Youth, Digital Media Space and Ethics - Research Paper Example

The Youth, Digital Media Space and Ethics THE YOUTH, DIGITAL MEDIA SPACE AND ETHICS Outline The development capa of young people who are involved in digital media space is important, especially in the context of their capacities to discern ethical stakes in digital media space. For example, a young girl who takes up a different identity to conceal her real identity, will converse with other users in social media through her alias. This is referred to as virtual identity play, which could provide young people with specific and unique opportunities at developing healthy identities. It gives her the opportunity to express herself freely, be self-reflective and elicit feedback from other users of digital media space. However, digital media use can pose some significant for young people in relation to identity deception, placing them in the way of attack by other harmful virtual identities, as well as an unhealthy reliance on connectivity and feedback to other users. The paper seeks to answer a variety questions regarding the ethical gray areas in digital media space. How can self-expression online play a significantly positive role in the identity formation of a young person and what circumstances make identity play a deception? What do the youth gain by performing strategically and deliberately their various identities over a public forum? Finally, what are the potential costs to themselves, as well as to others? Introduction This paper focuses on the intersection between young people, digital media space and digital fluency. The perils and promises of the digital media space are especially salient when it concerns young people who have digital skills, spend a considerable amount of their time online and have begun to assume new identities there. These young individuals while being the best prepared to utilize digital media space for good tend to have high chances of perpetrating or becoming the victims of lapses in ethics. Psychological research into moral development is suggestive of the fact that, over time, experiences and social contexts affect the capacities for action and moral development. However, less is known in regard to the evolution of ethical and moral stances in the global digital space sphere. The development capacity of young people who are involved in digital media space is important, especially in the context of their capacities to discern ethical stakes in digital media space. There may be a need to revise the traditional psychological frameworks concerning moral development in light of the significantly distinct properties inherent in digital media space, coupled to the heavy participation of the young generation at a slightly young age. This paper seeks to establish the ways in which the youth are redefining identity as they engage in digital media space. It also seeks to explain how they do it, why they do, and the consequences of doing this by first highlighting vital ethical fault lines present in the formation of identities in digital space. Identity is defined as the individual’s ego and how the self is represented in digital space. Research Zena is a fifteen-year-old honors student in high school who is a bit shy bit possesses a small and tight circle of friends. Like most teenagers, she possesses an account on MySpace. Her parents initially expressed concern regarding her membership, especially since they had heard stories concerning online adult predators and the reckless conduct prevalent among online young users. Following heated debate, Zena was able to persuade her parents to let her remain as a user of MySpace, although she had to allow them access to her account page so they could monitor her activities on the site. A few months later, this agreement became stifling for Zena, who wanted the ability to communicate with her friends without her parents being in on it. Therefore, without telling her parents, she created a new MySpace account under an alias name of Zeyanna aged nineteen. Zena utilizes her new Zeyanna page to be more open in her writing concerning her experiences and feelings, as well as exploring various alternative identities she has developed. During the design of her Zeyanna page profile, Zena posted pictures of herself, which were actually pictures of her longtime friend who she believed was more attractive and looked somewhat older than she did. She figures out, after all that her Zeyanna profile is more of a space for play since they are never in physical touch. “Zeyanna” makes quite a number of new friends on the site, one of whom is Dickson. Dickson’s profile page states that he is twenty-one years of age and resides in a nearby town. “Zeyanna” begins a relationship online with Dickson and begins to behave in a different manner to the original Zena. She regards her interactions with Dickson as thrilling and thoroughly enjoys the presented opportunity to perform an identity that is more assertive than her normal one. Following several weeks of varying levels of flirtation, Dickson proposes an online meet, which flatters Zena but puts her in a fix. She wonders how Dickson will react, when he meets her and comes to the knowledge that the pictures she posted as profile pictures were actually not hers. Virtual identity play could provide young people with specific and unique opportunities at developing healthy identities. However, this outcome is not guaranteed by any means (Bers, 2010). Under positive circumstances, it is hypothesized that the youth could have the ability to express themselves in different aspects, in an environment that is supportive of them. They can also engage in self-reflection, as well as elicit from their profile friends constructive feedback regarding themselves (Bers, 2010). However, it is also hypothesized that new digital media can pose some significant for young people in relation to identity deception, placing them in the way of attack by other harmful virtual identities, as well as an unhealthy reliance on connectivity and feedback to other users. Digital participation is facilitative and detracts from the development of socially responsible, autonomous and healthy identities. How can self-expression online play a significantly positive role in the identity formation of a young person and what circumstances make identity play a deception? What do the youth gain by performing strategically and deliberately their various identities over a public forum? Finally, what are the potential costs to themselves, as well as to others? Findings Human development theorists have described the formation of identities as a major