ONLINE YOUTH WORK AND E-YOUTH

Transcription

1 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 1 ONLINE YOUTH WORK AND E-YOUTH A GUIDE TO THE WORLD OF THE DIGITAL NATIVES Levente Székely Dr. Ádám Nagy Budapest, 2010

2 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 2 PUBLISHER: EXCENTER PUBLISHING HOUSE Levente Székely, 2010 Dr. Ádám Nagy, Budapest, Adria u ISBN LAYOUT: Gyöngyi Illovszky

3 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Digital natives young people in the information society The media consumption of Hungary's youth The characteristics of the digital environment people and communities in the digital world Digital guide online youth work eparticipation The objectives and tasks of online youth work The tools used in digital youth work Basic rules for online youth workers Youth work begins where young people are Practical advice for organisations dealing with young people What role can youth work play in online space? How to get started? Bibliography Endnote Short summary of Excenter Research Center Leaders of Excenter Research Center

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5 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 5 INTRODUCTION Our society of today is often called the post-modern society or information society to differentiate it from earlier structures. This distinction is justified by completely new circumstances which are perceptible on a daily basis: for example the forms of establishing and maintaining communication have undergone fundamental changes and ICT-aided solutions are playing an ever greater role, replacing interpersonal communication. However, what must never be forgotten is that - although the medium is different there is always a person behind the digital tools and this is why the tasks of youth work extend into virtual space. In the present issue of Excenter Füzetek [Excenter Booklets] we will deal with youth work that can be and is to be carried out in the various digital spaces. We will introduce the characteristic features of this new area, and focus on the general rules that define it as well as the various features of individual media (applications). We will introduce practical examples whose success should be followed as models, and we will formulate general fundamental rules that are worth maintaining if we wish to pursue youth work in the virtual space. 5

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7 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 7 DIGITAL NATIVES YOUNG PEOPLE IN THE INFORMATION SOCIETY Let s get the difficult part over with: what is the information society and what do we mean by youth? The new structure that developed after the industrial societies, dubbed post-industrial society by Daniel Bell 1 and information society by Manuel Castells 2, is an economic, social and cultural transformation which now affects and pervades the entire world. The most spectacular manifestation of the transition to the information society is undoubtedly linked to the growing role of information communication technologies, such as the computer, the mobile telephone and the Internet etc., while, at the same, time the substantial changes apply to the whole structure of society (economic, social, cultural). Professional literature contains close to fifty definitions for the information society, and László Z. Karvalics has selected some which have preserved their power up to now. The collected definitions focus on highly divergent aspects, i.e. innovation, knowledge (e.g. Bell, Naisbitt), the production of information goods (e.g. Masuda, Nick Moore), or the role played by information and telecommunication technologies (Murányi). The short definitions below highlight very different extensions of the information society, while they all make that particular difference referred to above i.e. some aspect of the dimension of information and knowledge their organisational or central element. (Z. Karvalics, 2008) 7

8 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 8 Online youth work and eyouth The information society is an economic reality and not merely an intellectual abstraction The delay in the proliferation of information has come to an end [ ] and new activities, operations and products are gradually emerging (John Naisbitt). A society which organises itself around knowledge in the interests of societal control and the management of innovation and change (Daniel Bell). A new type of society the development and transformation of which are driven by the production of information (and not the material) goods [ ] and (which) has thus made human intellectual creativity thrive (Yoneji Masuda). A society in which [ ] information is used as an economic resource, the community exploits this more effectively, and behind all of this an industrial sector is developing which produces the necessary information (Nick Moore). A social structure based on the free creation, distribution, access and use of information and knowledge [ ] the globalisation of countless areas of life ([Hungarian] National Information Strategy, 1995). A new type of society in which the global proliferation of information and telecommunication technologies facilitate the emergence of a new lifestyle, as well as a higher quality of life, work, and social role for humankind (Murányi Béla). One of the fundamentals in the theory of the information society is the changing communication and media consumption habits. There are two important criteria in the measurability of the information society: (1) interconnectivity, for which, in regard to mutual connectedness, the psychological limit is set at above 50 percent for telephone networks, and (2) at one-third (as a proportion of the consumer basket) for purchased information and cultural goods, devices and services. (Z. 8

9 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 9 Excenter booklets VI. Karvalics, 2008) The integrated media environment and new forms of communication have introduced new concepts in the general consciousness, such as community media, simultaneous multi-channel communication and media consumption. It is practical to use age groups in regard to youth, however, the definitions and delineations found in professional literature show significant differences 3. These definitions generally approach the concept of youth in two ways: from an administrative and a developmental point of view. The former is primarily used by jurisprudence and the latter by the biological and social sciences. Although the psychological and sociological approaches are derived from the same source, they nevertheless use very different definitions and classifications. According to The Youth Field, youth is a collective term for children and young people (as well as post-adolescents). Based on the various interpretations 4 it can be stated that children and young people are not two disjunct sets but ones which overlap one another. (Nagy, 2008) The multidimensionality of the definition of youth (in regard to life circumstances and not primarily to age groups) by the social sciences stems from the fact that in everyday thinking a multifarious approach is applied to the categories of young people, children, adolescents, young adults, etc., depending on life situations and various other factors. In an earlier issue of Excenter Booklets in which the theoretical foundations for the tertiary socialisation environment are laid down, we suggest the following youth groups: children (from about 8-12 years old to about 14), adolescents (from about 14 years old to about 18), and young adults (about 19 years old to about 25-30). (Nagy-Székely, 2010) One of the most important problems of the information society is how the generation growing up now, who were born into the digital age, will transform society as we know it and how it will transform them. Young people can be regarded as digital natives a term coined by 9

10 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 10 Online youth work and eyouth Marc Prensky for various reasons. They are the first to have been able to master the use of the new ICT. The acquisition of this competence not only puts less of a strain on the net generation 5 but it happens spontaneously and naturally. (Rushkoff, 1996) Furthermore, the members of this generation not only master the ICT tools and contents but also tailor it to their needs. To a great extent this everyday use transforms their information acquisition, information consumption, communication and media consumption habits, setting them on a different path to the habits of older generations. (Prensky, 2001) The special situation of youth (from an information society standpoint) can be clearly seen when we look at the international indices of ICT access and usage, in which Hungary taking the population as a whole performs poorly from one year to the next. At the same time, according to a breakdown by age, young people in Hungary are moving together with the global changes. At the beginning of 2010 more than half 6 of Hungarian society and nine tenths 7 of young people (14-29) used the Internet; in the case of teenagers this proportion is even greater. It became obvious that in many respects this generation differs from other generations. They are typically open to cultural contents, attracted to group activities and communal space, achievementcentric and confident, and at the same time are modest, identify with the values professed by their parents, and they are well educated (school is important for the majority, as is good academic performance). The youth generation has three important characteristics which are particularly important for those who design services: multitasking: they consume on several channels at once (their simultaneous consumption exceeds the quantity that can be physically consumed by a single individual). Domestic and 10

11 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 11 Excenter booklets VI. international research findings show that they spend more time on media consumption per week than the time required by a full time job. According to data from 2007, an average non-internet user spends more than 40 hours per week consuming media, while this figure is more than 50 for an average Internet user. (Székely, 2008) info-support: for some time now young people have required infoassistance instead of tech-support. the great majority of young people have no kind of reflective awareness of the legal and institutional framework of Internet use, which is their typical and customary activity. (e.g. downloading, exchanging files). According to the findings of Youth2008, young people have considerable CD-DVD collections at home, of which approximately half are copied. Many attempts have been made at summing up the characteristics of the digital generation. Based on Prensky, these are as follows: they can take in information quickly, they can process information on parallel channels and perform tasks simultaneously (multitasking), they give preference to images and sounds over text, they have a preference for accidental connections (hypertext), they excel at working in a network, they strive for the immediate and frequent gratification of their desires, they prefer games to serious work, and they regard technology as a friend and not as an inconvenient but necessary evil to work with. 11

