By Any Media Necessary: The New Youth Activism

360 Pages·2016·4.29 MB·English

by  Henry Jenkins

By Any Media Necessary
CONNECTED YOUTH AND DIGITAL FUTURES
Series Editor: Julian Sefton-G reen
Th is series explores young people’s day- to- day lives and futures. Th e
volumes consider changes at the intersection of civil and political reform,
transformations in employment and education, and the growing presence
of digital technologies in all aspects of social, cultural and political life.
Th e John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and
Learning (DML) Initiative has supported two research networks that
have helped launch this series: the Youth and Participatory Politics Re-
search Network and the Connected Learning Research Network. Th e
DML Initiative and the DML Hub at the University of California, Irvine,
also support production and open access for this series.
connectedyouth.nyupress.org
By Any Media Necessary: Th e New Youth Activism
Henry Jenkins, Sangita Shresthova, Liana Gamber- Th ompson,
Neta Kligler- Vilenchik, and Arely M. Zimmerman
By Any Media Necessary
The New Youth Activism
Henry Jenkins
Sangita Shresthova
Liana Gamber-T hompson
Neta Kligler-V ilenchik
Arely M. Zimmerman
With an Afterword by Elisabeth Soep
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York
www.nyupress.org
© 2016 by New York University
All rights reserved
References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the
author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or
changed since the manuscript was prepared.
ISBN: 978-1-4798-9998-2
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New York University Press books are printed on acid- free paper, and their binding materials
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Also available as an ebook
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
1 Youth Voice, Media, and Political Engagement:
Introducing the Core Concepts 1
Henry Jenkins
2 “Watch 30 Minute Video on Internet, Become Social
Activist”? Kony 2012, Invisible Children, and the
Paradoxes of Participatory Politics 61
Sangita Shresthova
3 “Decreasing World Suck”: Harnessing Popular Culture for
Fan Activism 102
Neta Kligler-V ilenchik
4 Between Storytelling and Surveillance: Th e Precarious
Public of American Muslim Youth 149
Sangita Shresthova
5 DREAMing Citizenship: Undocumented Youth, Coming
Out, and Pathways to Participation 186
Liana Gamber-T hompson and Arely M. Zimmerman
6 Bypassing the Ballot Box: How Libertarian Youth Are
Reimagining the Political 219
Liana Gamber-T hompson
7 “It’s Called Giving a Shit!”: What Counts as “Politics”? 253
Henry Jenkins and Sangita Shresthova
Aft erword: Necessary Learning 290
Elisabeth Soep
Notes 309
Bibliography 311
Index 335
About the Authors 347
v
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Acknowledgments
We would like to collectively acknowledge those who have critically
engaged with this work and off ered constructive suggestions about
how to improve it, including Nico Carpentier, Nick Couldry, Mimi Ito,
Joseph Kahne, Peter Kramer, Diana Lee, Sonia Livingstone, Lissa Soep,
S. Craig Watkins, and Ethan Zuckerman. Each of you have helped us to
clarify core concepts, frame central arguments, rethink wrong- headed
assumptions, and otherwise brought greater nuance to this work.
Th is book would not have been possible without the support of
Connie Yowell and others at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation, who have had the vision over the past decade to support
so many initiatives in the space of connected learning and participatory
politics. As we discuss throughout, this work emerged from our collabo-
ration with the larger Youth and Participatory Politics (YPP) Research
Network. So we want to acknowledge here the network’s fearless leader,
Joseph Kahne, his capable team (among them, Chris Evans, Erica
Hodgin, Ellen Middaugh, and Sandra Mistretti), and the network mem-
bers (Danielle Allen, Cathy Cohen, Jennifer Earl, Elyse Eidman- Aadahl,
Howard Gardner, Mimi Ito, Lissa Soep, and Ethan Zuckerman). Many
of the ideas here— far too many to acknowledge individually— emerged
from our regular brainstorms and administrative meetings. We also
want to acknowledge YPP’s sibling network, the Connected Learning
Network (Dalton Conley, Kris Gutierrez, Mimi Ito, Sonia Livingstone,
Vera Michalchik, Bill Penuel, Jean Rhodes, Juliet Schor, and S. Craig
Watkins) with whom we have maintained close and cordial relations
throughout this process.
At USC we are deeply grateful to Gabriel Peters- Lazaro, Holly Willis,
and others at the USC School of Cinematic Arts Media Arts + Practice
Division. We also acknowledge Alexandra Margolin for her ongoing
work on our project.
We want to signal our deep appreciation for the research assistants
who worked on this project (Raffi Sarkissian, Karl Baumann, Samantha
vii
viii | Acknowledgments
