Digital Culture & AudioVisual Challenges

In this paper, I describe two programs I participated in.

The first program was launched in 2020 by the European Union of Theatres (UTE) to stage the play « Concord Floral » with « digital natives » in four European theatres . It aimed at enabling mediation about teens cyber harassement (Gallagher, 2014).

The second program is called FLUXUS. It pioneers entrepreneurial ventures in arts and new technologies for young graduates. It depends of the Ministry of Culture and Communication (DRAC). The incubator selecting their projects and providing training, Bliiida, is specialized in digital technologies.

In both cases, I conducted participant observation and in-depth interviews using the opportunity of acting as a playwright and social scientist in each program. I complemented my field data collection with archival data (from the institutions, the online media and the press).

Here are my research questions :

How do youth consider online media and how do they express their role in their life in an artistic context?

How do more experienced professionals relate to the topic of « digital natives » ?

How do these views resonate (Rosa, 2022 ; 2019) and does it make sense to identity « digital natives » (Evans and Robertson, 2020) in public programs ?

I describe and interpret actors’ perspectives on the program they participated in. Their different views constrast with the assumptions caracterizing each program and its institutional framing.

In the first case, the main assumption is that « digital natives » are endangered by their intense and irreflexive use of social media. The goal is to encourage young people to engage in a public dialogue (Turkle, 2016) at the occasion of the staging of a play made by a young Canadian company. The play shows sexual and moral harassment episodes in a context of post-punk apocalyptic approach to middle class suburbian life (Tannahill, 2016).

In the second case, the main assumption is that young artists with to become entrepreneurs to make a living and will embrace both social media and business skills to boost their careers as avant-garde (Friedman, 2008) in a competitive field.

First, I point at contradictions in the assumptions that ground each cultural program. Second, I find some debates about digital media, art producers and cultural industries are being silenced.

One example of a foundational assumption in the UTE program is that the use of social media and online expression exposes youth to harassment . That view may be challenged. Indeed, while “Teens sexting or meeting strangers online has become a common and popular trope within narrative media.”. still “(…) these elements of risk—addiction, isolation, strangers, and distractions—are not the kinds of risk (one may) worry about in this story.” (Ryan-Vickery, 2017: 15) like the risk caused by this “moral panic”: the control and censorship of youth practices and discourses with the official purpose of protection.

One example of silencing in the FLUXUS program is that the platform model of entrepreneuring is a way to make a living and promote artists, never mentioning the exploitation of click workers (Casilli, 2019) and the contention about entrepreneurial values among art producers (Riot, 2014a/b) that is widely echoed in young artists’ practices and discourse.

References

Casilli, A. A. (2019). En attendant les robots-Enquête sur le travail du clic. Média Diffusion

Evans, C., & Robertson, W. (2020). The four phases of the digital natives debate. Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies, 2(3), 269-277.

Friedman, K. (Ed.). (1998). The Fluxus Reader. Chichester: Academy Editions.

Gallagher, K. (2014). Why theatre matters: Urban youth, engagement, and a pedagogy of the real. University of Toronto Press.

Riot, E. (2014a). L’œuvre virale. Net art et culture hacker, J.-P. Fourmentraux. La Lettre Volée, Bruxelles (2013). 144 p. Sociologie du travail, 56(2), 272-274.

Riot, E. (2014b). 'Anarchy by the book? Forget about it!': The role of collective memory in shaping workers' relations to anarchism and work today. ephemera: theory & politics in organization, 14(4).

Rosa, H. (2019). Resonance: A sociology of our relationship to the world. John Wiley & Sons.

Rosa, H. (2022). Social media filters and resonances: Democracy and the contemporary public sphere. Theory, Culture & Society, 39(4), 17-35.

Ryan Vickery, J. (2017). Worried about the wrong things: Youth, risk, and opportunity in the digital world. MIT Press.

 Tannahill, J. (2016). Concord Floral: A Play. Playwrights Canada Press

Turkle, S. (2016). Reclaiming conversation: The power of talk in a digital age. Penguin.