Dazed and Confused

As mentioned in previous posts, my real life goal (at least the one relevant to this blog) is to develop a youth civic network in my community of Jersey City. So my intention is to make the final project part of the R&D for that project. Until this week, I was thinking that I would try to do a mini-study testing out some kind of civic dialog / problem solving at one site. However the more I am reading, the more I feel like I need a broader and deeper theoretical framework on which to base my network / curricular design. So now I am thinking that I should do a literature review instead.

I think that my next step is to narrow down the focus of the review. After reading articles and scanning lists of references, it seems that my project / interest straddles several research areas that don’t necessarily have much overlap. So far I’ve identified the following strands:
* the role of online participation in community and political discourse and action (adult);
* the role of online use in youth development (though not usually related to civic engagement);
* civic education (in various forms) and youth development (not usually related to technology).

I am feeling a little overwhelmed with (somewhat) relevant info seeming to come from a number of directions. Since I can't become an expert in all areas in the next months, I would love a little guidance from you to help get me going in the right direction!

Where I'm at Now

The recurring themes and questions that seem to keep popping up for me concern the interplay between existing / pre-existing societal forces (e.g. cultural, economic, political) and developing online structures and cultures. As more and more of the readings describe, the “online world” is really on a continuum of relationships, expectations etc. existing offline. I suppose the recurring question of most import for me is how to best design online community building environments to strategically deploy the affordances of CMC to maximize the potential for enhancing interaction, understanding and problem within and across existing “communities.”

While my initial questions (can the Internet maintain its egalitarian nature, will technology be used for higher level learning in poor communities, will constant electronic communication cripple our young) still stand, at this point I feel less paranoid than reflected in my initial post. As reflected in the paragraph above, through these several weeks of reading, talking and thinking about the nature of the online world, it feels less “other” and thus more within the arena available for thoughtful action. Through increased understanding of the nuances and theories of human interaction on the Internet, my initial questions have evolved into “how to” design online environments so that the answers to those questions are positive.

Identity

To be quite honest I am still reeling with too many thoughts and questions to wholeheartedly disagree with any of the concepts presented. If anything, it’s perhaps a matter of degree. I buy the general postmodern idea of complexity and multiplicity of “identity,” and that it’s constructed through interactions (including online) and changes over time. I agree that we present ourselves differently to different audiences, putting forward varied “identity markers” in different situations. The many stories of people playing out various aspects of their actual or desired selves on MUDs (to positive or negative ends) attests to the undeniable “realness” of those online experiences. And while I cringe a bit at thinking of myself as a cyborg, I can’t deny the increasing interaction between human and machine, as well as the artificial limbs of my older relatives.

I guess the aspect I feel most frustrated by is the lack of new theoretical frameworks (that I’m aware of) connecting all this to the present (and future) online world, which is much more visual and oral. As Alice Marwick noted in her podcast, this reality makes the anonymity of the “text only” web impossible. In addition, the exploding diversity of Internet access moves us into an online world in which written language no longer reigns. Without reducing identity to a set of fields in a database, as the corporate world already has, according to Marwick, what is the new definition of online identity?