Linked articles

Misinformation does not only affect young people and people with low education

The debate on misinformation often focuses on young readers, who would be the first victims. " It is necessary to train citizens, and in particular the youngest, to help them recognize false information, to apprehend it, to protect themselves from it ", insisted, for example, Françoise Nyssen, at the time Minister of Culture, during the debate on the law on the fight against false information in summer 2018.According to a survey conducted by the Décodeurs team of Le Monde newspaper based on data from the Médiamétrie institute, in April 2020, in the middle of a period marked by a strong interest in current affairs and a real need for information, young people do not seem to be privileged targets for the least reliable sites.The 15-24 year olds, for example, represented in April about 13.7% of all Internet users, 13% of the readers of traditional sites and 16.1% of the readership of sites classified as "red" by the Décodeurs team (Sites that have published a significant number of false information and/or misleading articles are classified by the Décodeurs as " red " and sites whose reliability or approach is questionable are classified as "orange"). 25-49 year olds are over-represented in the audience of unreliable sites According to this survey, "if there is one age group that stands out for its appetite for dubious sources, it would in fact be the 25 to 49 year olds. They like to read traditional sites, but are over-represented among visitors to sites classified as "red" and "orange" in the Decodex. The 35-49 year olds, for example, represent 22.1% of Internet users and 25% of readers of traditional sites, but 32.7% of readers of unreliable sites."Conversely, older people are overrepresented in the readership of mainstream news media, but less likely to visit less conventional sites. This does not mean, however, that they are completely unaffected by online misinformation." People over 65 are the most likely to share erroneous articles on Facebook, according to a study published in the journal Science Advances in 2019. The wealthy categories are not spared Executives, managers, professionals and teachers (identified by Médiamétrie as belonging to the upper socio-professional categories) are numerous in their reading of traditional sites, but they are especially more numerous than the other categories in the readership of the "red" and "orange" sources. Their profile for consulting news sites is not, in the end, very different from that observed among the less privileged social categories (CSP -).These observations relate to the consultation of the sites and not to the information practices on social networks.The survey was conducted for the month of April 2020, in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Decoders team sent Médiamétrie the list of 372 websites identified as "unreliable" (classified in red) and 119 identified as "doubtful" (in orange) in the Decodex. Médiamétrie compared the audience composition of these sources (in terms of age and socio-professional categories) with those of the 20 most read news sites in France for the month of April 2020.

