Talking Back Workshop
Talking Back Workshop
Press release
Tags: Asia , Digital Natives
Additional tags: Freedom of expression , Authority , Youth , Internet
‘Talking Back’ is the first workshop for the Digital Natives with a Cause? knowledge programme, for which 20 digital natives from 16 Asian countries have been selected to come to Taipei and discus, document and reflect on their online activities. This workshop is organised by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Hivos, the Frontier Foundation and Academia Sinica and will take place from the 16th till the 18th of August.
Press-release: Talking Back Workshop
Youth are often seen as potential agents of change for reshaping their own societies. By 2010, the global youth population is expected to reach almost 1.2 billion, of which 85% resides in developing countries. Unleashing the potential of even a part of this group in developing countries promises a substantial impact on societies. Especially now when youth thriving on digital technologies flood universities, work forces, and governments and could facilitate radical restructuring of the world we live in. So, it is time to start listing to them.
Because of the age bias and the dependence on structures of authority by a large section of digital natives around the world there have always been problems that have restricted or reduced the scope of their practices and interventions. For young digital natives, parental authority and the regulation from schools often become hindrance that thwart their ambitions and ideas. Even when they take the initiative toward change, they are often stopped and at other times their practices are dismissed as insignificant. In other contexts, because of existing laws and policies around Internet usage and freedom of expression, the voices of digital natives get obliterated or chastised by government authorities and legal apparatuses which monitors and regulates their practices. The workshop organised at the Academia Sinica brings together 20 participants from contested contexts – be it the micro level of family or the paradigmatic level of governance – to discuss the politics, implications and processes of ‘Talking Back’.
What does it mean to Talk Back? Who do we Talk Back against? Are we alone in our attempts or a part of a larger community? How do we use digital technologies to find other peers and stakeholders? What is the language and vocabulary we use to successfully articulate our problem? How do we negotiate with structures of power to fight for our rights? These are the kind of questions that the workshop poses. The workshop focuses on uncovering the circuitous routes and ways by which digital natives have managed to circumvent authorities in order to make themselves heard. The workshop also dwells on what kind of support structures need to be developed at global levels for digital natives to engage more fruitfully, with their heads held high and minds without fear, with their immediate environments.