Contesting Control: Key Concepts

The outcomes of gaining digital skills for young people’s lives and wellbeing: A systematic evidence review

“…However, notwithstanding governmental and other efforts to embed digital skills and literacies in the school curriculum and promote digital learning at home, it is hard to locate clear expectations or an established evidence base that links children’s digital skills with outcomes (Livingstone et al, 2018) or evaluates whether expectations are met (Bulger and Davison, 2018). Although rarely specified in detail, the outcomes of gaining digital skills are most commonly discussed in relation to anticipated educational or employment-related benefits, as well as online safety, digital citizenship, ‘21st-century skills’ or ‘life skills’ (Buckingham, 2015; Davies and Eynon, 2018; Livingstone et al, 2019; Nascimbeni and Vosloo, 2019; Third et al, 2019; Van Laar et al, 2017).…”

Digital hostility, subjectivity and ethics: Theorising the disruption of identity in instances of mass online abuse and hate speech

“…If we consider digital platforms as a conceptually ‘spatial’ setting for the relational and collective dimensions of digital practices (Third et al, 2020: 167), then it is important to acknowledge how the experience of massified hostility, adversity, beratement or hate speech is active in shaming a subject in ways which upset identity coherence, being made to feel that one ‘does not belong within a certain space’ (Probyn, 2004: 334). A user may have, for example, made a naïve post about a social issue or asked a question on a forum for which the answer is widely expected to be known, or may have thoughtlessly shared an amusing but insensitive meme.…”