm.uqam.ca/~harweb/labreso/cvca99/gruluq/cours/
cours1/rencontre7/cyber/cyber1.htm

• Mediological approach

Mediologues have a different vision on the Mac Luhan's technical determinism. Following Régis Debray and his famous lecture in La Sorbonne, they consider the technique (in this case Internet) as one of a triangle's top. The two others corners of this triangle are organisation and ideas (or values). These three corners are closely dependent on each other and any of these tops can't be evaluated without the two others. It shows that any technique is both subjected and determinant for forms of organisation and for ideas.

The ideas of Jack Goody (an anthropologist) about the wild thought's domestication, Pierre Levy (the philosopher) about intelligence's technologies, and André Leroy-Gourhan about the emergency of speech and tool, should be add with the previous points of view.

• Pragmatical approach

Recently, Gérard Valenduc (physician and doctor in computer science) summarized the controversy that divides philosophers and sociologists of sciences and technology. He opposed the technological determinism and the social constructivism. His work proposes an assessment of the theories of the relation between technology and company. It suggests an alternative to the determinism and constructivism dilemma. While being based on many researches in the field of communication and information technologies, the author pleads in favour of a pragmatic approach of the co-evolution of technology and company. This approach challenges the social responsibility of the technology initiators and opens new prospects with engagement for the social actors (e.g. educators) in the technological field.

VALENDUC G., «La technologie, un jeu de société. Au-delà du déterminisme technologique et du constructivisme social », Editions Academia Bruylant, collection « Sciences et enjeux», 2005.

Synthesis of the approaches

With those different approaches, we can make the following hypothesis: trough the way in witch young people appropriate themselves new media, there is also a dual movement of changes in which young people modulate and model media (which is discovered, explored and used by the youth). They make media their own and press it to evolve throughout its successive generations. It is a socio-constructivist process that can be represented by the figure below.

This appropriation's movement produces also several side effects on young people's relational networks and the mutual position of traditional medias and their relations to young people.

Theoretical framework

For this research we adopt a theoretical framework built on the concepts of representations, attitudes and behaviours/uses and we put them in relation with the six themes of media literacy : languages, technologies, representations, typologies, publics and productions.

Representations, attitudes and behaviour/uses : some clarifications

DE SMEDT T., «Représentations, attitudes et comportements: quelques clarifications», Atelier de conception et évaluation de médias socio-éducatifs (COMU 2286), UCL, 2003. http://didac.comu.ucl.ac.be/Medias_educatifs/archives/Ressources/
representations.htm

The concept of representation indicates the way individual or groups represent them an object (poverty, exclusion, justice, a rural co-operative, the psychoanalysis, ...) and mobilize, consciously or not, this representation to think, understand and express them. The representation is often resulting from a combination of formal knowledge issued from the "formal learning" (like those from school or the specific trainings) and from "abstract" knowledge (resulting from the experiment, the human entourage and the media). The representations are also implanted in various levels of the personal or collective subconscious. Moreover, they are often modulated by emotions like attraction or repulsion factors. As a consequence, any action to the representations mixes, in variable proportions, a cognitive dimension focused on knowledge and an emotional dimension, focused on desire.

The concept of attitude indicates a virtuality of act. Closely related with representations, the attitude can be described as a propensity to adopt behaviour facing possible events. Attitude is a "virtual act" susceptible to update himself (to be realised concretely) or to inhibit himself when a certain event like a release mechanism do or not occur.

Finally, the behaviour/use is a "current" act, i.e. in concrete situation, observable through the concrete forms of her expression.

The distinction between representation, attitudes and behaviour is essential for anyone who wishes to exceed a strictly behaviourist attitude, associating to any stimulus a determining answer, like advertising often do. On the contrary, distinguish representation, attitudes and behaviour is to give explanation for the complexity of the social acts and the multiplicity of sensitivities and personal orientations and environmental factors, without denying the reality of the collective in the individual behaviours.

We can present the relationship between young people and the Internet and these three concepts on the following schema :

The way young people represent Internet and its contents and mobilize, consciously or not, this representation to think, understand and express. Cognitive Dimension and emotional dimension.

