Media and digital literacy programs geared towards young people are gaining prominence in cultural, communications and educational theory and research in North America. The apparent ‘rise’ of youth media can be attributed to a number of factors, including access to relatively low-cost and ‘user friendly’ consumer electronics, coupled with the advent of the ‘user-centric’ web (also referred to as Web.20) and accompanying media practices such as the production of video, audio, blogs, websites, games and animation. New habits of media consumption and production when taken up by young people are often seen as ‘evidence’ of a specifically youthful capacity for learning technology (Tapscott, 1997) which makes those practices particularly vulnerable to being ‘used’ in the discourse of politics and social policy.

James Lyng students watching footage

Additionally in recent years, support for academic research and social work that revolves around new media and digital literacy from a handful of US-based foundations has resulted in what can sometimes look like a ‘revolution’ in research based on young people’s creative practices using new media. Media production has also gained prominence in practice as the number of socially motivated and institutionally supported media projects created to address youth, particularly youth considered to be ‘economically marginalized’ and living in urban centers like Montreal, increases each year.