12 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 12 Online youth work and eyouth Based on Rushkoff, the digital generation can be linked with six trends: the fall of linear thinking the rise of chaos 8, the fall of duality the rise of holism 9, the fall of mechanism the rise of animism 10, the fall of gravity the rise of consensual hallucination 11, the fall of metaphor the rise of recapitulation 12, and the fall of God the rise of nature. The media consumption of Hungary's youth While studying the cross-section of youth and the information society we almost immediately come across the issue of changing media consumption and communication habits, where we find ourselves face to face with the phenomenon of young people deviating from the habits of older generations. In an earlier study about the connection between the quantity of media consumption and age (Pintér Székely, 2006) it was proven to be the case that quite a few stereotypes related to the media consumption of youth had no foundation whatsoever. On the basis of the data the stereotypes studied, i.e. that youth watch a lot of TV, read little and spend a lot of time telephoning, turned out to be false. Based on the findings of the 2004 World Internet Project study, it can be stated that the age group, referred to as the youth of today, read the most books in Hungary today, while the under age group and those aged and above spend a similar (not significantly less) time reading per week. 13 Although young people read books the most, with more than four tenths of the age group and approximately one third of the older generations reading books at least once a week, it seems that the readership of newspapers is simply dying out, because the younger age groups spend less and less time reading newspapers. 12

13 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 13 Excenter booklets VI. Listening to music is an area where the stereotype is true, as young people listen to the most music and the most frequently. It is in this activity that the greatest quantitative difference can be found between the various age groups. Over half (56%) of young people (aged 14-29) listen to music daily, while a total of somewhat more than a quarter of the middle-aged (30-59) do the same and a mere 5% of the old (above 60) do this. We found the generational cut-off point in the case of the age group, who spend close to 9 hours listening to music, which is significantly less in the age group, who represent the reference category. In the background of quantitative differences are various cultures of listening to and sharing music, presumably structured according to age groups. The young people of today were socialised in a world dominated by sharing and downloading mp3 files and the portable mp3 player where good music is easily and quickly and in part illegally obtainable. Therefore, the music industry must in the long run accept that the present business model is unsustainable, just as newspapers and publishers must, but, in a paradoxical way, the reason for this is just the opposite: the challenge faced by the music industry is not the dying out of the segment but rather the growing and increasingly insatiable needs of consumers satisfied through alternative sources outside the market, i.e. the illegal downloading of music. The general picture about how listening to the radio is divided between the different age groups focuses more on content (public vs. commercial) than on quantity, although this does not mean that there is not a difference. The frequency with which young people listen to the radio demonstrates a similar pattern to reading newspapers, i.e. approximately 10% fewer young people aged between 14 and 29 listen to the radio on a daily basis than older age groups. In regard to the amount of time spent listening to the radio per week a cut-off point can be observed at the age of 22-23, from which point those surveyed reported that they listen to significantly more radio. In the case of radio 13

14 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 14 Online youth work and eyouth it can be claimed that although its continuation is not really threatened by the Internet, it is a valid question how fast the currently operating stations will recognise the potential inherent in the Internet and Internet radio. We found noteworthy connections in regard to telephoning and age, since in the dimension of quantity just as in the case of books we found a reversed pattern as compared to what the stereotype assumes, i.e. it appears that young people do not talk a lot more than older people on the telephone. However, when we consider the frequency of using the telephone, we find that two thirds of young people (aged 14-29) use the telephone every day, while half of the middle-aged people surveyed, and in total one quarter of old people behave in the same way. The difference probably stems from divergent use, i.e. young people typically use the telephone for conversations in their free time as opposed to official, work-related calls. We observed that the frequency and amount of time spent watching television is far more unambiguous; however, the findings appear to contradict the stereotype, according to which young people watch a lot of television. The majority (86-87%) of young people (14-29) watch television every day, but the proportion of older age groups who do the same is over nine tenths (93%). In regard to the time spent in front of the television, the oldest age groups demonstrate a prominent result, with those aged spending close to 24 hours per week watching television, and, in comparison to this, the television time of young people can be regarded as extremely moderate. We were able to verify the findings of earlier research in the more upto-date databases. The graph below shows the average time spent per week on the Internet. The data clearly show that the young age groups significantly differ from the older age groups not only in the categories of use and non-use dichotomies, but also in the quantity of use and based on other research it can be claimed that the quality of use. 14

15 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 15 Excenter booklets VI. Fig. 1: The structure of media consumption according to age groups (hours/week) (Source: Székely, 2008; World Internet Project, 2007) The above graph shows that the media consumption of young people in regard to both the time spent with the given medium and the frequency of consumption fundamentally differs from that of older generations, and in many cases contradicts the prevailing stereotypes. In many cases the generational cut-off point in regard to time spent using a particular medium can be found in the second half of the twenties. This is no coincidence since this is the age group where in most cases integration into the labour market takes place, and the other reason is probably the changing consumption habits and needs that result from starting a family. However, it is completely certain that a cohort effect also exists, on the basis of which people heading towards their late twenties differ from the teenagers of today, who are already imbued with the value system and socialisation of the digital age. A questionnaire of the World Internet Project provided the opportunity to examine the (perceived) importance 14 of certain media in regard to age. (Székely, 2006) In addition to asking about the importance of 15

16 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 16 Online youth work and eyouth the traditional media (television, radio, daily papers, magazines, books) the WIP study of 2004 also asked about the importance of the Internet as a source of information and entertainment 15. The deemed importance of various media in order was as follows: television, radio, daily papers, books, magazines, the Internet. This, therefore, means that according to the evaluation of those surveyed the most important media are television and radio, the written media are less important, and the importance of the Internet is significantly less, with its evaluation being significantly less favourable primarily compared with the average of television. Based on the data it can be claimed that the interviewees regard television, radio and daily papers as more important and the Internet as not important. The evaluation of books and magazines was ambivalent. Table 1: Media evaluation in the 14+ age group Medium Importance as a source Importance of information as entertainment Television Radio Daily papers Books Magazines The Internet (Source: Székely, 2006; World Internet Project, 2004) The findings of the research demonstrate that the evaluation of individual media differs according to age: young people regard the importance of certain media, and primarily that of the Internet, differently than do old people 16. In their evaluation of traditional media it is observable that the media that young people regard as more important than 16

17 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 17 Excenter booklets VI. the average (e.g. books and magazines) are in the case of old people regarded as less important than the average, and, vice versa, the media regarded as less important by young people (e.g. television, radio) are reported as being more important by the members of the older generations. If we add the Internet to the above picture, we can observe that its importance decreases almost perfectly linearly with age, while, in regard to the important-not important dimension, it literally cuts in half the web of lines showing the more or less changing evaluation of (traditional) media by various age groups. Thus, the evaluation of the Internet by age is far more extreme than that of other media, with young people regarding the Internet as of far greater importance than older people do. Fig. 2: The importance of individual media according to age groups (Source: Székely, 2006 (World Internet Project, 2004) The qualitative research (with focus groups) we carried out in 2007 with the explicit aim of studying media consumption established that the ICT consumption of young people significantly differs from that of older generations. Young people handle ICT tools with far greater self- 17

18 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 18 Online youth work and eyouth confidence, and their selection of content demonstrates a far higher level of consciousness than many people would credit them with. They know what they are consuming and why; moreover, a high degree of rationality is shown by the fact that they often do matching activities in parallel, thus effectively exploiting the limited free time available to them. The research unambiguously demonstrated that young people regard the Internet as the first and foremost medium, and this is equally true in regard to information and entertainment contents. (Urbán- Székely, manuscript) There is no doubt that the spread of the Internet has primarily supplanted the traditional media. It is clearly perceptible that television has lost ground. The information gained from the focus groups fully support the trends measured by market researchers: in youth age groups the time devoted to watching television has decreased dramatically. A TV set placed in a young person s bedroom is not at all as attractive as it was some years ago. The importance of music for young people is almost indisputable. It can be claimed that, if given the chance, they would listen to music continuously. It is clear that the free if not necessarily legal and huge choice available plays a major role in this. It also transpires that listening to music which is also typically done through the computer wonderfully supplements other online applications: while users browse the Internet, play games or just pursue personal communication (e.g. chat) some kind of music is constantly playing in the background. This has certainly contributed to squeezing the television into a more minor role since using the computer and listening to music simultaneously tie down the consumers attention and thus there is no need for the television. Reading does not really fit in well with the consumption of other media, and in the youth age groups it is rather a compulsory activity (studying), and time spent in certain situations (e.g. travelling, holi- 18

