Context
While teenagers used to be a marginal target for television, digital industries have been targeting young people, teenagers and pre-teens, for the last ten years, and are competing mercilessly on this target. Gaming platforms, digital social networks and streaming platforms are developing techniques for capturing young people, easy-to-use interfaces and functionalities likely to interest them, entertain them and get them working (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Tiktok, Netflix, YouTube, jeuxvideo.com, Amazon, Steam, Twitch, Roblox, Discord, for the main ones). YouTube, TikTok and Roblox platforms have even become a playground for very young influencers.
The cultural practices of 12-17 year olds are therefore of primary importance in the digital economy, which plays a determining role in the global economy. They are also transformed by the socio-technical devices that these platforms offer them to create, distribute and monetize content.
The visibility of commercial strategies inscribed in computational devices through the “affective web” (Alloing, Pierre, Allard, 2017), the revelations of former employees of digital industries as to their manipulative intentions give new tools to grasp the stakes of the industrialization of culture (Bouquillion, 2013 ; Moeglin, 2016; Bullich and Schmitt, 2019) for young people, those of the instrumentalization of their emotions (Martin Juchat, Staii, 2016), and those of critical media education (Jehel, Saemmer, 2020, Petit, 2020).
The resources of persuasive design are particularly developed in applications aimed at teenagers that massively collect data on minors as revealed by the condemnations in 2019 by the Federal Trade Commission (USA) of YouTube and Facebook or that of WhatsApp by Ireland in 2021.
At the same time, the process of platformization is particularly complex to understand for young users. Without being the object of a consensual definition (Casilli, 2019), digital platforms can nevertheless be defined as companies, which organize through computational infrastructures the bringing together of several parties, in a multiversal market operation. Platformization is thus inserted into logics of industrialization and commodification (Bullich, 2018), but also of opacification.
It corresponds to a governance modality that hides the different levels of interrelation between users, and between users and recommended content, based on profiling and algorithmization modalities. Through the design of their interfaces and their marketing discourse, platforms develop emotional policies through which they seek to control and stimulate users’ activities and their expressions in digital spaces, in order to better capture and calculate the affective traces they leave there (Jehel, 2022).
What are the practices of teenagers on these platforms? How do they experience the injunctions to like, publish, play, smile, share and monetize the content they create? Do they implement strategies of “resistance” to such injunctions? What collective mobilizations can young people aged 12 to 17 build? What representations do they have of platformization? How can changes in access to knowledge among young learners allow us to rethink the community dimension of learning platforms?
How can teenagers who are early adopters of these platforms understand the cross-stakes of the commercial surveillance they exercise in relation to the services they provide? How can they grasp the nature of the rights recognized by the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the European Regulation for the protection of personal data? As minors, digital law protects the processing and storage of young people’s personal data in several ways. The RGPD provides for several provisions that update the rights of the child: right to erasure of data, parental authorization, what representations can children or adolescents make of it?
Four thematic axes are proposed for analysis, without being exclusive of other approaches:
- Capturing young people’s attention by the gamification of online activities.
This can be analyzed as well as the strategies developed by one platform in particular, or a strategy common to several platforms. It can also be approached through the downstream uses of young people. The role of influencers can be questioned. The ways in which adolescents adhere to or “resist” these systems can be explored. - Platformization and harvesting of personal data.
What precautions are taken by certain platforms with regard to young people under 18? What representations do young people have of this, depending on their age? - Creation, commitment, and politicization of young people on platforms.
Do some platforms allow the development of new dynamics of citizenship? Beyond the formatting of productions, what creative skills do they allow to explore? - The uses of learning platforms.
Do they change the way young users represent the functioning of the platforms? How do learning platforms redefine the principles of mediation and co-construction of knowledge?
Recommendations
The ages of the youth concerned by these strategies as well as these uses should be defined. Attention will be paid to the gendered differences in digital uses. The platforms will be precisely identified. The methodology of field surveys or interface analyses will be carefully described and justified.
Proposals related to the ongoing work of the MSH Paris Nord seminar “Digital industries and young people: Aesthetic and emotional experiences, content creation and the emergence of new social practices” will be welcomed.
References
Allard Laurence, Alloing Camille, Le Béchec Mariannig et Pierre Julien, « Les affects numériques », Revue française des sciences de l’information et de la communication, 2017, no 11. [En ligne] < https://journals.openedition. org/rfsic/2870 >.
Alloing Camille et Pierre Julien, Le web affectif. Une économie numérique des émotions, Bry-sur-Marne, INA, 2017.
Benavent, Christophe, Plateformes. Sites collaboratifs, marketplaces, réseaux sociaux… Comment ils influencent nos choix. Limoges, FYP Editions, 2016.
Boubée Nicole, Safont-Mottay Claire et Martin Franck (dir.), La numérisation de la vie des jeunes, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2019.
Bouquillion Philippe, « Socio-économie des industries culturelles et pensée critique : le Web collaboratif au prisme des théories des industries culturelles », Les Enjeux de l’Information et de la Communication, n°14/3A, 2013, p.55-67.