task during adolescence, or at least it is in the western world (Subrahmanyam & Smahel, 2011). During this stage, adolescents begin to reconsider the perceptions they have, in regard, to themselves as they increasingly become aware of their broader society, for example, exceptions, morals and values. Adolescents will try, on various identities, to experience how society will receive them. This stage is a psychosocial moratorium or a time out that lets young people experiment more freely with their various identities in an environment where the stakes are low. Identity formation during adolescence depends on the process via which the society, usually via sub-societies, is willing to identify the young person. Identity formation is a social process with identity formation starting in adolescence and continuing to occur throughout the lifetime of an individual. The adolescent will develop an identity and continue to enact it and reshape it in a social context. This formation of identity is not simply an individual project, but rather a deeply social project that is hinged on social validation has social consequences and carries with it ethical risks and promises (Subrahmanyam & Smahel, 2011). The formation and exploration of identity are facilitated by self-reflection, self-expression and feedback from other members of the society. Offline, adolescents will tend to experiment with hairstyles and clothing, adopting the attitudes prevalent in pop culture and other sub-cultures, or involving themselves in extra-curricular activities that develop a passion, talent, or ideology (Subrahmanyam & Smahel, 2011). Additionally, they also engage in self-reflection by using solitary journaling, as well as eliciting feedback through face-to-face interactions with adults, known peers and friends. However, offline identity explorations have several constraints; the individual cannot change the size and shape of their bodies easily, nor can they change the social roles and opportunities available to them. The adolescents also have decreasing amounts of space and time in which to perform identity exploration (Subrahmanyam & Smahel, 2011). They also have increased pressures such as college admissions, extra-curricular activities and schoolwork. The feedback that they receive from their close relations, such as family, peers and friends can be a limiting factor in the exploration of identity. Can digital media offer a new space for the exploration of identity by young people? Most online sites have in their terms and condition an entrenched code of ethics that receive support via the strong ties between the various participants (Fortner & Fackler, 2011). The types and number of digital spaces have continued to expand and this has made it possible for a lot more self-expressive forms and self-expressive spaces for the emergence of self-exploration. The internet and digital media can be viewed as a fertile space for the young people to undertake social moratorium. This is because it frees the youth from the economic, social and physical constraints prevalent in the real world. This form of communication can be seen as a low-stakes form and space where the young people can experiment using multiple identities (Fortner & Fackler, 2011). They can engage over the internet in identity play through the adoption of different writing styles, different names as well as different personas for their digital identities. The youth can also elicit immediate feedback concerning their identity, experiments from a more diverse and broad audience than is possible when using offline means. Although this opportunity to adopt and use radically variant identities are in existence, in most online digital spaces, the self-expression of the young people tend to be reflective of aspects of their offline identities (Fortner & Fackler, 2011). The young people will use social media as a way to express the values they hold dear, as well as personalities, sexual identities, cultural tastes, and feelings related to their experiences and relationships. The online youths are required to write themselves into existence with their expressions on the online forum being necessarily more deliberate as compared to their offline expressions. The individual undertakes the formation of identity, although, it also affects and is, in turn, affected by one’s relationship with others. This pushes it squarely in to the terrain of ethics. Homepages constructed by young people, as well as blogs strategically and deliberately use cultural artifacts in the crafting of their online identities in order to attract, as well as entertain a public online audience (Fortner & Fackler, 2011). The individual will omit the parts about them that they feel do not fit within the performance that they desire, and they augment the parts that fit in. Ethical Context & Additional Explanations Virtual identity play portends various promises to the young people. The very deliberate nature of self-representations on online digital media is facilitative of the formation of identities via forcing young people to articulate who they are at the moment, what they believe they will become in future, and what values and beliefs they use to guide them during their personal growth (James, 2009). This virtual identity play can help in the identity formation process via the provision of diverse ways and new ways for self-reflection, self-expression and feedback from peers and friends online. Online spaces provide the young person with multiple avenues to create self-expression and identity play. The requirement for one to write their online identity into existence could act as an encouragement for the individual to be self-reflective. Reflection, in turn, can lead to the nurturing of a greater awareness as concerns the roles and responsibilities that an individual has to them, to the other users, and to the wider community (James, 2009). Online digital spaces give young people a unique and vital opportunity at gaining the validation of feedback from their online friends. Human development takes place in a social context with help from received feedback that aids the young individual to reconcile their conception regarding them with societal appraisal concerning them (James, 2009). As the individual’s self is validated, the young person may become better positioned to extend and validate him or herself to the online digital community. Social validation, an activity that is being attained continually and increasingly on online digital forums could act as a preventive measure against social alienation and disaffection. However, virtual identity play over online