• Inclusion

Published on 28/08/20



Digital practices of young people in working-class areas

The National Institute for Youth and Popular Education (INJEP) has just published the results of a study devoted to Tastes, practices and cultural uses of young people in working-class areasThe study is based on interviews with teenagers in the working-class neighborhoods of Bourgoin-Jallieu, Villejuif and Dammarie-Les-Lys.One of the challenges of this qualitative study was to understand the articulation between cultural practices (music, reading, outings, libraries, amateur practices) and digital practices.This survey documents the effects of the digital switchover for working-class youth, " showing how the advent of social media, video-on-demand platforms, downloading and streaming have turned the place of television in modest households upside down."The study's authors qualify the decline of television among working-class youth. "Despite the internet and video-on-demand platforms, television remains central to cultural activities in working-class families. Watching television together is the important family and cultural moment. It is during these moments that opinions and discussions are exchanged around the choice of program, usually carried out by the parents (more often the father if both parents are present) and/or by the oldest child. In adolescence, young people watch television mainly as a family, or with sisters or brothers, very rarely alone. The programs are of contrasting registers: films, series, entertainment, reality TV and may also come from foreign channels (via DTT) linked to the parents' country of origin. These are all occasions that show a ritualization of TV moments for the family, which gathers around them.The survey underlines how much " teenage consumption is strongly determined by the offer put forward on the platforms, and certain "trendy" series and films become a must-see. Observed in detail, YouTube usage nevertheless shows clear gender specificities: while boys are big consumers of gaming videos and educational content (popularization, documentaries...), girls tend to turn to beauty and lifestyle content. The first overview offered by this survey is, however, necessarily reductive and does not allow us to grasp the complexity of YouTube's juvenile uses: above all, it confirms the interest of more in-depth surveys on these practices. Listening to music, a central practice of popular youth The survey highlights the types of consumption and listening that are most common among working-class teenagers. "Listening to music appears to be a central practice of working-class youth, and the only one capable of "uniting everyone" around common tastes and methods. At the heart of this musical consensus, rap dominates and structures tastes. Indeed, if many teenagers display a certain eclecticism (they listen to "everything" and do not reject any musical genre), it is rap that concentrates almost all the actual consumption by being the preferred genre of more than ¾ of the young people we met. Nevertheless, this consensus around rap should not mask subtle intra-genre distinctions and the permanence of distinctive relationships to music. The young people explain that not all raps are equal and state clear hierarchies between "violent" or "vulgar" rap, rap that is closer to their daily concerns and "thoughtful" rap, even mixed with pop and French song.The survey also points to the special place of libraries and media libraries in these adolescent outings in the neighborhoods. "In all three areas, young people frequent and appreciate these places, without necessarily taking part in the cultural activities they offer (borrowing books, reading on the spot, audiovisual uses, etc.). They invest them above all as places of sociability".In a separate chapter of the study, devoted more specifically to digital practices, Thomas Legon shows how access to digital technology is intertwined with family histories and organizations: he places digital practices " in the context of immigration stories, the varying degrees of competence of the different generations, the spatial organization of housing, and siblings who may or may not include 'older' children who will facilitate access for the youngest (by pushing for equipment, breaking down restrictions, etc.), but also with rules of use, prohibitions, and family judgments. ), but also with rules of use, prohibitions, and family judgments.He reminds us of " the impact of living conditions on the digital practices of young people: the modesty of financial means or the sharing of domestic space (intervenes) thus directly on the practices of adolescents. Thus, withregard to packages and terminals, a condition of access to an autonomous, intimate or even nomadic use, he reminds us that " the fact of living in an environment with constrained economic resources can thus lead to not being able to replace a broken phone or not having enough Internet "data" in one's package to be truly nomadic in one's use of digital technology". Social networks: relationships with oneself, relationships with others "All the respondents use, even if only occasionally, at least two different virtual social networks. (...) The first important distinction concerns the type of people with whom we interact. Thus, Whatsapp and Facebook are used by our respondents much more for family ties (especially intergenerational ones) than Snapchat, which is particularly used for close friends.""If the platforms used primarily for family ties are practical, or even essential, for the adolescents we met, they are never their favorites. The respondents always declare a stronger taste for social networks that connect them with their peers. Among these peers, above all strong ties ), which may explain the success of Snapchat among the youngest, since compared to other popular platforms, this network is mainly used to be in contact with a small number of very close people".The survey highlights " forms of learning how and what to post, for example, but also specific terms to designate practices, specific parts of the platforms (...) In particular knowing how to distinguish between "stories" and "the feed" for the type of content to be published, but also the role of certain informational resources to regulate one's public visibility (and thus, again, to regulate the type of content to be published)"."The learning of aesthetic self-development, which is a much more feminine learning than masculine, inclines girls more to think about how to share photos of themselves on social networks. "We can see that the learning of a "network culture" and the aesthetic enhancement of oneself is an interactional process," observes Thomas Legon."The "likes" are a way of using interaction to learn about oneself, in the manner of a democratic vote. This is undoubtedly a characteristic belief of the working classes, who want to see in the choice of the greatest number a credible indicator to orient themselves in the choice of cultural items (...) But this dimension is not the only one. Beyond the return of anonymous opinions compiled in a metric (likes), the interactional learning is also done thanks to the strong links to whom one trusts to show and tell everything about oneself, "behind the scenes" before appearing on the virtual social scenes. Presentation of oneself through social networks: knowing how to "hold your place Working-class youth must also learn to play within a specific set of social, gender, and sociability constraints when it comes to sharing things about themselves (or participating in what peers are sharing) on social networks.The articulation between cultural practices and digital practices does not only concern the consumption of cultural goods. Digital tools and platforms make it possible both to facilitate access to creation and then to distribute these creations to an audience(via virtual social networks in particular). "The interviews show above all the extent to which the distribution of creations online is a difficult exercise, very strictly framed by the "network culture". "We can't do "anything", "anyhow". By taking example on other amateurs, one can imagine and organize the artistic presentation of oneself (on a mode "and why not me?"), but also very quickly to be discouraged of the weak audience which one meets and to give up ".The socialization methods characteristic of working-class environments permeate digital practices: respect for the gender order, the primordial place of the family and strong ties in online and offline life, the "morality" of sociability. The fact that class socialization is maintained in digital practices does not mean that they remain "locked in" or "limited to" the social class shared by young people from working-class neighborhoods.