A virtuality of acting. A propensity to adopt a behaviour facing some possible events. A "virtual acting", susceptible of actualise or inhibit itself when an event acting like a release occurs or not.

An "actual" acting, i.e. in a concrete observable situation trough the concrete forms of its expression

Fundamental topics of media literacy

«L'éducation à l'audiovisuel et aux médias, dossier de synthèse» Conseil de l'Education aux Médias, Belgique, 1996.

These topics are from the British programme of media literacy (implemented since a few years). Themes are presented here in a logical order according to their importance.

Here, the objective of media literacy is to learn how pupils establish, simultaneously, relations between the six topics when facing a document and in an original personal reflection.

Pedagogical integration's levels

During the media literacy training, each following theme should be approached on three pedagogical integration's levels. For the children, they are :

Level 1 : Sensibilisation (to come in contact immediately with the fundamentally elements of the theme)

Level 2 : Discernment (to perceive elementary concepts close to a theme)

Level 3 : Expertise (to articulate different concepts in a personal thought and bring them in context in a broad way. This is also the level where children must be able to confront personally each theme to the other five themes.

Topics :

1. Languages : It concerns all languages using visual or sound material. Languages could in a complexly way be coordinated possibly. The approach's method must be focused on construction and destruction.
2. Technologies : It concerns technical processes and material used in visual and sound communication. The objective could be defined on two levels: 1) to know and to usually use technologies in daily life. 2) To understand great media technologies without operational control and while being able to set them to the other themes connection.
3. Representations : It represents both representations contained in a document and the possibly action of this document on the psychosocial representations of the public.
4. Typologies : Audiovisual documents are classified in different category according to contents, kind, ... These typologies are not homogenous and result from different approaches. It is necessary that young people are able to characterize the audiovisual document they discover, and in the same time, that they are conscious of the restrictive character of any classification.
5. Publics : It is the reception pole of the audiovisual messages, i.e. the activity by which a listener or spectator gives sense to a document.
6. Productions : It concerns the manufacturers and diffusers of the audio-visual one. It is important to make know the media production's "world", but also to legitimate every form of manufacture of audio-visual message. The education of the spectator to a critical attitude goes through a demythificant analyse of the functions in relation with media production and diffusion.

The Internet confronts us now with new challenges. Indeed, documents founded on the net are plentiful, of a multimediatic nature and under various forms (text, pictures, video, sound,...). It is not easy to find the source or reliability of it.

It is necessary to educate pupils to a critical (positive and negative judgement) mind, which allow them to answer to these new problems with the suggested methods. Indeed, they must be able to control new technologies (which are perpetually amplified) and to uses them in an effective way.

The six topics we have presented are connected with themselves but also with the concept of appropriation. In this way, we have the dual movement by which young people appropriate themselves new media and modify them at the same time.

Shematic representation of the links between the research, the education and the appropriation

Research Issues

Please find therefore the synthesis of the research issues elaborated in sub-groups in the Warsaw seminar. Four categories cover the domain of our research questions :

1. Multimedia Environment : this category concerns the means (material and uses) to access Internet and other audio-scripto-visual media (material, places, time, money, interactivity between medias, ...).
2. Knowledge / cognitive process : this category concerns the way young people understand, learn, get information and build representations about the Internet (technological, communicational, social skills) including the dimensions of danger and risk.
3. Psychosocial Dynamics : Identity, culture, society: This category concerns the perception and the representations of young people about the impact of the use of the Internet and the new portable audio-scripto-visual technologies, on the relationships between them and their peers, friends, parents, teachers, communities, ...
4. Future / Democratic citizenship : this category concerns the vision of the future evolution of the Internet, the consequences and also the implications on future needs, e.g. in terms of control , regulation, skills, or education.

In a first version of the description, a specific category about safety factors was present. We decided later to distribute the initial "Safety issues" into the four other issues. Indeed, we consider that safety is produced by uses, attitudes and knowledge related with the four dimensions.