Bullich Vincent , « La « plateformisation » de la formation », Distances et médiations des savoirs [En ligne], 21 | 2018.
Bullich Vincent, Schmitt Laurie, « Les industries culturelles à la conquête des plateformes ? », ticetsociété [En ligne], Vol. 13, n° 1-2, 1er semestre – 2ème semestre 2019.
Casilli Antonio, En attendant les robots. Enquête sur le travail du clic. Paris, Seuil, 2019.
Carton Tiphaine, Nolwenn Tréhondart, “La plateformisation de l’éducation aux médias et à la citoyenneté. Regards critiques et enjeux d’émancipation”, Spirale – Revue de Recherches en Éducation, Association pour la Recherche en Education (ARED), 2020, Empowerment, pouvoir d’agir en éducation. A la croisée entre théorie(s), discours et pratique(s), 66 (3), pp.77-94 ⟨10.3917/spir.066.0077⟩. ⟨hal-03041365⟩
Cordier Anne, “Et pourtant ils créent ! Entrelacement de la créativité des pratiques numériques juvéniles et des pratiques pédagogiques.” in Lacelle, Nathalie, Richard, Monique, Croiser littératie, art et culture des jeunes : Impacts sur l’enseignement des arts et des langues, Presses Universitaires du Québec, 2020.
Corroy Laurence, Éducation et médias, la créativité à l’ère du numérique, Paris, Londres, Iste éditions, 2016.
Domenget, Jean-Claude, Coutant Alexandre, Partir des usages pour analyser les systèmes de recommandation : le cas des médias sociaux, in Chartron Ghislaine, Saleh Imad et Kembellec Gérard (Dir.), Les systèmes de recommandation, p. 43-67, Paris, Hermès science, 2014.
Gillespie Tarleton, « The Politics of Platforms ». New Media & Society 12, n°3, 2010.
Guignard Thomas, Données personnelles et plateformes numériques : sophistication et concentration du marché publicitaire ticetsociété [En ligne], Vol. 13, n° 1-2, 1er semestre 2019 – 2ème semestre 2019.
Jehel Sophie, L’adolescence au cœur de l’économie numérique. Travail émotionnel et risques sociaux. Bry s Marne, INA Editions, 2022.
Isaac, Henri, Business Models de plateformes : les clés pour accélérer votre transformation numérique, Paris, Vuibert, 2021.
Jehel Sophie, Saemmer Alexandra (dir.), Education critique aux médias en contexte numérique, Lyon, Presses de l’ENSSIB , 2020.
La Ville Valérie Inés (de), Garnier Pascale, Brougère Gilles, Cultural and Creative Industries of Childhood and Youth: An interdisciplinary exploration of new frontiers. Coll. ICCA – Industries culturelles, création, artistique, Bruxelles, Peter Lang, 2021.
Martin-Juchat Fabienne, Staii Adrian (dir.), L’industrialisation des émotions. Vers une radicalisation de la modernité ?L’Harmattan, 2016.
Mœglin, Pierre, Introduction : La question de l’industrialisation de l’éducation, in Pierre Mœglin (dir.) Industrialiser l’éducation: Anthologie commentée (1913-2012) (pp. 9-73). Saint-Denis: Presses universitaires de Vincennes, 2016.
Perticoz Lucien, Filière de l’audiovisuel et plateformes SVOD : une analyse croisée des stratégies de Disney et Netflix,ticetsociété [En ligne], Vol. 13, n° 1-2, 1er semestre 2019 – 2ème semestre 2019.
Patino, Bruno, La civilisation du poisson rouge – Petit traité sur le marché de l’attention, Paris, Editions Grasset, 2019.
Petit Laurent, L’Education aux médias et à l’information. Repenser l’approche critique , Grenoble, PUG, 2020.
Saemmer Alexandra, « Désinstrumentaliser l’éducation aux technologies de l’information et de la communication. État des lieux, observations, méthode », Interfaces numériques, 2017, vol. 6, no 3, p. 499-514.
Wiart Louis, Quand Netflix fait de la diversité son meilleur argument commercial, Nectart, 14, p.72-83, 2022.
Guest Editors
Sophie Jehel, MCF HDR Sciences de l’information et de la communication, Univ. Paris 8, Cemti, associée au Carism.
Valérie Inés de la Ville, PU Sciences de Gestion, IAE de Poitiers, Directrice du CEPE – Université de Poitiers, CEREGE.
Nicolas Oliveri, enseignant-chercheur HDR Sciences de l’information et de la communication, IDRAC Business School, Université Côte d’Azur, SIC.Lab Méditerranée.
Deadlines
July 15, 2022: Submission of full papers (30,000-40,000 characters) to the following address: sophie.jehel@univ-paris8.fr;
valerie.ines.de.la.ville@univ-poitiers.fr;
August 15, 2022: Notification and recommendations to the authors
September 15, 2022: Sending of the final version of the articles to the journal’s management
December 1, 2022: Publication of the special issue
Keywords
- Mots-clés
- Culture
- Culture platforming
- Youth