• Inclusion

Published on 14/10/20



Réseaux magazine looks at "Youth cultures in the digital age

This folder of the journal Réseaux, coordinated by Dominique Pasquier, is situated at the crossroads of two important observations.He reminds us, on the one hand, of the importance of taking into account social determinants when studying the relationship of young people to culture, sociability or communication. "Gender, social origins, educational backgrounds, and even, in one case studied here, religious cultures, are all factors that play a role in the relationship to the media, both old and new. These regularities are too often hidden in the works on new technologies where young people are treated as a whole as if their age category was enough to bring them together.On the other hand, "it pays homage to that part of creativity in the face of socio-technical devices that young people are more often used to than their elders. For it is the privilege of those who have known digital technology since their birth: if they are not necessarily more expert, they are certainly more inventive. They have known many new social networks as they have grown older... "The list would be long - and always incomplete -, " Dominique Pasquier reminds us in the introduction to this dossier, " of these new ways of communicating within peer groups that have attracted the attention of researchers. These studies have often identified communication tactics intended to protect themselves from the parental gaze: this is an ever-present dimension that is found in several texts in this dossier. They have also observed all sorts of tinkering with the scripts proposed by the devices, which aim to modulate the expression of the intensity of the bonds of sociability in peer groups, to testify to one's preferences and rejections in love, to mark one's individuality. In short, the sociology of uses will still have a lot to do to map the diversity of juvenile appropriations .Summary of the dossier Dominique Pasquier : File : Youth cultures in the digital age Julien Boyadjian: Disinformation, non-information or over-information? The logics of exposure to news in student environments Cédric Barbier: School systems of education to cinema. Is it a question of sidelining or taking into account adolescent practices? Barbara Fontar, Mickaël Le Mentec: Video game practices of 13-15 year old adolescents. Gendered differentiations and hierarchical relationships between the sexes Francis Arsène Fogue Kuate: The telephone ways of emancipation of young women in Muslim and Christian environments in Cameroon Yann Bruna: Snapchat in adolescence. Between adhesion and resistance

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Published on 26/08/20



Digital technology doesn't turn young people away from writing

Despite the omnipresence of screens, writing practices are not disappearing. This is shown by a CREDOC survey survey conducted in 2022 among 1,500 young people aged 14 to 18.The survey, commissioned by the association Lecture Jeunesse, explores the different contexts of writing outside school (functional or leisure uses), the writing methods used (handwritten or digital) and the profile of young people who are moving away from this practice.A way to clarify thoughts and express emotionsEven though 87% of young people aged between 12 and 18 are equipped with smartphones, the practice of writing is still very much alive among the 14-18 year-olds surveyed. 92% of 14-18 year-olds write at least "sometimes" in their daily lives, and 60% write regularly, i.e. "every day or almost every day". Within this age group, the frequency of writing varies little with age.On a day-to-day basis, this practice is expressed in various forms, whether digital or handwritten: writing text messages, e-mails, shopping lists, memos, jotting down thoughts, writing words to friends...The written word, whether in paper or digital format, is part of young people's daily lives, as they memorize words or events (23%), put down their thoughts (19% do so "every day or almost every day"), send documents to their employer (17%) or write love notes (16%).Digital technology multiplies the opportunities for writing, without making handwriting obsolete."It's very much appreciated by young people, who recognize the functional value of handwriting (organizing their daily lives, going through the motions, etc.). They are also aware of the importance of handwriting for success in school and at work.Digital writing is appreciated for its comfort, speed, legibility and the possibility of an automated spell-checker.Girls' writing is more creative, boys' more utilitarianWhile the frequency of writing is identical for boys and girls, writing practices vary according to gender: more utilitarian for boys (drafting documents for an employer, for example) and more creative for girls (a means of expressing intimacy, helping to structure one's thoughts...). Get organized, succeed in school and at work, and express yourself through writingWriting is identified above all as a tool for remembering important events (47% of responses), and for carrying out administrative or utilitarian tasks (34%). Many young people are also well aware that writing is important for success in school or at work (43% of responses). Young people who write on a daily basis are the ones who recognize the greatest value in the functions of writing.Children of executives write more than the averageThe parents' social and economic situation is decisive, since the children of executives write more than the average: 70% of them write "every day or almost every day", compared with 50% of the young children of blue-collar workers. "Parental example is also decisive, with 62% of young people whose parents write regularly also indicating that they write every day or almost every day, compared to 42% of young people whose parents do not write regularly.Among young people who say they don't write (8% of the panel), CREDOC observes recurring situations:early school-leaving (orientation towards an apprentice training center, a second-chance school or integration into the job market);low interest in reading;a difficult financial situation ;young people who never see their parents write.

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• Large surveys

Published on 12/01/24



What are the processes involved in the digital platformization of culture for young people?

