2010 Symposium on Youth and Social Media

Speakers

danah boyd

danah boyd is a researcher at Microsoft Research New England and a Fellow at the Harvard University Berkman Center for Internet and Society. She recently completed her PhD in the School of Information at the University of California-Berkeley.

Dr. boyd's dissertation project Taken Out of Context: American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics analyzes on how American youth use networked publics for sociable purposes. She examined the role that social network sites like MySpace and Facebook play in everyday teen interactions and social relations. She was interested in how mediated environments alter the structural conditions in which teens operate, forcing them to manage complex dynamics like interacting before invisible audiences, managing context collisions, and negotiating the convergence of public and private life. This work was funded by the MacArthur Foundation as part of a broader grant on digital youth and informal learning. The findings of the broader team are documented in a co-authored book: Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media.

At the Berkman Center, danah co-directed the Internet Safety Technical Task Force to work with companies and non-profits to identify potential technical solutions for keeping children safe online. This Task Force was formed by the U.S. Attorneys General and MySpace and is being organized by the Berkman Center. Currently, danah is co-directing the Youth Media and Policy Working Group, funded by MacArthur.

Dr. boyd is also an associate fellow at Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society. She was a Commissioner on the Knight Commission on Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy.

Dr. boyd received a bachelor's degree in computer science from Brown University and a master's degree in sociable media from MIT Media Lab. She has worked as an ethnographer and social media researcher for various corporations, including Intel, Tribe.net, Google, and Yahoo! She also created and managed a large online community for V-Day, a non-profit organization working to end violence against women and girls worldwide. She has advised numerous other companies, sits on corporate, education, and non-profit advisory boards, and regularly speaks at a wide variety of conferences and events.

danah also maintains a blog on social media called Apophenia.

James Bachhuber
Communication of Political Economy
B.A., June 2009
Magna Cum Laude

"Three years after I left the University of Pennsylvania to become a motorcycle mechanic, the atrocities of the Iraq War convinced me to return to college." James Bachhuber wrote this provocative sentence on his application to CUNY BA/BS in 2007. At that time, he was already a Hunter College student who had developed an interest in digital media and had taken on several ambitious projects: developing socially conscious, activist-oriented electronic art, software and games working at Tiltfactor Game Research Lab; managing an after-school program teaching video game design and global issues at Canarsie High School; and working as the lead organizer for a youth hip-hop summit that brought together 200 people from East Harlem for a day of food, social justice workshops and music. Bachhuber says "Virtual worlds can aid communication, but meaningful change only comes from actions in the real world."

Returning to college, his academic goal was to study political economy and journalism which he did under the mentorship of Prof. Bernard Stein, Film and Media, Hunter, taking courses in Economics, Political Science, Media, Latin American Studies and Sociology. Prof. Stein said "I met James in my basic reporting class. He distinguished himself not only by the quality of his writing and the depth of his intelligence, but by his passion for social justice and his vision of journalism as the foundation of democracy." Some of Bachhuber's class writing was published in The Village Voice.

Bachhuber has done three independent studies: "For the first, I edited a literary magazine made up of poetry and essays by a group of homeless individuals with whom I worked in a weekly literacy program. For my second, I investigated global food logistics, the Green Revolution and the rise of industrial agriculture after World War II and how they connect to world hunger and population control plans in the U.S. State Dept. Working on this project convinced me that developing a sustainable, locally-based agriculture system is fundamental to accomplishing any social or economic justice goals. My current independent study is a series of articles focusing on current tensions between Global Federalist and Localist solutions to current world crises." In addition, Bachhuber completed an internship at Eyebeam, an electronic art gallery; he worked on a project investigating the efficacy of art-based activism.

Bachhuber says "Most of my work now is in education. I'm freelancing as a consultant for a number of different educational gaming projects. I work a couple days a week advising students in the Connecticut Innovation Academy. CTIA is a program where student teams develop video games about environmental issues, and I'm helping them with game design, testing, and content issues. I'm also writing a series of articles for the Center for Children and Technology. Finally, I'm developing a 10-week curriculum for an after-school program; three NYC public libraries and 14 public housing computer labs in Boston will be running my program this spring."

