|
For over ten years, the GoodWork® Project has been studying how individuals strive to do
“good work”—work that is excellent in quality, ethical, and engaging to the worker. We now
apply our "good work" lens to the digital media, a new domain of activity in which youth in
particular are becoming leading participants. While a high proportion of young people’s
activities in cyberspace are social—constituting more “play” than “work”—we believe that
it is critically important to explore the ethical character of their conduct in this evolving
sphere. Far from being passive consumers (or, as some fear, victims) of media, young
people are actively contributing to and defining the new media landscape through sites
such as Myspace, Flickr,YouTube, Second Life as well as blogs and multi-player games.
While we believe that young people are invoking and nurturing important skills through
such creations, are they also developing an ethical sense regarding their online activities?
We wish to understand how young people conceptualize their participation in virtual
worlds and the choices they make as they interact with one another. What beliefs,
values, and goals do they bring to their activities online? What ethical considerations
guide their conduct? Are they even aware of the potential for ethical or unethical behavior
—at least until the time whey they themselves are the victim? What kinds of identities
do they construct and what are the ethical implications? For example, when young
people take on new virtual identities, do they behave civilly or do they use these
identities as an occasion for bullying? When they create using materials online, do
they appropriately credit sources or do they lift without regard for authorship? How
do they understand authorship and ownership in a sphere in which most information
and material is “up for grabs,” (i.e., easily downloaded or acquired via copy and paste)?
In short, how do young people define "good" cyber-citizenship and what kinds of
things do they do to achieve it?
We are studying young people (ages 15-25) who regularly participate in online games,
social networking sites, and other online communities. Our methods include in-depth
interviews, the posing of hypothetical ethical dilemmas, and observations of youth
participating in online communities. Through these methods, we seek to uncover
strategies for "good play" and, ultimately, to develop tools to encourage it.
|