Close, Diana Lee, Ritesh Mehta, Kevin Driscoll, Rhea Vichot, Alex Leavitt,
Zhan Li, Yomna Elsayed, and Lana Swartz)— each of you have made sig-
nifi cant contributions to the evolution of this manuscript. We have also
benefi ted through the years by being able to bounce ideas and get feedback
from Mike Ananny, Kjerstin Th orson, and several generations of members
of the Civic Paths research group at USC (Melissa Brough, Kevin Driscoll,
Alex Leavitt, Zhan Li, Lori Kido Lopez, Joshua McVeigh- Schultz, Andrew
Schrock, Benjamin Stokes, Chris Tokuhama, Rhea Vichot, Christine
Weitbrecht, Samantha Close, Raffi Sarkissian, Michelle Forelle, Nathalie
Marechal, Nicholas Busalacchi, Kate Miltner, Carla Mendonca, Kari Storla,
and Neha Kumar) and more recently, from those who have participated
on the Civics and Social Media collaboration grant, especially Paul
Lichterman and Nina Eliasoph.
We want to thank Eric Gordon and Paul Mihailidis from the Civic
Media Reader project, who have been important thinking partners as we
have sought to better understand how to design and deploy the digital
extension of this book; we thank the fi ne folks at Pivot TV, Participant
Media, and HitReCord for their help in developing materials that con-
tribute to that resource; and we thank educators at the National Writing
Project (Faye Peitzman, Paul Oh, Katie Kline, Linda Christensen, Chris-
tina Cantrill, Nicole Mirra, Kathleen Hicks, and Albert Vazquez- Mejia)
and the National Association for Media Literacy Education (Michelle
Ciulla Lipkin) who have helped to test and share these materials.
And of course, we want to acknowledge the ongoing support of Eric
Zinner (the best editor a writer can work with), Alicia Nadkarni, and the
others at New York University Press, and we wish to thank Julian Seft on-
Green and the editorial board of the Connected Learning Book Series.
Chapter Specifi c
Chapter 1: Th e ideas contained within this chapter and the conclu-
sion evolved over several years in response to rigorous and generous
feedback received from a range of diff erent audiences, including those
provided by events hosted by the Alliance for Peacebuilding; American
Academy of Religion; Aspen Ideas Festival; Babes- Bolyai University;
Bocconi University; Central European University; Charles University;
Concordia University; the Digital Media and Learning Conference;
Acknowledgments | ix
Emory University; European Institute of Design; Georgia State University;
International Communications Association Latin American Confer-
ence at Pontifi cal Catholic University of Chile; Library Foundation of
Los Angeles; London School of Economics; Loyola Marymount Uni-
versity MIT; Pomona College; Shoah Foundation; Stanford University;
University of California, Davis; University of California, Irvine; Univer-
sity of California, Los Angeles; University of South Florida Humanities
Institute; and University of Sunderland. Th e ideas were also shaped in
conversation with several crops of students who took Henry Jenkins’s
classes on Civic Media and Participatory Politics.
Chapter 2: We thank everyone at Invisible Children who made our
research there possible. Th is was a case study that spanned many years
and changes within the organization and we are deeply indebted to IC
staff and supporters who continued to make us feel welcome through
it all. Specifi cally, we thank Jason Russell, Jedidiah Jenkins, Ben Keesey,
and Zach Burrows for the ongoing conversations about IC’s directions
and plans. We are also so grateful to Talitha Baker, Laura Weldy, Lau-
ren Henke, Hailey Mitsui- Davis, Cameron Woodward, Ananda Robie,
Andrea Ramsay, Jessica Morris, and Maggie Leahy for helping us attend
specifi c events, coordinate interviews, and just generally for their sup-
port with the details of our research. We are grateful to Beth Karlin, who
became an ongoing conversation partner as this research developed.
Finally, we thank Jon Chu and Harry Shum for providing an insider-
outsider perspective on IC through their involvement with the Legion
of Extraordinary Dancers. As always, our biggest thank you goes out to
the many young IC supporters who took the time to speak with us over
the years.
Chapter 3: Th e Harry Potter Alliance has, in many ways, inspired our
work and prompted us to think about how popular culture and fan en-
thusiasms inspire youth civic engagement. Th roughout this project, we
continued to look to this group for both insights and inspiration. We are
deeply indebted to Andrew Slack for openly sharing his vision with us.
Our deepest thanks goes also to Jackson Bird, who was always willing
to read draft s, discuss aspects of the research, and provide us with valu-
able insights, and to Paul DeGeorge and Matt Maggiacomo, who sup-
ported this research as executive directors of the HPA. Th ank you to the
local HPA chapters, on both the West and East Coast, who invited us to