19 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 19 Excenter booklets VI. days); at home reading is not regarded as a form of relaxation. The research subjects read magazines but daily papers have practically lost their function, considering that young people keep themselves informed from the Internet. Parallel consumption clearly manifests among young people especially in the case of online media (running various computer applications at once), but it occasionally appears in the online-traditional media mix (e.g. watching television and using the Internet simultaneously). Similarly to the international findings, it transpired from our focus group research that the younger the subjects we studied, the more characteristic multitasking was, even though there are differences within certain age groups, e.g. attributable to psychological characteristics, habits or even the size of the household. It transpired that even in the case of those who excel at multitasking in situations that demand concentration (e.g. when carrying out an absorbing task) they give up parallel tasks and at such times try to pay attention to one thing. It is no coincidence that multitasking is primarily linked to the various forms of communication and entertainment, thus e.g. to using IM or listening to music. (Urbán-Szekely, manuscript) The characteristics of the digital environment people and communities in the digital world The above shows that media consumption which occupies a significant part of free time, i.e. the tertiary socialisation environment is increasingly linked to the ICT devices, i.e. the digital media. Of course when we start to talk about digital media and virtual environment we cannot help comparing it to the real world. However, it is important that we do not regard these as being diametrically opposed but rather as supplementing one another. It is a fundamental error to think that that events that take place in the virtual world are detached from real life and 19

20 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 20 Online youth work and eyouth real relationships. The digital environment is merely a part of reality and not an entity separate from it (e.g. a blog and avatar belong to a teenager s personality just like his or her physical appearance and favourite type of music). From all of this it can be concluded that virtual communities closely resemble real communities, at least in regard to individual attitudes. For a long time one of the factors that determined the formation of communities was geographical proximity: communities could not form between individuals living far apart from one another (since they were unable to interact closely). This geographical constraint was lifted through ICT, thus allowing human relationships and emotions to be expressed in many ways. The first virtual community that became known, The WELL (The Whole Earth Lectronic Link), is linked to Howard Rheingold and was a group of people who perhaps even know one another personally but basically contact each other through the exchange of ideas with the help of the computer network. Although these communities generally had a geographically determined local center, people were able to log on to the community from distant locations through the Internet. These kinds of online communities were set up and continue to be set up because of some kind of objective, problem or shared interest. Virtual communities have always been studied from the perspective and in comparison with traditional communities. Comparison often appears as confrontation, i.e. the characteristics of the real communities are contrasted with those of the virtual community. The question is: does the virtual community differ from the community as understood in the traditional sense, and if it does, according to what parameters? The proponents of differences can also be divided into two groups according to which type of community they regard as the more favourable based on the differences. Among people who approach the development of technologies with a positive attitude are those who believe that virtuality 20

21 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 21 Excenter booklets VI. offers totally new experiences, as if individuals were leaving their physicality behind and join these communities in this way. The elimination of the outward (bodily) dimension, or its being pushed into the background, has a major advantage since for individuals surrounded by prejudice (e.g. minorities or handicapped people) an opportunity opens up to experience a prejudice-free environment. According to those who contrast the virtual communities with the real communities, the virtual ones are of less value, impersonal and mere shadows of their counterparts organised in the real world. According to those who emphasise the similarities over the differences, a community per se whether online or offline is itself virtual in the sense that it is indirect and imaginary, and virtual communities cannot be regarded as being inferior on the sole basis that personal contact is missing from them. We can only talk about purely virtual communities when the members keep in contact with one another exclusively through the Internet (or another ICT tool). In these cases the association is most often organised around the Internet or some kind of online activity (e.g. online games). In other cases keeping in contact is not limited to the Internet alone as the members often keep in touch by mobile telephones or meet in person. Based on all of this it can be concluded that the goals of youth work are similar whether carried out in a real or a virtual environment and the criteria of success also largely resemble one another. At the same time it is a fundamental error to exclusively define virtual youth work by criteria that do not approach participation in a general sense but narrow it down to physical participation. In other words, the performance of a youth worker does not depend solely on how many young members he manages to persuade to participate in offline events. However, in many cases the digital environment itself has different characteristics to a face-to-face situation, and from this it follows that different approaches are often required. The differences can be summarised as follows: 21

22 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 22 Online youth work and eyouth Time and space: Up until now the natural environment played a determining role in forming communities but in the digital environment this solid basis disappears. The boundaries of the physical world become blurred, as time is given a different kind of emphasis, thus, for example, what we do in the digital environment leaves a trace. Speed: In the digital environment information (the message) spreads with dizzying speed, it can be rapidly converted, shared and is almost always retrievable. For many people this increased speed is oppressing and is often cited as one of the disadvantages of our age. Freedom: Because of the democratic nature of technology having once stepped over the threshold of access anybody or any community can achieve major publicity on the Net. Complexity: The digital media combine text, image, sound and data with one another, so we receive the complex messages in a complex way with multimedia perception and through joining multi-networks. Interactivity: The digital environment does not merely afford its participants the possibility to expand interaction but also allows interactivity to turn into a natural and common practise and thus it is increasingly the consumer who edits the content. Interconnectivity (always on): The tools of the information society give us the feeling that we are constantly connected. As a result of ICT convergence, the mobile telephone, the computer and the Internet are increasingly blending together into a system providing a unified, permanent and interactive connection. 22

23 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 23 Excenter booklets VI. Network: In the information society people have become organised into virtual networks of varying degrees of complexity and closeness, with the greatest network of all, the network of networks being the Internet. Simplicity and complexity: With each push of a button today s ICT devices are able to perform complex work processes. The merging of verbal and written communication: written communication in the digital environment has characteristics more typical of verbal communication; the borderline between verbal and written forms is becoming blurred. Elusiveness: In the digital environment we become distanced from the tangible world and we often cannot rely on our emotions, thus the increased role of trust and reliability. In the coming decade, however, we will certainly come to accept that the digital act, the digital word and the digital object are in every sense real deeds, real words and real objects. Convergence: The two most important levels of convergence are that of devices and that of services. The former signifies the ability of various network platforms to carry basically similar types of services; thus, telecommunications, informatics and the media have practically merged. The latter is used to express the intermeshing of consumer devices such as the telephone, television and the PC. Unpredictability: ICT development has been enormous. The success of such technologies as text messaging or the Internet serve as a warning that we cannot draw conclusions about the future based on earlier experience or present conditions. 23

24 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 24 Online youth work and eyouth Multitasking: In practise multitasking means that we do a lot of things simultaneously. The interwoven and simultaneous activities can break up our attention, thus some elements can easily be pushed into the background. A continual online presence makes it possible for interaction to take place even in multiple communication spaces, thereby making the merging of personal, group and mass communication unavoidable. Similarly to background media consumption, there is now the phenomenon of background communication, which, springing from a continuous broadband connection makes it possible to be in several communication spaces simultaneously. Security: Digital appearance can become independent of its traditional (primal) source, and it is precisely the growing popularity of digital information that has provoked fear and doubt in many, and indeed it does present numerous opportunities for abuse. 24