After graduation, Bachhuber plans to continue his work with educational gaming, but also branch out into other types of education. He is particularly interested in continuing to study sustainability and develop local agricultural systems.

Brendesha Tynes

Brendesha Tynes is an Assistant Professor of African American Studies and Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on the role of the Internet in child and adolescent development with special attention to intergroup relations and racial/ethnic identity. She is also interested in the social and psychological effects of having African American history and culture incorporated into mainstream curricula in K-12 classrooms. Her current research explores the uses of online multicultural education curricula to reduce prejudice.

Professor Tynes received a B.A. in History from Columbia University in 1997, an M.A. in Learning Sciences from Northwestern University in 2001 and a Ph.D. in Psychological Studies in Education from UCLA in 2005. She is the recipient of a Ford Pre-doctoral Diversity Fellowship and was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the American Educational Researcher Association. Professor Tynes has published articles in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, a book chapter, "Children, Adolescents and the Culture of Online Hate", in the Handbook of Children, Culture and Violence, "Digital Dystopia: Player Control and Strategic Innovation in The Sims Online" in Avatars at Work and Play, and an article under review entitled "Ethnic Identity and Outgroup Attitudes Among Diverse Groups of Adolescents Online."

S. Craig Watkins

S. Craig Watkins has been researching young people's media behaviors for more than ten years. He teaches in the departments of Radio-Television-Film and Sociology and the Center for African and African American Studies.

His new book, The Young and the Digital: What the Migration to Social Network Sites, Games, and Anytime, Anywhere Media Means for Our Future (Beacon 2009), is based on survey research, in-depth interviews, and fieldwork with teens, young twenty-somethings, teachers, parents, and technology advocates. The Young and the Digital explores young people's dynamic engagement with social media, online games, mobile phones, and communities like Facebook and MySpace.

Watkins was selected to join the MacArthur Foundation Series on Youth, Digital Media and Learning a collection of scholars, visionaries, thought leaders, and practitioners from across the world to explore the intersection of digital media, everyday life, and learning. His work on this groundbreaking project focuses on race, learning, and the growing culture of gaming.

His previous books include Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement (Beacon Press 2005), and Representing: Hip Hop Culture and the Production of Black Cinema (The University of Chicago Press 1998).

Watkins also works as a consultant and thought leader for research and educational organizations, publishers, and communication companies interested in gaining greater insight into the lively worlds young people create, both online and offline. Some of his recent work in this area has been with the City of Austin Cultural Arts Division, Kaiser Permanente, Nokia, KLRU-TV (PBS, Austin), and a publisher of books for young readers.

His scholarly research and expertise has been recognized in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Time, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Black Issues in Higher Education, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Publisher's Weekly, Vibe, The Village Voice, URB, The Source Magazine, and broadcast outlets like National Public Radio, The Tavis Smiley Show, ABC World News Tonight, MTV.com, FOX.com, ESPN, and the Radio Netherlands/Amsterdam Forum.

Currently, Watkins is launching a new digital media research initiative that focuses on the use and evolution of social media platforms. For updates on these and other projects visit theyoungandthedigital.com.

S. Craig Watkins has been invited to be a Research Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (Stanford).

Martin Macias Jr.

Martin "Xavi" Macias Jr. is a student at Malcolm X College, and an independent journalist/filmmaker in Chicago. He is a producer and collaborator with Radio Arte, a latino public radio station, and also with Vocalo. Martin is also a community organizer active in struggles within the immigrant rights, environmental, food, and media justice movements.

He also runs a project called Digital Natives Media, that uses video/audio/radio to empower minority communities which are underrepresented by Big Media. He graduated last year from Curie Metro High School in Chicago.

Megan A. Moreno, MD

Dr. Megan Moreno is a Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine doctor with UW Health in Madison, Wisconsin. Dr. Moreno earned her medical degree from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Dr. Moreno completed her residency at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics and her fellowship at the University of Washington in Seattle. Dr. Moreno is board certified in pediatrics.

