Beyond the myth of the “digital native”

Abstract

This article presents part of the results of an international research project that aims to map teenagers' (12-18 years old) transmedia skills. Within a theoretical framework grounded in the concepts of "transmedia literacy" and "transmedia skills", the research team carried out international fieldwork based on short-term ethnography, an appropriate data-collection methodology that allowed us to answer the central question: What are young people doing with media? We identified more than 200 main and specific skills that were used to make a map of adolescents' transmedia skills, which is included in this article. The research also revealed that young people's skills have certain highs and lows, giving rise to a "topography" that includes teenagers with advanced media skills-for example, skills related to technological, aesthetic and ideological uses of content-and also those with less developed skills. The research reveals a very complex panorama that belies both the mythology of the "digital native" and that of the "digital dummy", and invites us to go deeper in future research.

University Community Members’ Perceptions of Labels for Online Media

“…This is far different from the behavior of older media consumers who may have gotten a significant portion of their daily news from a single source such as a newspaper or evening news program as part of a daily "news ritual" [36]. Despite this exposure, current young adults' and youth's media consumption skills vary significantly [37,38] and other factors, beyond age, also play a role.…”

“…News consumption and sharing decision making, by digital natives and others, is demonstrably different and influenced by psychological [42], socialization [43], influence identification skills [44] and numerous other differences. Finally, while differences between age groups have been demonstrated [35,48], evidence also exists for significant differences within age demographics [37,38] as well, though this has not been as extensively studied.…”

The Local News Industry's Challenge: Recruiting and Retaining Talent in a Multi-Platform Distribution Environment

“…Younger viewers, often referred to as “digital natives” (Bittman et al, 2011; Scolari, 2019), play a pivotal role in the shifting landscape of news consumption. They have grown up in a world where digital platforms are the norm, and their preferences have had a profound impact on the industry.…”

Pensamiento de diseño como agente de transformación en los procesos formativos

“…En su estructura revisa los procesos de enseñanza-aprendizaje transmediales, el diseño con enfoque en la transmedialidad y las narrativas transmedia, basado en experiencias desarrolladas en Europa como Transmedia Literacy (Scolari, 2016(Scolari, , 2019, Samsung Smart School (Camacho et al, 2017;Camacho y Esteve, 2016, 2018Camacho y Vilamajor, 2019) y en Colombia a través de la Plataforma Applícate (Gómez, 2012), el Museo de los Niños (Massarani et al, 2015) y el proyecto de la Fundación Cosmología Makano y el Tesoro del Payé (Llinás y Krohne, 2002). En los últimos tres, el autor de esta investigación ha tenido oportunidad de participar en la estructuración de modelo de formación, desarrollo de juegos interactivos y creación de contenidos, respectivamente.…”