25 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 25 DIGITAL GUIDE ONLINE YOUTH WORK Virtual therefore imaginary? NO: The virtual environment is real! In the sections of the international conference organised on youth work in Tartu, Estonia in 2008 (International Youth Work Conference Youth Worker Found in Cyber Jungle ) an attempt was made to collect those elements which typify the digital generation socialised in the information society and the youth work done in connection with them. It was found that young people of today think differently to youth in the past adults have lost the role of directing young people, having a monopoly or exclusivity of knowledge. Based on previous research it is possible to describe a reversed phenomenon of socialization, according to which the educational process (primarily in connection to ICT) has reversed itself, i.e. it is not the elders who teach the young but rather the young that teach their elders. Young people are on the Internet and these days older people, including those who work with young people, can theoretically more easily enter the same community with them than at any time before, it is merely a question of tools and knowledge. At the same time communication habits are changing, and from this it follows that old knowledge becomes obsolete. It constitutes a problem that representatives of the old school cannot work effectively with the new tools. Thus, youth work can only be effective if based on online communication. The most natural communities of young people can now be found on the Internet, and it is typical for young people to behave in a more frank way in these virtual communities and they usually feel more at home there than in the offline world. 25

26 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 26 Online youth work and eyouth In the book entitled Ifjúságügy [Youth Field] 17 the term virtual youth work is used for youth work carried out in a digital environment. International professional literature recognises and also applies the notion of virtual youth work ; however, in practise the term digital youth work and especially online youth work are more often used to denote youth work carried out in the digital environment, which is not surprising since the tool which offers the most important and greatest number of possibilities is without doubt the Internet. The etymology of concepts is not the focus of the present study so let us ignore this; suffice to say that whether the appropriate term is virtual, digital or online youth work, from hereon we will use them as synonyms of one another. Digital youth work is becoming ever more important a task for youth workers, since our lives are being influenced by ever more varied forms of information communication technology (ICT) and this is all the more so the case for young people. In Hungary today the overwhelming majority of young people (80-90 percent) use a computer, the Internet and mobile phones, and many listen to digital music, read electronic books, etc. All of this means that the digital environment is a suitable platform for youth work, i.e. we are talking about waters abounding in fish we just have to find the appropriate net to be cast. There are basically two practical approaches in online youth work which can be characterised as the two levels of virtual youth work: the passive and the interactive one. At the passive level the digital environment is basically used for the dissemination of information, since easy copying and the tools of the Internet make this extremely cheap and effective. An announcement of an event does not have to be put up on posters in every school; it is enough to send the information to each school in an and the recipient school will put up their own posters or those interested can be directly reached on websites, or through mailing lists, etc. As a result of 26

27 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 27 Excenter booklets VI. today s trend of convergence, in practise this means that it is not enough to use just online or just offline solutions as it is rather necessary to equally use both. It must not be forgotten that while a few years ago the application of electronic solutions made the users highly successful, the situation is now far more complicated since almost every organisation and every program is on the Net. In other words, while a few years ago electronic solutions represented a relative advantage to users, today they represent a relative disadvantage to non-users. However, the actual virtual youth work begins beyond the proliferation of information, i.e. at the interactive level, where the sharing of information is not a one-way process going from a data provider to a consumer, but rather a two-way one with the user becoming a partner influencing, producing and owning the given content. In any case, the group of phenomena called web 2.0 is rooted in this level too. Thus, the real tools of online youth work could be interactive solutions in which the experts and young people interact with one another as part of a quasi community. eparticipation The issue of youth participation has been on ongoing problem in developed democracies. This could be expressed as a participation crisis typical of young people; therefore, it is no coincidence that the European Union is devoting special attention to the opportunities to involve young people in community life. Participation is primarily declining as a result of the generational divides generated by the processes of the information society bringing about a tense and polarised world with new rules and norms. The information society primarily impacts young people, and it is they who are the first to utilise the latest ICT, followed much later by older people. On the basis of the latest research data it can be claimed 27

28 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 28 Online youth work and eyouth that in the case of young people in Hungary the first source of information is the Internet, as opposed to older generations for whom television and radio are the two dominant types of media. The different ways of obtaining information could very easily result in the communication problems between young people and older generations, placing obstacles in the path of youth participation. The decline in youth participation can stem from asocial and apolitical attitudes right through to society excluding the young generation. The truth, as in many cases, is rather somewhere between the two ends of the scale: i.e. young people simply want something different and differently than before. From the above we can see that involvement in the digital environment works in a similar way to involvement in the real world. However, the question of what is to be regarded as eparticipation is a valid one. According to the prophets of the Internet almost every online activity should be classified as this, while according to sceptics there is no such thing as eparticipation, or if it has a role, it is negligible. In practise we have often experienced a low degree of initiative which is most typically manifested in few people creating content, perhaps because of the fear of failure and being ridiculed. On the other hand, there are examples of young people being happy to participate in a given process without any especial incentive, such as individuals being voluntary brand ambassadors, enthusiastic campaigners wanting no pay. It is by no means easy to define what eparticipation is, which is proven by the numerous difficulties encountered by experts participating at a seminar organised in the European Youth Center in Strasbourg. To complement their consensual solution: eparticipation is a tool addressing young people in an informal tone in an attempt to encourage them with the help of ICT to participate bottom-up and top-down active or passive processes. eparticipation is an open medium which offers the possibility of civil organization and involvement in decisionmaking, while not aimed at replacing offline relations. 28

29 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 29 Excenter booklets VI. What tools do we need to consider when talking about encouraging youth eparticipation? Blogs: The original expression weblog is a combination of the words web and log ; however, it means far more than simply an internet diary. Technologically, the blog is a continuous updating of the webpage with postings but it is actually far more varied than that. Writing a blog, sharing your thoughts with the world (or just with friends) has become almost an obligatory activity for some groups of young people. Writing a blog means that we stop for a moment to consider what the postings are saying, we think about the given theme because we have to put our thoughts into words. Although the majority of blogs are so-called myblogs, i.e. a personal internet diary from which one can gain an insight into somebody's life, there are nevertheless numerous specialist blogs organised around one topic (blogs on public life, various critiques, e.g. music and literary blogs). These are typically subjective in tone and in some cases very laid back in style, yet they do presume that a specific subject will be continuously dealt with. Bloggers who publish postings are often young people who are typically in continual communication with their community. However, these tools are not only highly significant from the point of view of the blog writers but from their readers too. A faithful and strong community is built around successful blogs and the members of such do not merely read but often also contact the writers or other visitors. It is often the case that some blog communities usually on the initiative of the blogger arrange offline meetings (parties, going for a beer or a talk). Some blogs are not built on just one author s writings as many people can post (write) into the same blog, which means the content is continually updated and thus receives continuous attention

30 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 30 Online youth work and eyouth Electronic newsletters: A regular (usually daily, weekly or monthly) publication distributed electronically mostly containing topical events, and reporting on already established themes and content (e.g. a company newsletter reports on the events that have happened at the company, while the newsletter of a news portal provides the latest thematic news coverage). Newsletters are received via by subscribers but in every case the chance to unsubscribe must be provided too. Newsletters are most usually a onesided tool of communication, since it is a rare event when a reply is sent to a general newsletter. Newsletters are not only significant as sources of information but also a viable tool in recruitment. Online forums: online forums are generally organised around a specific theme, whether it be political or the exchange of technological information related to a product. Similarly to blogs, online forums can have an active audience and it can grow into a community held together not only by virtual solidarity and reciprocity but in given cases the people involved in conversations and discussions also meet personally. Social networking sites: social networking sites (Facebook, iwiw, hi5 etc.) are the most popular applications of the web 2.0 paradigm. They offer numerous opportunities to users based on communication and cooperation. They not only allow us to contact and exchange information with individuals and groups but in the majority of cases we can form a picture of their environment, their social network, and, based on their responses, there is a chance to get to know their personality and to continually develop and maintain relations. On the one hand, social networking sites provide an online manifestation of real communities, and, on the other hand, they carry the potential of development because we 30

