Kim, Amie; (2013) The media generation gap between teachers and students in Korea. Doctoral thesis , Institute of Education, University of London.

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Abstract

Many popular discourses describe today's young people as the 'digital generation', who are completely different from adults in their ways of thinking, working and living (Tapscott, 1998; Prensky, 2006). When it comes to teaching the 'digital generation', there have been growing concerns over the 'media generation gap' in the classroom (Green and Bigum, 1993). However, the concept of the 'digital generation' itself is questionable. It is a label used to refer to young people by outsiders, rather than a label agreed on by young people to represent themselves (Herring, 2008). Therefore, before calling young people the 'digital generation', we need to carefully explore young people's relationship with new media. In what ways and for what reasons do young people use new media? Is there really a 'media generation gap' between young people and adults, especially in a school setting? How are young people constructed, and how do they construct themselves, in terms of their generational identity? To answer these questions, data were collected using both quantitative and qualitative methods. I conducted a survey in secondary schools in Korea to find out general trends in both teachers' and students' use of media and attitudes towards the media. After analysing data collected via the survey, interview questions and activities were planned to contextualise findings from the survey, and to explore the questions of generational identification. Based on the questionnaires and in-depth interviews, this thesis argues that the 'media generation gap' is more to do with attitudes towards media rather than the types of media that different generations mostly use. In addition, based on the qualitative data, this thesis suggests that young people tend to make use of the new media to manage and perform their identities as 'youth' and 'students'. The data also show that young people consciously pick and choose the media they use according to their lifestyles and generational identities. However, their lifestyles are also affected by the technological characteristics of the new media. Therefore, 'young people' and 'new media', both socially constructed, discursively co-construct each other.

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