Media, Youth, and Democracy

How the country is run is important to our lives and future generations. We all want a better life for ourselves and for our children and grandchildren. So it goes without saying that knowing how our democracy works and how it affects us, is extremely important. The question is how do we educate children to understand and be prepared for when they are adults and able to vote and be involved. 

As we read the article by Henry Jenkins his discussion of Alphaville was interesting and relevant to educating kids about politics. Kid’s live today are filled with games.  When I was in grade school, I learned to type from computer games with funny little characters.  Boys are constantly glued to their video games even up to a college age.  People pull up games on the computer to play or even on their phone to pass the time. Kids are brought up on games today, they learn in school from them and they get entertainment from them. So it makes sense that to educate about our democracy a game would be the best thing to do it.

Alphaville was an online community that simulated a real life society with a government and elections. Many of the players were younger people that while just playing a game they liked, were able to learn about the voting process and how an election works. Alphaville had an election for president and the two candidates that ran were a young middle-school-age girl and a twenty-one-year-old man. In real life the girl wouldn’t even be able to vote in an election let alone run. The election caused large media attention, and when the girl lost she claimed it was foul play coming up with statistics of people who weren’t able to vote. This real life simulation media could be the ideal way to get kids involved and understanding what a democracy really is.  Using the new media available to us allows us to get a deeper understanding and learning of a subject.

Politics isn’t a subject kids care much about but if you make it into some kind of game it instantly has a much better appeal to them. If they are entertained by the game they are playing then they will be learning from it too. Even if it’s an educational game that’s teaching them about our democracy, if they get involved in it, they will begin to understand it also. Kids have always used games as a form of learning such a nursery rhymes or songs to remember things. With new media it gives a whole new dimension to games and education. It gives kids an interactive aspect that is even more effective.  With the Internet, there is that interactive aspect but also a connection between other players. It can connect kids to the world.  Tomorrow’s post will discuss further the role of the new media Internet in our democracy.

Jenkins, Henry. "Photoshop for Democracy." Convergence Culture. New York: New York 

            UP, 2006.