31 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 31 Excenter booklets VI. can keep in contact with people we otherwise would not: we are able to find friends and old neighbours believed to be long lost, and we are able to build up new contacts. Interactive webpages: Interactivity represents a qualitative step forward in online appearance providing the opportunity for instantaneous, direct communication on a page. Interactive modules contain the potential of eparticipation, and such applications encourage the community to comment and join in. elearning modules: ICT-aided learning represents an exciting adventure for those who have thus far pursued this activity only in school. elearning does not merely mean that infocommunication technologies are present in learning but assumes a new kind of approach and learning method in which the sharing of knowledge between the instructor and the student occurs through a common online interface. This new way of acquiring knowledge is a flexible, cost- and time saving solution. In the following we will list what kind of conditions are necessary for attempts to encourage eparticipation to be successful; in other words, what challenges are we faced with in the area of eparticipation? There are many of them. A challenge that is less important today and is independent of the individual is limited access. Although in Hungary most young people are wired, there are still some who have been left out of the information society mainly those who are disadvantaged socially or economically (e.g. low level of schooling, difficult financial situation). These limitations can best be overcome with financial tools but quite often merely by the provision of information, which involves less cost. To cite an example from real life, all of this means that we should not provide a computer and an Internet 31

32 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 32 Online youth work and eyouth subscription to those left out but instead provide them with information as to how to access the Internet (for example in libraries, telehouses, etc.). In addition to economically determined factors, limited access can also be the result of a handicap, e.g. a visual impairment which can make involvement in the various processes difficult. This obstacle can be overcome on the service side, as there are solutions which make webpages audible. Limitations of use are more dependent on the individual and thus more difficult to overcome. Several levels can be distinguished within this category. The most basic level involves the competence in the use of information and communication technologies, generally referred to as digital literacy. Digital literacy only means the competence in regard to the use of digital devices and is not to be confused with information literacy which also includes the skills of handling information and itself can be broken down into several levels (more about this in Ifjúságügy 19 ). This level includes various linguistic limitations, e.g. the use of English-language pages, definitely represents an obstacle to most Hungarian users. Although in Hungary young people are the age group with the highest knowledge of foreign languages, there are still a great many young people who are not capable of communicating in any other language than Hungarian. The above with the exception of language knowledge does not represent too big an obstacle and youth workers can only have an indirect effect on these specifics. At the same time, there are aspects which often represent a limitation from the service providers side. One such is when the framework of the flow of information has not been fully elaborated, i.e. there is little information available to users. Further important factors are the presence or lack of attractive design and attractive services. Looked at from the outside, encouragement to 32

33 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 33 Excenter booklets VI. participate is only one form of stimuli among many that affects young people on a daily basis; thus, it is worth packaging it so that it meets the rapidly changing tastes of youth. Of course content is not secondary to form: in order to involve young people it is essential to select topics that are interesting for them and in which they are happy to immerse themselves. The issue of security and legality is also essential. The electronic services to be provided must be based on security and legality. This includes the protection of sensitive data, which always need to be treated cautiously. Youth work involves a great deal of sensitive data which must be protected from unauthorised individuals. Electronic solutions must be applied that do not allow the private data of a user to become public or fall into the hands of an unauthorised individual without the user s permission. Of course the opportunity must be provided for young people for anonymous participation. Even if the conditions above are in place, in order to talk about meaningful eparticiapation what is still primarily needed is communities developed along shared interests. eparticipation is the gateway to offline participation. At the same time, it is clearly perceptible that participation realised with the help of ICT chiefly fails in those points which are designed to guide young people towards edemocracy. It constitutes a general problem that eparticipation is neither taught at formal, non-formal or informal levels, nor uses methods related to these. The objectives and tasks of online youth work From the above it is clear that the digital generation is essentially different to youth predating the information age. The members of the digital generation can mainly be reached through the Internet and have a natural skill in dealing with ICT, but there are numerous other areas in which youth work can play a significant role. In addition to the general 33

34 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 34 Online youth work and eyouth objectives and task of youth work these areas primarily involve information and prevention tasks. A discussion of information technology and the dangers related to it cannot be avoided. Although young people are fairly competent in regard to the use of various digital tools, there are pitfalls in the digital environment that they could be venerable to. a. Pathological use: of course ICT devices are not dangerous in themselves, thus activities presumed to be preventative, such as those aimed at protecting young people from the Internet itself, must be avoided. However, just as excessive reading or sport can be damaging for an individual, the same applies to excessive use of information communications tools or related services. There is room, therefore, for preventive measures that warn of the dangers of excessive use and which are directed at halting this. However, (often heated) debate among professionals in regard to what constitutes excess has not reached any concrete conclusions. Thus, caution and a sense of proportion must be applied in this area. b. Safety: The other element of information and prevention activities relates to safety: an increase in its controlled use is necessary. There are many kinds of security risks inherent in services related to ICT-related services that young people are in many cases not prepared for. In addition to the protection of electronic data (protection against data phishing) protection against harmful content is naturally also important, although in practise the role of the latter is also a matter of debate. c. Law: It was discussed above how young people s interpretation of the law differs a great deal to that of older age groups. It is not merely a matter of young people treating the issue of 34

35 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 35 Excenter booklets VI. copyright in a more laid back way possibly or actually damaging the entertainment industry but there are also numerous risk factors which from the aspect of safety can involve serious consequences. There are many examples for these, e.g. the online distribution of video recordings made of school fights, or the recording and storage of activities from illegal sources or recordings made of criminal activities, etc. Digital literacy, i.e. being skilled in the use of digital devices and applications is not on an equal par with the skill to select values from a sea of information. It follows from this that one of the tasks in digital youth work is to teach what is worth what, which is the important information and which is useless i.e. youth work can play a role in promoting the acquisition of information literacy. Youth work can fulfil a similarly important role in knowledge sharing by disseminating, summarising and translating international materials. The translation and sharing of valuable materials could represent one of the foundation stones in intercultural learning. A task in virtual youth work could be the development of controlled, secure spaces with access to computers and the Internet for young people. This not only means access to a computer for young people in youth offices but also computer fleets connected to the Internet enabling young people to try out various types of cooperation ranging from games to more serious activities. It follows from the differences in mentality between the young and old generations that virtual youth work must be highly flexible. In practise the high degree of freedom made available to young people must be coupled with the always on attitude, i.e. constant availability, of youth workers. Instant responses to questions are the cornerstone of trust, and if there is a delay, trust is not formed and from this point encouraging participation loses its credibility. 35

36 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 36 Online youth work and eyouth The tools used in digital youth work Virtually every existing channel provided by modern computers and the Internet can be used in digital youth work. It should not be forgotten here that it is not just a matter of being able to reach our target group more easily, but that we can do it in a cost-saving and efficient way: the IP phone makes it possible to talk for free for however long we like with a partner anywhere in the world; a newsletter can reach as many people s post-boxes as we like with a single move, and with the help of a well-structured social networking application we can implement joint online projects; and mobile devices reduce the formerly significant constraint of geographical location. Today virtual youth work operates with a diverse and continually developing set of tools. The tools can essentially be divided into two parts: the passive tools primarily facilitating the dissemination of distribution information, and interactive applications. Passive tools: solutions that allow one-way communication, e.g. traditional homepage, offline and online newsletter, guerrilla marketing, etc. (Inter) active tools: Interactive online presence (indirect dialogue) a kind of webpage, blog or wiki that can be commented on, supplemented, or is suitable to start a conversation. Practically any objective can be achieved with the help of free editing systems. Indirect, generally delayed dialogue text message campaigns, e- mail lists. Direct, instant dialogue chat, telephone, conversation through avatars 20 in the virtual world in which the content of the conversation and not the channel of communication is important. Social networking sites starting a sub-site on an already existing site, or creating an independent site. These solutions are already 36

37 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 37 Excenter booklets VI. familiar to almost every Hungarian young person. They make it possible to comfortably reach those individuals who otherwise could not be in the offline space (e.g. because of simple laziness, distance or other, often banal, reasons). Video portals politicians, governments and business organisations already use videos in an online environment to send messages, recruit followers and announce calls, etc. The European Union has a separate video portal, called Eutube. Games serious games constitute a market worth billions and represent potential opportunities in education, training and community building. For the time being this kind of use of serious games is barely found in the world despite the fact that serious games are a highly powerful tool in building, motivating and maintaining communities. Virtual worlds the latest and most innovative platform of digital culture. Virtual environments have only just begun to be developed internationally, an example being the Finnish Netari 21 project. Basic rules for online youth workers One of the most important requirements of youth work is to build up trust and maintain credibility, the accomplishment of which is the most important criterion of success. There are some general rules which need to be followed but which by themselves are not sufficient for success. A person doing digital youth work: should be identifiable In order to win trust digital identification (a mobile number, address, chat name, nick name on a social networking site, etc.) should be comprehensible, identifiable and verifiable through a separate source (a list of names on the page of a youth organisation, etc.). Youth work is a task 37

