DIGITIZED YOUTH: CONSTRUCTING IDENTITIES IN THE CREATIVE KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY
DIGITIZED YOUTH: CONSTRUCTING IDENTITIES IN THE CREATIVE KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY

Summary/Abstract: The paper elaborates on the notion of building knowledge cultures and the creative knowledge economy, referring largely to work jointly written with Michael A. Peters (Peters & Besley, 2006, 2009). It then discusses some of the recent research findings about U.S. youths’ engagement and identities in the digital world that have become available since 2007 (including a suite of reports produced by the Pew Internet & American Life Project; The Digital Youth Project (Ito, boyd et al, 2008) and Henry Jenkins’ work on Participatory Cultures). It examines the creativity of youths and the constructive means they use to develop new identities and subjectivities that resist the worst excesses of the market while engaging and negotiating the emergent social media and developing their own hybridized sense of style in music and culture. Finally, the paper looks at youth and creativity – the implications for the creative knowledge economy with this new generation of digital natives and how education might finally take an active role rather than banning kids’ participation.

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