digital forums has its perils. For one, the forms used over these forums for self-reflection, self-expression, and feedback may act to undermine the ability of an individual to form an appropriate identity, rather than invest, in their capability, to do so (James, 2009). Young individuals may also fail in their development of an autonomous and coherent sense of self. The young person may struggle during the assumption of more important offline social roles, as well as fulfilling required responsibilities. Many perils will arise from the young person’s identity becoming increasingly fragmented, when the process of self-reflection becomes a process of self-promotion, or even when the young person becomes overly dependent on the feedback that they get from the online digital community (James, 2009). A serious peril of online identity play has to do with the forum’s performative quality. The self-reflection afforded by the digital spaces could be undermined during the presentation of the self to an audience, when it becomes increasingly valued to the point that its urgency becomes more important than turning inward for self-engagement during self-examination (McPherson, 2008). This self-presentation’s performative element becomes more magnified in an online digital space. Another peril that faces virtual identity creation on online digital spaces comes in the form of deception. Social ills and harms could result from instances, when the experimentation with identity crosses the line to become deceptive and when the user decides to explore explicitly harmful identities. Various stakeholders in the social sphere have raised concerns concerning young people who take to experimenting with identities that are radically different to each other and to their real identity (McPherson, 2008). In the search for acceptance and validation by the online digital community, young people will attempt to mislead their online digital friends, as well as total strangers as to their real identity (McPherson, 2008). Internet digital spaces have permitted young people to take to the exploration of explicitly wrong and harmful identities, for example, misogynist, murderous, or rapist identities. However, this has been contested with regard to the potential real world effects that the perpetrator portends as far as engaging in online hate speech and rape (McPherson, 2008). Evidence that has been collected to date is suggestive of the fact that, young people come up with online identities that are reflective of their real nature while offline. Without any overriding principle of coherence, the individual’s self will spin in all and every direction. Multiplicity cannot be viable if this means the shifting of the self between personalities that cannot communicate (McPherson, 2008). At this juncture, the effects, in the long-term, of online digital space identity play remain unclear with researchers still needing to explore the manner in which it poses obstacles to the establishment of a healthy sense of one’s self. Ultimately, however, the conception of a healthy individual self may need reconsideration in the light of new opportunities aimed at the development of identity that is provided by the new digital space. Performance could be viewed as personally meaningful, although it is directed to the outside and directed by external symbols in culture (McPherson, 2008). It thus seems reasonable that the degree to which an individual can engage in genuine and deep self-reflection and, at the same time, spend a great deal of time performing another self to others should be questioned. Opportunities aimed at online digital space exposure can prepare the stage for an unhealthy reliance on feedback, which could act to undercut the individual’s autonomy while creating a fragile identity. The term tethering can be used to describe the almost constant connectivity of an individual to others, as well as the sharing information that should be permitted or, indeed, encouraged in digital space (McPherson, 2008). When young individuals are given the encouragement to maintain a connection with others, as well as to express themselves and reflect in a semi public or fully public arena, the benefits of being alone and also of self reflection will come to be undervalued (McPherson, 2008). Young individuals could also be developing unhealthy reliance on the opinions of other digital space users as their basis for developing their self, which acts as a limiting factor for autonomous making of decisions. In turn, there is a strong desire by the young individual for positive feedback, as well as praise, from other digital space users, which interferes, with the capacity of the young individual, to reflect in a disinterested and abstract manner concerning the ethical implications of their conduct. Conclusions While virtual identity play may provide young people with various unique opportunities in the development of healthy identities, this outcome is not guaranteed by any means. Under the most positive circumstances, young individuals have the ability to express themselves in diverse aspects of their ordinary self, in an environment that is supportive of their attempts. They can also engage in self-reflection and elicitation of constructive feedback from the digital space community. However, online digital space can be the cause of significant risks to the sense of self-possessed by the young person. This is inclusive of risks that are related to deception of identity opportunities inherent in digital space to assume and be attacked by ill-meaning virtual identities, as well as reliance that is unhealthy on generated feedback and connectivity to other users. Further research should be conducted with the objective of discovering the conditions under which participation in digital space is facilitative and detractive from development of socially responsible, autonomous and healthy identities. References Bers, Marina. (2010). New media and technology : youth as content creators. San Francisco : Jossey-Bass/Wiley . Fortner, Robert. & Fackler, Mark. (2011). The handbook of global communication and media ethics. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. James, Carrie. (2009). Young people, ethics, and the new digital media : a synthesis from the GoodPlay project. Cambridge: MIT Press . McPherson, Tara. (2008). Digital youth, innovation, and the unexpected. Cambridge : MIT Press . Subrahmanyam, Kaveri. & Šmahel, David. (2011). Virtual youth : connecting developmental tasks to online behavior. New York : Springer . Wolf, Mark. (2011). Virtual morality : morals, ethics, and new media. New York: Lang. Read More