38 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 38 Online youth work and eyouth replete with responsibility. An ID that carries funny or secret messages (which otherwise can be put to splendid use) only leads to distrust. We should treat the situation as we would if we met a stranger: how do we introduce ourselves? What is written on our name cards? should be accessible The digital world is interactive. A name or an address by themselves are not enough; there should also be an opportunity for interaction: address, telephone number, chat ID, anything. There is nothing more depressing or lacking in credibility than an empty list of names. If a youth worker appears online, they should be able to communicate online. The Internet is more than a tool to consolidate the offline environment. If our digital identification expires or changes, it is our responsibility to make sure we can be reached and not up to others to have to pursue our new identification. should respond It is both impolite and irresponsible not to use the contact information we have provided. We should reply within a reasonable length of time and use the communication symbols (e.g. the I m away symbol in chat programmes, etc.). If we have no time, we should indicate when we can respond. It is a basic rule, yet a great many exciting initiatives are smothered day in day out in the business environment simply because it is not followed. The contact details given are a responsibility. should communicate according to the rules of written verbality, as if you were standing in front of the person you are communicating with. Digital communication offers the temptation to communicate in an easier, more laid back and irresponsible way. It is no coincidence that in chats everybody communicates with strangers more openly than they would face to face with a stranger. On the personal introduction homepages young people exchange data, photos and information with one another which 38

39 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 39 Excenter booklets VI. they might not do personally even after a long acquaintance. Youth workers must not fall into the trap of forgetting that the digital word can be every bit as hurtful as in real life and carries the same weight in both a negative and positive sense! should note that digital communication is never a one-way, but a two-way process at least. If it is one-way, make it two- or severalway! A newsletter that cannot be responded to or supplemented is worthless, and a homepage which does not allow contact to be made with anybody is useless, while an online innovator that does not react to letters but just accepts and sends them on is superfluous. should not just make isolated contacts but build up a network! The digital environment, and chiefly the Internet, does not consist of there and back contacts, it is rather a network. Online youth work will be successful if it is built on a network rather that many contacts existing separately. A network involves (voluntary and selfgenerating) knowledge sharing, communities and responses. Youth work is only successful if it does not force top-down solutions but instead creates a bottom-up network. The tools offered by digital culture provide a splendid opportunity for this. should be modern The statement that is generally applied to young people also holds true in the digital environment: what is novel and (momentarily) trendy has the power to attract. If during carrying out youth work we use advanced technical solutions, even if it is only aimed at attracting attraction, we will succeed. should realise that his/her work and the medium in which he/she works is not virtual: it is real! Although it has been said many times, it does no harm to repeat it again and again: the digital environment is not virtual, nor weightless, but real. Our digital actions carry the same weight as their counterparts in our everyday, physical lives. 39

40 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 40 Online youth work and eyouth A summary of the basic principles of online youth work is as follows: whoever takes on this kind of work should be identifiable, responsible, have an interactive digital identification, use it, build a network, and attract as many participants as possible and make them active. The present digital network can be used for anything from providing information tools to mobilisation. Youth work begins where young people are ICT has now become a part of everyday life. While in the past (10-15 years ago) young people spent a significant part of their time in their peer groups in face-to-face situations, they now spend more and more time with their peers online. As a result of convergence information communication devices have ever more functions, e.g. the Internet can now be accessed via mobile telephones or game consoles and they both have special applications (e.g. client for Facebook) serving as tools for building and maintaining contact with young people and youth groups. The subjects of youth work can be reached via the Internet, thus the digital environment is being attributed with increasing importance, and primarily those parts which young people expressly use to build contacts, nurture contacts and engage in community activities. Web 2.0 applications like blogs or social networking sites are suitable tools to become acquainted with young people since profile pages reveal a huge amount of information about the individual and his community. The following part providing the summary of what has been said thus far will discuss how ICT can be used in youth work. Practical advice for organisations dealing with young people A new challenge for organisations dealing with young people is that young people spend an increasing amount of time online and acquire a 40

41 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 41 Excenter booklets VI. large proportion of their information in this way. For them the online world is just the same as the offline one. They frequently check for information online it is therefore indispensable that the organisations dealing with them and offering programmes for them be present in both environments. 1. One of the indicators of the operation of an organisation is a regularly updated homepage, and a blog run by the organisation (its workers), a live forum, etc. A static webpage that provides only basic information about the organisation, no topical items but only information that is months old is far from being satisfactory. 2. It is important to have a formal diversity of content. Webpages predominantly built on text appear too distant and formal. It is worth utilising the opportunities inherent in technology, and display messages (introduction, projects, program descriptions) in the form of text, video, sound (music) and images, and creatively using a combination of these. Images and videos authenticate a given programme far better than descriptions. It is easy to decide if the page of a given organisation is up to such expectations by visiting one or two webpages of the target group s favourite bands or products. 3. Young people visiting an organisation s webpages must be given the opportunity to comment, share the site s content and thus increase the size of the organisation s network. 4. For organisations an online presence also means that they must provide the opportunity for visitors to contact them, and not merely through the traditional channels (telephone and ) but for example through chat programmes or by enabling comments to be made on articles or on other information on the webpage. Young people who initiate contact must be replied to as soon as possible but by all means within 24 hours. 41

42 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 42 Online youth work and eyouth What role can youth work play in online space? Fig. 3: Possible objectives of youth work using information communication technology (Source: Székely, 2010). 1. It is often the case that online youth work simply represents a new communication interface for an already existing community. This may be necessary when there is personal contact, but the need for broader and more frequent contact arises. In general, some kind of electronic channel is already used by the community (chiefly and mobile telephone) and exploited more or less efficiently depending on the level of network organisation. Youth workers should aim at creating a kind of node in the network to be able to directly reach and motivate the members of the community. 42

43 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 43 Excenter booklets VI. 2. In addition to the entertainment, communications and informational functions offered by digital media, in recent years an increase in content creation and sharing have characterised the youth segment. Young people create their own content, share it and join various forums and campaigns on social networking sites. It is the task of youth work to initiate constructive activities for young people. Sites such as iwiw, MySpace and Facebook offer numerous opportunities that are free and have great potential. 3. It is a basic requirement of youth organisations to be present in the online space. Youth offices have for some time recognised the need for an online interface where they can introduce themselves, which is shown by their developments aimed at this area. From the above it is clear that a static presence is no longer sufficient and it is necessary to combine the various forms of content-provision creatively. International experience has demonstrated that campaigns conducted via Facebook can achieve significant success for youth work and can be perfectly utilised for example for recruitment. Anyone can join the campaign and, thanks to network logic and the operation of Facebook, news can spread rapidly. Friends of young people who have become fans can easily be encouraged to join and news can be forwarded to further potential participants. Youth worker Tim Davies reports that the UK Tower Hamlets Summer University ( www. summeruni.org/) project launched and maintained on Facebook (continuous information and content sharing) was oversubscribed. Text message campaigns are also useful for attracting people if they are used properly. They can primarily serve as reminders for various events: for example, a text message campaign launched before a 43