John Palfrey

John is Henry N. Ess III Professor of Law and Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources at Harvard Law School. In these roles at HLS, he is director of the school's library and co-chair of the IT committee. He is also a faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. John's research and teaching focus on Internet law, intellectual property, and the potential of new technologies to strengthen democracies locally and around the world. He is the co-author of Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives (Basic Books, 2008) and Access Denied: The Practice and Politics of Global Internet Filtering (MIT Press, 2008).

Outside of his Berkman Center work, he is a venture executive at Highland Capital Partners. He is an adviser to StyleFeeder, Global Voices Online and Scoop08. He is a fellow of the British-American Project. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Mass2020 Foundation, the Ames Foundation, and Open Knowledge Commons.

John came back to the Harvard Law School from the law firm Ropes & Gray, where he worked on intellectual property, Internet law, and private equity transactions. He also served as a Special Assistant at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during the Clinton administration. While attending Harvard Law School, John worked at the Berkman Center, was a Teaching Fellow in Internet Law, and served as an editor of the Harvard Environmental Law Review. From 2002 - 2008, he served as Executive Director of the Berkman Center.

John graduated from Harvard College, the University of Cambridge, and Harvard Law School. John was a Visiting Professor of Information Law and Policy at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland for the 2007-2008 academic year. He was a Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholar to the University of Cambridge and the U.S. EPA Gold Medal (highest national award). John is admitted to the New York and Massachusetts bars.

CJ Pascoe

CJ Pascoe is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Colorado College. She teaches courses on sexuality, social psychology, deviance, gender and education. Her current research focuses on gender, youth, homophobia, sexuality and new media.

Her book, Dude, You're a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School, won the American Educational Research Association's 2007 Book of the Year Award. Dude documents the relationship between homophobic harassment, heterosexism and masculinity in high school. In it she suggests ways we might begin to redefine gender norms that are damaging to both boys and girls.

Before coming to Colorado College, CJ spent two years working with the Digital Youth Project, part of the MacArthur Foundation's initiative in learning and new media. Along with her co-researchers and under the guidance of Mimi Ito CJ co-authored Hanging Out, Messing Around and Geeking Out: Living and Learning with New Media which is the largest qualitative study of youth new media use to date.

CJ's research has been featured in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Toronto Globe and Mail, American Sexuality Magazine and Inside Higher Ed. She has appeared in the Frontline documentary Growing Up Online and the independent documentary about the murder of Gwen Araujo, Trained in the Ways of Men.

With Professor Natalie Boero she is currently co-authoring a book entitled Anas, Mias and Wannas: Identity and Community in a Pro-Ana Subculture. In it they examine online pro-eating disorder communities.

She received her B.A. in Sociology from Brandeis University in 1996 and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley in 2006.

Robert Heverly

Prior to joining MSU College of Law as a visiting professor in January 2009, Professor Heverly was Lecturer in Law and Director of the LL.M. Programme in Information, Technology and Intellectual Property at the Norwich Law School of the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, England. Preceding his position at the UEA, Professor Heverly was a Fellow with the Information Society Project at Yale Law School, where he retains an affiliation as a faculty fellow.

With research and teaching interests in property law and theory, and information, technology, networking, and intellectual property, Professor Heverly has published articles on the intersection of property theory and information ownership, on law's role in regulating communication, and on the pervasive persistence of media creations in the digital age, as well as a host of articles and book chapters on government, administrative law, and land use law earlier in his career. He has recently presented papers or made presentations at Warwick University, the Society of Legal Scholars annual conference in Glasgow, Scotland, and the London School of Economics.

Professor Heverly has been active with the New York State Bar Association, the American Bar Association, and the New York Planning Federation, and he served on a number of program and standing committees with each organization. He was also a member of the Broadcast Education Association (BEA), serving as Convention Chair for the Association's 2003 Convention in Las Vegas. He teaches Property Law, Advanced Copyright Law, Cyberspace Law, and Theories of Property Law at the Law College.

Michael W. Macleod-Ball

Michael W. Macleod-Ball is the chief legislative and policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union Washington Legislative Office. He manages a team of policy counsels and lobbyists who work with congressional offices on a non-partisan basis to ensure that Americans' civil liberties are preserved and protected. MacLeod-Ball and his office also advocate for federal action on behalf of segments of the population who traditionally have been denied their rights.

