educationalinsights.ca Call For Papers for 2010

Teresa Dobson, Academic Editor  |  Michael Boyce, Managing Editor

Digital Generation

©David Ing

Recent non-academic publications in the area of cultural studies, evince an interest in the consequences, both optimistic and pessimistic, whether from conscious or unconscious exposure, of an emersion into digital environments (e.g, the effects of websites & texting on reading consciousness; or of using Facebook in school or the workplace).  They frame these consequences as an evolutionary pattern affecting a variety of senses, including cognitive, psychological, physiological, philosophical, political, social and cultural.  Such analysis harkens back, in some cases, to notions of influence mobilized in the 1930s with respect to movies, and in the 1950s with regard to comic books. It is also in this respect, typical of an older established generation attempting to make sense of (and seek control of) a younger, emergent generation - in this case, the so-called Digital Generations (Y and Z), who are meant to be representative of those who have grown up “native” to digital culture.

But we are struck by a double sense of Generation: On the one hand, it refers to those people born and living within the same epoch and cultural environment; but on the other hand, Generation also means production/reproduction - that which is both generated and generating. Digital Generation then, as a cultural group, a class of products, and a mode of production. We invite exploration of these referents in the context of their impact upon education, public policy & the arts.

Please submit your précis by November 16, 2009 to educational.insights@ubc.ca

For more information : digital generation