44 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 44 Online youth work and eyouth youth club meeting can double the number of participants. In conducting a campaign it is worth using free or inexpensive online texting services. In Hungary the two most popular are 999sms.hu ( 999sms.hu) and olcsosms.hu ( through which messages can be sent simply on mass at favourable tariffs. It is worth adding other content such as images and videos to purely text-based campaigns. A few photographs about the events of a youth club say more to young people than a detailed description, not to mention that programme descriptions are rarely read but photos are generally enthusiastically looked at. A short video clip that introduces a project in operation is a splendid opportunity in youth work. (These need not be professional video clips as experience shows that amateur clips are viewed just as much. Uploading a video clip made with a digital camera or mobile telephone to a popular video sharing application (e.g. YouTube) does the job perfectly). It is extremely important to provide visitors with an interactive opportunity: content that can be shared and commented upon is instrumental to success. It is equally important not to restrict content to videos and pictures so that visitors do not draw their conclusions only on this basis. In another approach the possible objectives of online youth work are defined as follows: 1. Online prevention: fostering the digital competence of young people in the digital world, reducing risk factors, primarily through providing information. The objective of youth work in this case is to present the dangers (pathological use, data security, online crime, law). To facilitate this group sessions can be organised to talk to young people and impress on them the different risks involved in the online space and the tools they can use to avoid them. 44

45 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 45 Excenter booklets VI. 2. Online promotion: advertising offline youth projects with the help of information communication tools (e.g. text message or Facebook campaign, but also traditional channels such as online advertising and banners). 3. Complex youth work that can be divided into the following areas: a. Online-offline youth work: Online youth work forms part of youth work in general; consequently, some of the activities can be effectively carried out in equal degree in the offline and online spheres (e.g. an event can start online and continue offline, i.e. via face-to-face communication, or vice versa. b. Online individual youth work: helping young people both those known and those unknown to the individual worker to solve their problems with the help of digital tools available ( , Messenger, text message, message sender of social networking sites, etc.). c. Online groups: primarily work carried out in a social networking site which encourages eparticipation. This area includes online forums and virtual group sessions. How to get started? The few simple steps below can be useful to get those started who have so far not considered utilising the opportunities offered by ICT. (Youth Work and Social Networking Report, 2008) 45

46 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 46 Online youth work and eyouth Fig. 4: Steps to integrate ICT in youth work (Source: Székely, 2010) 1. Survey: In order to successfully utilise the opportunities provided by information communication technology we need to survey the tools available and the habits and interests of the target group. We have to join those online communities where our target group lives its community life. 2. Strategy: We need to create a strategy in regard to how we will integrate the available tools in our work. In order to do this, we need to be clear what we want: advertise offline programmes, organise online communities, generate eparticiapation, or provide online appearance for offline communities? 46

47 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 47 Excenter booklets VI. 3. Security: All of the tools carry lesser or greater security risks and we need to be clear about these before we commence our youth work. There is no doubt that the social networking sites (iwiw, Facebook, etc.) represent the best area for youth work, which, while offering many opportunities for young people, also contain certain risks. These sites can be made safe if youth workers take an active part in them. 4. Skills: We should define our position in relation to the selected platform. The young people with whom we would like to work were practically born with the ability to use information communication tools, it is therefore important that we are clear about the extent to which we will be digital immigrants in the chosen environment. We can approximately define three levels, depending on where we first encountered a computer, the Internet and the mobile phone etc.: a. at home in this case no special acclimatisation is necessary. b. at school we should think through how confident we are in our knowledge and in our ability to learn how to use new ICT tools. c. at the workplace nothing is impossible but we should bear it in mind that while for us the Internet is a different world, for young people it is The World. Digital youth work already has (obviously online) forums where professionals dealing with young people can exchange their thoughts with one another. ( etc.) 47

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49 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 49 BIBLIOGRAPHY Bauer Béla, Szabó Andrea (2009) /szerk./: Ifjúság2008 Gyorsjelentés, Szociálpolitikai és Munkaügyi Intézet, Davies, Tim (2009): Youth work in a digital ag, (In: Children & Young People Now, 2009) Davies, Tim Cranston, Pete (2008): Youth Work and Social Networking, Social_Networking_-_Final_Report_-_August_2008.pdf Nagy Ádám (2008) /szerk./: Ifjúságügy, ifjúsági szakma, ifjúsági munka, Palócvilág Új Mandátum, 2008 Nagy Ádám Székely Levente (2010): The Theoretical Foundations of the Tertiary Socialisation Environment and the Youth Profession as an Autonomous Field (In: Excenter Booklets III, ÚMK-Excenter, 2010) Kátai Gábor (2006): Gondolatok az ifjúságpolitikáról és eszközeirôl Magyarországon és Európában, Kézirat Kay, Ellen (1976): A gyermek évszázada, Tankönyvkiadó, Kollányi Bence Molnár Szilárd Székely Levente (2007): Social networks and the network society (In: Information society coursebook /Róbert Pintér ed./ Gondolat Új Manátum, 2008) Kollányi Bence Székely Levente (2006): Hátrányos helyzetû társadalmi csoportok az információs társadalomban közösen (In: Információs Társadalom IV/2, 2006) Pintér Róbert Székely Levente (2006): Bezzeg a mai fiatalok a tizenéves korosztály médiafogyasztása a többségi társadalom tükrében. (In: Internet.hu A magyar társadalom digitális gyorsfényképe 3.) 49

50 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 50 Online youth work and eyouth Prensky, Marc (2001): Digital natives, digital immigrants. MCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5 October Rab Árpád Székely Levente (2007): Változó ifjúság az információs társadalomban (In: Ifjúságsegítés Probléma vagy lehetôség az ifjúság /Nagy Ádám szerk./ Belvedere Palócvilág Új Mandátum, Budapest Szeged, 2007) Rushkoff, Douglas: (1999) Playing the Future What we can learn from digital kids. Berkley Publishing Group, Ságvári Bence (2008): Az IT generáció - Technológia a mindennapokban: kommunikáció, játék és alkotás (In: Fanta TrendRiport I., 2008) ndriport1.pdf Schuler, Douglas (1996): New Community Networks. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1996 ( Székely Levente (2010): Ifjúsági munka virtuális térben (In: Ifjúságügy ifjúsági szakma, ifjúsági munka Módszertani kézikönyv /Nagy Ádám dr., Földi László, Járosi Éva szerk./ ISzT Mobilitás ÚMK Budapest, 2010) Székely Levente Rab Árpád Nagy Ádám (2008): Virtuális ifjúsági munka (In: Ifjúságügy /Nagy Ádám szerk./ Palócvilág Új Mandátum, Budapest, 2008) Székely Levente Urbán Ágnes (2009): A bevonódás útjai, avagy hogyan kezdtünk internetezni (In: Excenter Füzetek I. ÚMK-Excenter, 2009) Székely Levente (2008): Fogyasztás, gazdasági helyzet, kultúra, média, infokommunikáció Civil Ifjúsági Jelentés (in: Új Ifjúsági Szemle VI. évfolyam 2-3 szám, 2008) Székely Levente (2008): Youth in information society (Report On The Hungarian National Youth Policies for Council of Europe (EC) 50

51 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 51 Excenter booklets VI. Institute For Political Science Of The Hungarian Academy Of Sciences Budapest, 2007; New Youth Review IV/1, 2008) Székely Levente (2008): Médiafogyasztás , adatok-trendek elôadás (Budapest, Telekom Akadémia) Székely Levente (2007): Valódi virtuális közösségek recenzió (In: Jel- Kép szám) Székely Levente (2007): A jövô médiafogyasztói (In: Új Ifjúsági Szemle, 5. évf. 1. szám) Székely Levente (2006): Másvilág Fiatalok az információs társadalomban. (In: Új Ifjúsági Szemle, 4. éfv. 3. szám) Tapscott, Don (1998): Growing up Digital The Rise of the Net Generation McGraw-Hill, ( Urbán Ágnes Székely Levente (2009): Multitasking new way of communication and media consumption among young people (In: Alan Albarran, Paulo Faustino and Rogério Santos /ed./: The Media as a Driver of the Information Society - Economics, Management, Policies and Technologies, MediaXXI/Formalpress - Publicações e Marketing Lda, and Universidade Católica Editora, Unipessoal, Lda, 2009) Z. Karvalics László (é.n.): Lyuk a falon Közoktatás és a gyermek az információs társadalomban (megjelenés alatt) Z. Karvalics László (2008): Úton a digitális kori kormányzás felé load&id=211&keret=n&showheader=n New ways of youth participation based on Information and Communication Technologies, Seminar Documentation (16 18 March 2009, Strasbourg) 51