Prior to joining the WLO in September 2007, Macleod-Ball provided legal advice and advocacy leadership for 25 years in New England and Alaska. As executive director of the ACLU of Alaska for three years, Macleod-Ball built relationships with local communities such as non-English speaking natives, and gay and lesbian leaders. He helped form Alaskans Together, Alaska's first statewide LGBT advocacy organization, and led legislative and court-related efforts to require health plan coverage of same-sex partners. In addition, under Macleod-Ball's leadership the ACLU of Alaska creatively challenged unfair voting laws and conducted the first known statewide survey of sex education, attempting to identify the precise impact of medically inaccurate and religiously-inspired 'abstinence-only' curricula in local Alaska schools.

In Maine for over 15 years, Macleod-Ball practiced law and held leading roles in the political community, including serving on the presidential campaigns of Bill Bradley and Howard Dean, and as a delegate to the 2004 Democratic national convention. He was a partner at Verrill Dana, one of Maine's largest law firms, before founding Bergen & Parkinson in 1998. During this period Macleod-Ball argued important court cases on privacy and federal regulatory authority. He also negotiated multi-million dollar business deals and provided pro bono assistance to candidates.

Before moving to Maine, Macleod-Ball served in congressional and state government positions, including overseeing a $100 million public works economic development program for Gov. Michael S. Dukakis of Massachusetts. He has a degree in psychology from the University of Vermont and is a cum laude graduate of Boston's Suffolk University Law School, where he served as a law review editor and wrote on religious liberty issues.

Macleod-Ball lives in Silver Spring, Maryland with his wife, two dogs and one chinchilla. They have a daughter attending Yale Law School and enjoy Scottish country dancing in their spare time.

Jason Gull

Jason Gull is a Senior Counsel in the Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) of the United States Department of Justice. At CCIPS, Mr. Gull prosecutes criminal copyright, trademark, trade secret and other intellectual property cases, and advises federal prosecutors and investigators on intellectual property, computer crime, and electronic evidence issues. In addition to prosecuting cases, his duties include coordinating with other U.S. government agencies and international bodies on legislative and policy proposals involving intellectual property and related issues. He has represented the U.S. in several international fora, including the Council of Europe and the World Intellectual Property Organization. Mr. Gull is active in international training efforts on intellectual property enforcement in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

Prior to joining CCIPS in 2001, Mr. Gull was an associate with the law firms of Jenner & Block in Chicago and Heller Ehrman in San Francisco, where he was involved in the litigation of intellectual property, securities, insurance coverage, unfair business practices, and white collar criminal cases. He holds degrees from Williams College and the University of Michigan Law School.

Adam D. Thierer

Adam Thierer is President of The Progress & Freedom Foundation (PFF) and the Director of PFF's Center for Digital Media Freedom (CDMF). As Director of the CDMF, Thierer analyzes public policy developments that impact the economic and social aspects of the media industry, including related First Amendment issues.

Prior to joining PFF in 2005, Adam was Director of Telecommunications Studies at the Cato Institute and a Fellow in Economic Policy at The Heritage Foundation. His work on communications, high-technology, and media policy has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today, Forbes, The Economist, Newsweek, and others. He also writes regularly for The Technology Liberation Front blog.

Adam is the author or editor of seven books on media regulation and child safety issues, mass media regulation, Internet governance, intellectual property, regulation of network industries, and the role of federalism within high-technology markets. Adam has served as a member of Harvard Law School's Internet Safety Technical Task Force, a "Blue Ribbon Working Group" on child safety organized by Common Sense Media, the iKeepSafe Coalition, and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, and he is also an advisor to the American Legislative Exchange Council's Telecom & IT Task Force.

He also serves on the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's Online Safety and Technology Working Group. In 2008, he received the Family Online Safety Institute's "Award for Outstanding Achievement." Adam earned his B.A. in journalism and political science at Indiana University, and received his M.A. in international business management and trade theory at the University of Maryland.