[Last updated: May 2020]
Digital Economy: The ability to navigate economic activities online and offline to earn different forms of economic, social, and/or cultural capital (e.g., earning money, increasing social connections, building personal brands).
Young people’s lives are increasingly shaped by digital technologies. While significant digital divides and participation gaps remain, an increasing number of young people around the globe participate in and contribute to the digitally networked environment in many forms, ranging from creative expression on social media to interactive gaming and collaboration.
The YaM team is exploring young people’s digital engagement through the lens of the digital economy and hopes to gain an initial understanding of youth’s practices, motivations, skills, pathways, and modes of value creating as they interact with a digital environment in which the boundaries between the commercial and personal spheres, between work and play, are often blurring.
Flagship publication:
- Youth and the Digital Economy: A First Look at Youth Practices, Motivations, Skills, Pathways, and Value Creation. In addition to sketching building blocks toward a framework, the paper brings together three essays that explore in different application contexts both the opportunities and challenges that surface when young people engage with and participate in the digital economy.
- The YaM team also recommends these related resources:
Ongoing collaboration:
- Since 2017 we have been collaborating with the Nordic Centre for Internet and Society, led by Berkman Klein Faculty Associate Christian Fieseler, on a number of projects (i.e., Fair Labor in the Digitized Economy, Youth and Emergent Forms of Digital Social Innovation) that examines how youth exercise their agency and participate in economic activities online.
Key learning resources:
The learning resource “Who Do You Want to Be?” is available in over 35 languages! To view the translations, please scroll down to “All Languages.” Additional languages will be added over time.
To learn about how to navigate our Digital Citizenship+ (Plus) Resource Platform — home to an evolving collection of 100+ educational tools (e.g., learning experiences, visualizations, podcasts) that can be used to learn and teach about youth’s digitally connected lives — please see the following slidedeck, presented at RightsCon Tunis 2019. The presentation also offers helpful tips in terms of adapting the tools to your context.
Other publications:
- Exploring Social Innovation in Norway: A Workshop on Mapping Innovation Ecosystems
- Youth Labor and the Paradoxes of the Digital Economy
- Sharing Learning Tools for Youth Digital Life
- Offers an overview of how we developed our educational platform — the Digital Citizenship+ (Plus) Resource Platform — home to an evolving collection of more than 100 tools (e.g., learning experiences, visualizations, podcasts) that can be used to learn and teach about youth’s digitally connected lives
Selected presentations:
(For more information, please email Sandra Cortesi.)
- November 2018: Round Table, “Emerging Youth Practices and the Digital Economy”, Internet Governance Forum, Paris, France
- November 2018: Round Table, “Fostering Digital Social Innovation in the Global South”, Internet Governance Forum, Paris, France
- November 2018: Round Table, “Unleash the Power of Digital Economy & Society with Mobile”, Internet Governance Forum, Paris, France
- July 2018: Presentation, “Youth and Teamwork Online: Digital Citizenship and Levers for Virtual Collaboration,” Scratch@MIT Conference, Cambridge, MA
- December 2017: Presentation, “Blurring Lines Between Work and Play: Youth Practices and the Digital Economy”, Internet Governance Forum, Geneva, Switzerland