Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out, Tenth Anniversary Edition: Kids Living and Learning with New Media

by Mizuko Ito, Sonja Baumer, Matteo Bittanti, Danah Boyd, Rachel Cody

Overview

The tenth-anniversary edition of a foundational text in digital media and learning, examining new media practices that range from podcasting to online romantic breakups.

Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out, first published in 2009, has become a foundational text in the field of digital media and learning. Reporting on an ambitious three-year ethnographic investigation into how young people live and learn with new media in varied settings—at home, in after-school programs, and in online spaces—it presents a flexible and useful framework for understanding the ways that young people engage with and through online platforms: hanging out, messing around, and geeking out, otherwise known as HOMAGO.

Integrating twenty-three case studies—which include Harry Potter podcasting, video-game playing, music sharing, and online romantic breakups—in a unique collaborative authorship style, Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out combines in-depth descriptions of specific group dynamics with conceptual analysis. Since its original publication, digital learning labs in libraries and museums around the country have been designed around the HOMAGO mode and educators have created HOMAGO guidebooks and toolkits. This tenth-anniversary edition features a new introduction by Mizuko Ito and Heather Horst that discusses how digital youth culture evolved in the intervening decade, and looks at how HOMAGO has been put into practice.

This book was written as a collaborative effort by members of the Digital Youth Project, a three-year research effort funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and conducted at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Southern California.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262537513
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	09/24/2019
Series:	The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning
Edition description:	Tenth Anniversary Edition
Pages:	464
Sales rank:	1,103,834
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Mizuko Ito is a cultural anthropologist who studies new media use, particularly among young people, in Japan and the United States, and a Professor in Residence at the University of California Humanities Research Institute.

Becky Herr-Stephenson is a Research Fellow at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop. Previously, she was a postdoctoral researcher with the Digital Media and Learning Hub at the University of California Humanities Research Institute.

Dan Perkel is a doctoral candidate at UC Berkeley earning a degree in Information Management and Systems from the School of Information, with a Designated Emphasis in New Media from the Berkeley Center for New Media.

Christo Sims is Associate Professor of Communication at the University of California, San Diego.

Megan Finn is Assistant Professor in the Information School at the University of Washington, Seattle.

Mizuko Ito is a cultural anthropologist who studies new media use, particularly among young people, in Japan and the United States, and a Professor in Residence at the University of California Humanities Research Institute.

What People are Saying About This

Sonia Livingstone

"Through their meticulous ethnographic exploration of emerging media practices in everyday life, Mizuko Ito and her colleagues paint a vivid portrait of young people's diverse modes of participation with new media. Over and again, this thought-provoking book challenges adult preconceptions and traditional preoccupations, insisting that we recognize the values, concerns, and literacies of today's youth." --Sonia Livingstone, London School of Economics and Political Science

John Seely Brown

Finally a book that provides a deeply grounded and nuanced description of today's digital youth culture and practices as they negotiate their identity, their peer-based relationships, and their relationships with adults. Then, building on this rich and diverse set of ethnographies, the authors constructed a powerful analytic framework which provides new conceptual lenses to make sense of the emerging digital media landscape. This book is a must for anyone interested in youth culture, learning, and new media.

Endorsement

Through their meticulous ethnographic exploration of emerging media practices in everyday life, Mizuko Ito and her colleagues paint a vivid portrait of young people's diverse modes of participation with new media. Over and again, this thought-provoking book challenges adult preconceptions and traditional preoccupations, insisting that we recognize the values, concerns, and literacies of today's youth.

—Sonia Livingstone , London School of Economics and Political Science

From the Publisher

“When your kids are playing Minecraft, hanging out online with gamers or anime fans, they are learning—and learning how to learn. Ito's well-researched book is for parents as well as educators who want and need to understand the power of informal learning unlocked by the media youth devote themselves to voluntarily.”

—Howard Rheingold, Author of Net Smart: How to Thrive Online

“Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out is staggering in its scope and in its implications. The researchers take seriously young people, their lives online, their subcultural practices, their identity play, their nascent civic engagement, their dating and social interactions, their involvement with fan production practices, and much, much more. What emerges is a complex picture of how they are living through and around emerging technologies, how they are innovative in their use of new tools and platforms, and how they are struggling with the contradictions of their lives.”

—Henry Jenkins, coauthor of By Any Media Necessary: The New Youth Activism

Editorial Reviews

While the in-depth description of this framework would in itself value the time spent reading this book, there is much more in it. It is highly suggested reading to anyone interested to know more about kids' everyday informal learning practices with new media (especially teachers, parents, and policy-makers)

Information, Communication and Society - Fabio Giglietto

While the in-depth description of this framework would in itself value the time spent reading this book, there is much more in it. It is highly suggested reading to anyone interested to know more about kids' everyday informal learning practices with new media (especially teachers, parents, and policy-makers)

—Fabio Giglietto, Information, Communication and Society

Reviews

While the in-depth description of this framework would in itself value the time spent reading this book, there is much more in it. It is highly suggested reading to anyone interested to know more about kids' everyday informal learning practices with new media (especially teachers, parents, and policy-makers)

— Fabio Giglietto , Information, Communication and Society

From the Publisher