Multimedia Environment

1. What are the possibilities of interconnectivity in between the different multimedia contexts for young people? How do young people combine and interconnect the different multimedia applications and devices ?
2. What is the state of young people multimedia environment: Do they use different media ? Do they confuse or make real distinction in between the different media ? In which way are they thinking about the links to environment ? Do they consider all media as accessible or not ?
3. How much time do young people spend on each media? How much allowance are they ready to spend for "free" services ?
4. What do young people expect from media uses? What are their needs to own each device ?
5. What is their perception of the technologies in the school/teaching process for parents/adults and for children ? (Safety factor)

Knowledge/cognitive process

1. Do young people have an idea of how the media works ? How are the children building their knowledge ? Do peers build their knowledge ? (Safety factor)
2. Which knowledge concerning new technologies do young people have ? What do they learn about technologies by using it ?
3. What do young people think they learn (for example language, information, communication skills...) ? How do they think they learn ? What do they think about the school role ?
4. Where do children get information about the Internet ? Are they interested in learning through the Internet ? Does it make a difference in the way they are thinking ?
5. Are young people feeling themselves competent, skilled, about technical content... ?
6. What do young people perceive as a danger/risk ? What are the different kinds of risk (economic, social) ? What do they consider as parent's fears ? Are they conscious of cognitive/ethical risks concerning copyright, legal/illegal content... ? Can people rely on "safety contents"? Who is reliable for safety questions ? (safety factor)
7. What is the evolution of the picture's status (relative to visual literacy and including the evolution of the visual, print and orality ? Does Internet increase multimodal literature ?
8. Psychosocial Dynamics : Identity, culture, society
9. What is "to be connected" ? Is it important to be connected ? Is it a danger to be dependent on multimedia technologies ? Is it a good thing or a problem ? (safety factor) Are Internet and multimedia technologies an opened or closed world? Do they consider important to be available for communication ?
10. Do they think that relationships between people are changing with the use of new multimedia technologies ? How do they change ?
11. What is young people perception of the blogs ? Do they read them ? On what is a blog focused : narcissism, unconsciousness or voyeurism ? What is fun for children ? Do adults kill the pleasure of the media ? (safety factor)
12. Concerning communication between young peers, what is their perception of belonging to a group when they use Internet ? Have young peers a language identity ? What is their perception of the sms language ? Is there a common style? Are children distinct and form a group meanwhile ? ("I want to be unique, but exactly like the others") ?
13. What are the patterns (lacks) of communication between adults and young people ? What is the influence of the parent's representations of the Internet on children uses ? What is the role of media ?
14. Are young people looking themselves by the way of audio or video recordings ? Are they seeing themselves as outside of them ?
15. What are public and private on the Internet ? What are the attitudes and awareness concerning ethical risks, cheating, and stalling peer to peer ? How do they consider as ethical in their uses? Are they aware of ethics ? (safety factor)

Future/Democratic citizenship

1. How do young people imagine the future? What do they mean by "faster" connected or informed ?
2. Do young people think that they will be still qualified to use media in 10 years ? Do they fear technical evolution ?
3. How to make the evaluation of the multimedia uses efficiency ?
4. What will be the impact of mobile phones and networking ?
5. Are young people conscious of the mediatic stakes on democratic rights and citizenship ?
6. Do young people think they need to be educated? Do they think it is the role of the school, the government, the family, associations, companies or somebody else ?
7. Concerning the generation aspect, what do young people think parents and adults think about the risks on the Internet? Concerning the identity, what are the tools or methods helping young people to be safe on the net? (safety factor)
8. Do young people feel that their interests need regulation or filters ? Who must regulate ? (safety factor)

Conclusion

These previous research issues have been drawn up during the Warsaw meeting as the most important topics related to our project in 2005 for the whole consortium. We have now to make some choice of priority within these four fields to propose the main issues we'll develop both in the questionnaires and in the interviews, according to our focus: the appropriation.

We are launching a pre-test phase in several partner countries through focus groups in order to submit our main topics to young people's judgement, to catch their way of thinking.

Our next meeting in Sherbrooke (Québec) will be dedicated to the adaptation of these topics in questions easily understandable for 12-18 years old.