The practice of "memes" -- taking an image from pop culture and adding humorous or inspiring text to it -- are an opportunity for marketing practice. We posit that memes also provide an innovative technique to help students become more engaged in marketing classes. We propose requiring students to submit one or more graded homework…

This essay explores the intersections between Fandom Studies and Children's Literature, showcasing some of the ways in which "fan" as a keyword can illuminate both problems and potential solutions in children's media and education. Although children have historically been excluded from much of fan-organized fandom, the idea of…

The politics of children's literature and the actors surrounding it have never been more visible than they are now, in the digital age. As one of the first children's series to gain widespread popularity concurrently with the spread of the internet, the Harry Potter septet arrived on the global stage at the perfect moment to develop an avid,…

This book sets forth a pedagogy for renewing the liberal arts by combining critical thinking, media activism, and design thinking. Using the StudioLab approach, the author seeks to democratize the social and technical practices of digital culture just as nineteenth century education sought to democratize literacy. This production of transmedia…

It's a familiar narrative in both real life and fiction, from news reports to television storylines: a young person is bullied online, or targeted by an online predator, or exposed to sexually explicit content. The consequences are bleak; the young person is shunned, suicidal, psychologically ruined. In this book, Jacqueline Ryan Vickery argues…

The nature of nanoscience and nanotechnology (collectively, nano) are discussed as important examples of the modern sciences and technologies that are having an increasing impact on all aspects of life. In this Position paper, general proposals are made for the levels of understanding of nano that might be attained by whole populations. The ideas…

In the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, there exists a deficit of compelling financial education curricula in urban schools that serve financially vulnerable working-class students. Part of a design-based research investigation aimed at creating culturally-relevant financial literacy learning environments, this study…

Based on four years of experience teaching computers to 8-12 year olds, media scholar Ellen Seiter offers parents and educators practical advice on what children need to know about the Internet and when they need to know it. "The Internet Playground" argues that, contrary to the promises of technology boosters, teaching with computers is…

Increased emphasis on celebrity, and the growing cultural importance of the Internet, help drive continuing anxiety about the influence of the media on the young. Though recent empirical studies of celebrity and media influence on adolescents have produced mixed findings, there has been a tendency by researchers to test for celebrity and media…

Examines consumer services delivered via the Internet. Discusses social and political factors (regulation, commercial alliances, copyright), specific applications (home banking and shopping, distance education, electronic mail, games, telecommuting), and constraints of data transmission. Since many applications are based on videoconferencing,…

Explores early adolescent girls' use of digital technologies in their literacy practices. Highlights the technology-mediated literacy practices of two seventh-grade girls. Discusses two major themes which emerged from data analysis: the centrality of multimedia popular culture texts in the girls' technology-mediated designing; and the importance…

The study "New Media in the Humanities: from metaphors of inevitability to metaphors of possibility," argues that using digital technologies in humanities classrooms (at the post-secondary level) is transformative for both students and professors. It begins by identifying and then allaying the fears that scholars in the humanities…

Analysts predict that the knowledge economy of the near future will require people to be both computer literate and print literate. However, some of the reading and thinking habits of current college students suggest that electronic media such as web browsers may be limiting the new generation's ability to absorb and process what they read. Their…