52 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 52 Online youth work and eyouth Web-based Civic Participation by Young People in Europe, Institute of Education, University of London, The Production of Civic Websites for Young People, Institute of Education, University of London, Children and Young Persons with Abusive and Violent Experiences Connected to Cyberspace, Report from an Expert Meeting at Sätra Bruk, Sweden, May pdf Citizens Speak out, a louder call for European eparticipation, eparticipation, EuropeanCommission International Youth Work Conference Youth Worker Found in Cyber Jungle, November 18-19, 2008 (Dorpat Convention Center, Tartu) Round table: New forms of youth participations (CDEJ and Council of Europe) Changing_Form_Participation_en.pdf Recommendation on empowering children in the new information and communications environment, Committee of Ministers, Council of Europe endation_rec(2006)12.pdf/recommendation%2brec(2006)12.pdf 52

53 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page Bell, Daniel [1973]: The Coming of Post-Industrial Society, New York, Basic Books Castells, Manuel [2005]: The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Vol. 1: The Rise of the Network Society Ádám Nagy [2008]: Ifjúságügy [The Youth Field]Palócvilág Új Mandátum, Budapest, 2008 Ádám Nagy: A harmadlagos szocializációs közeg és az ifjúságügy mint önálló terület elméleti alapjai [The Theoretical Foundations of the Tertiary Socialisation Environment and the Youth Profession as an Autonomous Field (manuscript) Jancsák Csaba gyûjtése alapján Based on Csaba Jancsák s research: Freud (1905); László Nagy (1908); Charlotte Bühler (1928); Piaget (1932); Erik Erikson (1950); D. E. Super (1957); T. Nowogrodzki (1961). Generally abbreviated as N-Gen According to the May 2010 data by NRC market research 55% of the age group. According to the Youth 2008 research, 84% of year-olds use the Internet. Just as the various contents on the Internet are not lineraly linked together, in young people s way of thinking a greater role is played by creativity, accidental connections and network thinking. According to dualist thinking fundamental entities are divided into two parts, e.g. body and soul; holism, on the other hand focuses on equal measure on the whole and the parts, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. As opposed to abstracted concepts, animism is dominated by a pictorial approach and concentrates on the spiritual aspect of things. In the digital world objects are also digital and the law of gravity no longer applies; thus, they are floating in a state of consensual hallucination. Metaphorical thinking built on comparison is pushed into the backgound by recapitulation underlying which is continual repetition. The age groups mentioned represent the generational cut-off points, but this does not mean that some age groups do not fall out of line. The generational cut-off points indicate the age group from where the pattern of media consumption changes. Those surveyed evaluated the importance of the various media by using a scale ranging from 1 to 5, where 1 meant that the given medium was not important at all, while 5 meant very important. In addition to the above the importance of the local communities, as well as close friends and family were included in the questionaire; however, we will not deal with the evaluations made of these in this present study. The evaluation of individual media from the perspective of entertainment and information acquisition showed close proximity, therefore, we merged them based on their common denominator. (In each type of media the evaluation of importance produced a correlation coefficient, which is convincing enough to continue working with their aggragates.) The aggregated variables indicating importance have been standardised; this is especially important if we wish to illustrate the deviation in some age groups from the main average of the pattern. Ádám Nagy (ed.): Ifjúságügy, ifjúsági szakma, ifjúsági munka [The Youth Field, the Youth Profession, Youth Work], Palócvilág Új Mandátum, There are numerous examples of this, one being ifjusagugy.blog.hu Ádám Nagy (ed.): Ifjúságügy, ifjúsági szakma, ifjúsági munka. Palócvilág Új Mandátum, An originally religious concept which refers to the earthly embodiement of a divine being. The meaning of avatar in the virtual environment: a digital personality or character embodying the real person. Netari.fi ( ) was launched in Helsinki in 2004, while the virtual youth house was created in the virtual world Habbo ( in The objective of the project was primarily to attempt to map out opportunities of virtual youth work, and to try and establish relations with young people,online. The aims also included the building of a coherent work model and establish a coherent work culture. The success of the project is demonstrated by the fact that it presently forms part of the Finnish government programme for For the unique, experimental project related to this see:

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55 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 55 SHORT SUMMARY OF EXCENTER RESEARCH CENTER Excenter Research Center is an institution that deals with a wide range of scientific disciplines and is directed by a small organisational team and a network of research communities. It has carried out research on various themes pertaining to the information society, IT education, ICT attitudes, learning methods in vocational training, civil organisations, the youth field and others. Our associates have authored several hundreds of scientific articles, monographs and other professional publications. Excenter s research activity primarily focuses on the social sciences, and it has the capacity to provide basic and applied research projects financed from the so-called innovation contribution paid by businesses. The research center has diverse competences but mainly produces its results through qualitative methods the most often applied ones being desk research, structured sociological interviews, focus group research, online and offline surveys, secondary analysis, content analysis, online research, data mining and trend analysis. Excenter Research Center can effectively contribute to the success of Hungarian and international projects through establishing a sound social and theoretical foundation, measuring the characteristics, opinions and attitudes of target groups forming part of these projects, testing products and results in Hungary as well as through exploring the domestic and international trends supported by data. Excenter uses its income to develop and maintain its research network, manage the Új Ifjúsági Szemle [ÚISZ - New Youth Review] journal, sponsor ÚISZ books and publish Excenter Füzetek [Excenter Booklets]. 55

56 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 56 LEADERS OF EXCENTER RESEARCH CENTER Nagy Ádám Ph.D. Born in 1972 in Budapest, Ádám Nagy is an engineer, economist, political scientist, teacher and lawyer. He earned his PhD in pedagogy; his habilitation is in progress. He was a senior research fellow at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. For five years he worked for an IT corporation of a foreign group, and then became the director of the Information Society Research Institute (ITTK). He oversaw publications such as Hipergalaktika, as well as the annual reports and the decade report of ITTK. He is the founder of the Új Ifjúsági Szemle journal and the founding president of Excenter Research Center. He also edited and coauthored the first book laying down the theoretical foundations of the youth field in Hungary. He is the editor of the regularly published Civil Ifjúsági Jelentés [Civil Youth Report] and Civil Jelentés [Civil Report]. He is a member of the Public Body of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, as well as one of the registered examiners and experts in the field of IT, youth and civil and non-profit professions. Formerly he presided over the council of the National Civil Fund and was the CEO of Napfolt Ltd., the owner of teveclub.hu. He has written and edited fifty monographs, articles for periodicals as well as some fifty popular science articles and other publications on themes in the youth field, civil sector and the information society (more at He is currently a lecturer at Corvinus University, Budapest and Szent István University, Gödöllô. He holds the Magyar Ifjúságért [For Hungarian Youth] prize. Contact information: [email protected] 56

57 Ex6 10/9/2 9:38 AM Page 57 Székely Levente Born in 1979 in Kolozsvár/Cluj, Levente Székely is a sociologist and statistician, a graduate of the Faculty of Social Sciences and the Humanities at ELTE University, Budapest and currently completing the final year of his PhD at Corvinus University of Budapest. Formerly, he was a researcher at the Information society Research Center (ITTK) of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. He worked with a number of renowned market research institutes and is currently the research director of Excenter Research Center. Since winning the competition of publications announced by Új Ifjúsági Szemle journal in 2005, he has been continuously publishing articles. In 2007 he was invited to manage the Youth and Society column of the journal, and since 2009 he has been the periodical s co-editor-in-chief. As a civil delegate, he has participated in the council of the Child and Youth Basic Programme (GyIA). He is a member of the Association of Youth Experts (ISZT), a former editor of the conference column of the Információs Társadalom [Information Society] journal, a number of columns of the Infinit news portal and newsletter, as well as the InfÓra radio programme about the information society of Civil Radio. He is the author and co-author of some forty scientific publications (articles for periodicals, book chapters, reports) and over thirty primarily online articles. Areas of research: culture consumption, media consumption, new media, youth, education, information society. Contact information: [email protected] 57