My article titled "Youth digital participation: Measuring social impact" has been published in the Journal of Librarianship and Information Science . This journal publication is co-authored with Professor Hazel Hall, Dr Gemma Webster and Dr Colin Smith.
The paper summaries my literature review findings from May 2016 to March 2017. The big question examined in this publication is: What are the ways to measure the impacts of digital youth participatory projects?
My JoLiS article provides an overview of digital youth participation, its historical evolvement and forms. In my work, I identified some of the key terminology used at the time to describe different types of digital youth participation. Whilst the article might provide you with a flavour of how diverse the youth digital participatory practice can be, it is evident that many new 'digital-youth-labels' have surfaced just over the last year - you obviously won't find them in the article.
The key questions I explored in the article are concerned with the nature and definition of social impact across various disciplines. For example, I looked at how social impact evaluation practice has changed over the years and became a more inclusive and hands-on practice.
My research investigated the idea of participatory evaluation in both adult and youth setting, and finally poses a question - could participatory evaluation approach could help us to better understand digital youth participatory projects, young people's digital needs and aspirations?
To find my 'multilayered answer' to this question and to read the full article, please visit this link.
Abstract
Current scholarly debate around digital participatory youth projects and approaches to their evaluation are examined in this article. The analysis of the literature presented here reveals (1) an over-reliance on traditional evaluation techniques for such initiatives, and (2) a scarcity of models for the assessment of the social impact of digital participatory youth projects. It is concluded that the challenges and limitations of social impact evaluation practice in digital participatory youth projects should be addressed through the adoption of alternative, participant-centred approaches. These issues are discussed in reference to a current ongoing study that seeks to identify solutions for enhancing social impact evaluations of participatory digital initiatives by young people.