Suchergebnisse

Using data from an original two-wave panel survey of California high school students and a two-wave panel survey of high school students in Chicago, we find that different pedagogical approaches influence different forms of civic and political engagement. Specifically, controlling for prior levels of engagement and demographic factors, we find that open discussion of societal issues promotes engagement with political issues and elections. In contrast, service learning opportunities increase community-based and expressive actions. Both kinds of opportunities promoted commitments to participatory citizenship. These patterns can teach us about the kinds of opportunities (both in school and out) that can shape adolescents' civic and political development. Adapted from the source document.

Can media literacy education promote and improve youth engagement in civic and political life? Unfortunately, to date, there have been almost no quantitative assessments of the frequency of media literacy education, nor of any possible subsequent impacts. This study draws on a unique panel data set of a diverse group of youths in high school and college settings. It finds that exposure to media literacy education is not strongly related to demographic variables. In addition, with controls for prior levels of online political activities, for political interest, and for a broad range of demographic variables, this study also finds that digital media literacy education is associated with increased online political engagement and increased exposure to diverse perspectives.

By analyzing data from a national panel survey of adolescents (ages 12-17) and their parents conducted around the 2008 general election, this study explores the varied roles communication plays in socializing youth into democratic citizenship. In particular, we propose and test a communication mediation model of youth socialization, in which interdependent communication processes located in the family, schools, media, and peer networks combine to cultivate communication competence, a set of basic communication skills and motives needed for active and informed participation in public life. Analysis of our panel data indicates that participation in deliberative classroom activities and democratic peer norms contribute to civic activism among youth. These peer and school influences, however, are found to be largely indirect, working through informational use of conventional and online news media, and expression and discussion of political ideas outside of classroom and family boundaries. In particular, our findings highlight strong online pathways to participation, centering on news consumption and political expression via digital media technologies, suggesting the key role of the Internet in this dynamic.

This study examines how the news frames that journalists use to present contentious policy debates shape reasoning processes and opinion outcomes. Drawing on the notion that framing is a cognitive process in which the message affects how individuals weigh existing considerations (i.e., political orientations and relevant attitudes/beliefs) to make a judgment, the authors conducted two experiments in which they presented participants with news stories in which policy conflicts were described as either a clash of underlying values and principles (i.e., a value frame) or as a clash of political interests and strategies (i.e., a strategy frame). The results suggest that the framed news stories failed to change issue opinions directly but did alter the importance of the considerations used to make judgments on relevant issues. Specifically, individuals tend to react to strategy frames by discounting partisan affiliation as a primary consideration, turning to other salient alternatives when making judgments.

Some see the internet as a means of exposure to divergent perspectives, while others believe that it is likely to foster echo chambers. We agree that it is important to attend to these possibilities, but we find that this discussion is often framed inappropriately. Drawing on a unique panel survey of the online practices and civic and political engagement of youth (aged 16–21), we find that most youth do not report exposure to echo chambers or divergent perspectives. Rather, most report either being exposed to views that both align with and diverge from their own, or they report not interacting with others about their views on societal issues at all. We also find that particular forms of online participatory activity, digital media literacy activities, and political interest are related to increased reports of exposure to diverse perspectives.

The authors examine the intersection of gender and generation for the field of cultural consumption in the United States, considering their interplay in the social positioning of taste. The authors' prior work found that while cultural capital in the United States largely parallels the field structure observed in 1960s France, the form of cultural capital in the United States discriminates between nurturance and community, on one side, and aggressiveness and individualism, on the other. To investigate this seemingly gendered and ideological positioning of taste, the authors locate individuals as "occupants" of this social field, distinguishing them by gender and age, and find that gender no longer structures a preference for a particular form of cultural capital among younger citizens. This blending of gendered identities in younger Americans suggests a realignment of the notions of gentility and community as defining femininity and coarseness and individualism as defining masculinity. The gendered patterns of cultural consumption that defined older generations do not define younger ones.

Taken together, Robert Putnam's work on the decline of social capital (2000) and Juliet Schor's insights about the rise of "the new consumerism" (1999) suggest a shift in values in which our responsibilities as citizens have taken a backseat to our desires as consumers. This article complicates this shift in civic and consumer culture by examining generational differences in overconsumption, competitive consumption, and conscious consumption between 1994 and 2004. Using survey proxies for these concepts from the annual DDB Needham Life Style Study, the authors find that Generation X exhibits the highest rates of overconsumption and competitive consumption while also displaying the lowest rates of conscious consumption. Notably, the trends for these three aspects of consumer behavior vary in terms of overtime stability, general tendency, and economic responsiveness. These differing patterns of spending and consumption have far-reaching implications for society as a whole, particularly as the Civic Generation fades, the Boomers move out of the workforce, and Generation X becomes mature and culturally dominant.

In this article, the authors analyze the field of cultural consumption in the United States. Using the 2000 DDB Lifestyle Study, they examine a cross-section of Americans in terms of their occupational categories, media usage, consumption practices, social behaviors, and indicators of civic and political engagement. In doing so, the authors find many parallels to the determinants of taste, cultural discrimination, and choice within the field structure observed by Bourdieu in 1960s French society. However, there are also some notable differences in terms of the composition of cultural capital consistent with the concept of omnivorousness. The distribution of positions is largely defined by patterns of taste that discriminate between refinement, moderation, nurturance, and a communal orientation, on one side, and coarseness, excess, aggressiveness, and an individual orientation, on the other. Historical and national differences partly account for this variation, but a major role may be played by the increasing formation of identities around media and consumption, leading to a more gendered and ideological positioning of taste cultures in the U.S context.