The Revue française en sciences de l'information et de la communication (RFSIC) is devoting a special issue to the process of platforming culture for young people.This dossier, coordinated by Sophie Jehel, Professor of Information and Communication Sciences (University of Paris VIII), Valérie-Inés de la Ville, Professor of Management Sciences; Youth Industries and CSR (University of Poitiers) and Nicolas Oliveri, Lecturer-Researcher (IDRAC Business School), looks at different facets of the practices of young people, teenagers and young adults, on commercial, conversational and cultural platforms.Based on field surveys, the authors identify the different tactics teenagers use on these platforms, "in the face of what they perceive as their injunctions to like, comment, play, smile, share or monetize".The first part of the dossier looks at the uses of TikTok, Snapchat and Webtoon.Sandrine Philippe, a doctoral student in information and communication sciences, sets out from the outset the analytical framework for addressing the link between platforms and young people's cultural practices: that of the digital labor that platforms impose on the audiences they gather. Digital labor " comprises three modalities: "the appropriation of content created by the user, the systematic collection of data linked to his or her engagement in activities controlled by the platform, and the monetization with advertisers of the audience active on the platform". Through 22 interviews with young people aged 11 to 19, Sandrine Philippe sets out to understand the experience of time that young TikTok users develop on the platform, while examining whether they decipher the platform's modus operandi for keeping them engaged in activities that it controls and exploits.Using Snapchat as a case study, Laurence Corroy, University Professor (University of Lorraine) and Sophie Jehel, Professor of Information and Communication Sciences (University of Paris 8) highlight the emotional labor - " the obligation to circulate emotions" - that this platform imposes on its users. Through a survey involving a questionnaire of over 6,600 teenagers and focus groups with 53 teenagers, Laurence Corroy and Sophie Jehel show that teenagers engage in permanent emotional labor to benefit the platform.Florence Rio, Senior Lecturer in Information and Communication Sciences (Université de Lille) and Elsa Tadier, Senior Lecturer in Information and Communication Sciences (Université Paris Cité) analyze the strategies used by a Korean manga reading platform, Webtoon, to capture the attention of teenagers. In their visual narratives, the manga offered "mise en abyme of the teenage target " by evoking their digital practices, focused on the smartphone, and highlighting themes and spatiotemporal frameworks that concern them. The researchers evoke a "transformation of the relational economy of reading": the valorization of the publication of comments by readers is stimulated not only by popularity metrics but also by the production of a series dedicated to authors' responses to readers' comments, thus amplifying a " loop of practices".The second part of the dossier looks at changes in access to knowledge among young adults, either on a commercial platform like YouTube, based on specific documentary productions, or on a learning platform.Studying the #Datagueule YouTube channel, researcher Laurent Chomel (LabSIC, Université Sorbonne Paris-Nord) shows how it has brought together a highly committed community, which has even gone so far as to crowdfund the production of certain videos. The author identifies three conditions for the emergence of public deliberation: a precise subject on which to deliberate, a heterogeneity of participants' backgrounds, and plural information accessible to all so that webspectators share a common base of facts to comment on. Laurent Chomel shows the decisive role played by mass contributors " whose commitment is reflected in the presentation of a structured, constructive argument that invites other participants to express their point of view".In a departure from the research that underlines the low success rate of Moocs, which generally only attract between 5 and 10% of registrants, Jamal Traoré, lecturer (ESLSCA Business School Paris) and Nicolas Oliveri, lecturer/researcher (IDRAC Business School) set out to understand why the "Project Management" online course offered by the University of Lille achieved a 20% completion rate. They describe the characteristics of young people interested in this type of digital training: young adults engaged in professional life, novice entrepreneurs, sufficiently motivated to devote time to it on their personal time. The survey confirms "the learning potential of these online courses", while defining certain conditions.David Bessot and Alessandro Fiorentino, co-founders of Infhotep and the PrivacyTech association, have trained over 200 data protection officers. They have also been working with 700 14-year-olds over the past 7 years as part of their Junior Privacy program. This privileged vantage point has enabled them to identify platform tactics "aimed at short-circuiting users' autonomy of judgment". Here, they list eight predatory practices, "which make it possible, in the blur of ill-adapted legal frameworks or sometimes illegally, to harvest a maximum of personal data well beyond the clear and informed consent of users, and in particular young users".ContentsSophie Jehel, Valérie-Inés de la Ville and Nicolas Oliveri: Thinking about the processes involved in formalizing culture for young people (introduction)Sandrine Philippe: Teenagers and TikTok strategiesLaurence Corroy and Sophie Jehel: In the "flames" of Snapchat: the emotional work of teenagersFlorence Rio and Elsa Tadier: Tu commentes donc je suis: stratégies de captation du public adolescent par les plateformes de lecture. The case of WebtoonLaurent Chomel: YouTube and the political initiation of young adults. When comments initiate a deliberative practiceNicolas Oliveri and Jamal Traoré: A platform to promote learning among young adults: the case of the Project Management MOOC and its community of practiceDavid Bessot and Alessandro Fiorentino: Analysis of the techniques used by socionumeric networks to capture minors' data through manipulative digital devices.

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• Inclusion

Published on 09/02/24