Conceptualizing and Responding to Online Harms in Youth Digital Culture

This workshop will explore 'online harms' in youth digital culture. There is ongoing public and political debate around protecting young people from online harms and the risks connected to their use of digital media. These risks and harms relate to sex and relationships, exploitation and grooming, (cyber)bullying and harassment, 'addiction' and overuse of digital media, among other issues.

The evidence is clear that young people find risk-averse and negative interventions and education disengaging and disconnected from their diverse lived experiences and the realities of their digital cultures. While there is growing awareness of the need for a different approach, there remains a challenge in devising policy that sufficiently reflects young people's voices and in translating policy into practice on the ground.

This free online workshop will bring together scholars, policy-makers and practitioners to discuss how we could and should respond to young people's digital lives in all their complexity. The workshop will involve paper presentations, panel discussions and break-out sessions to explore and engage with the theoretical, conceptual, empirical and practical aspects of contemporary youth digital culture. An objective of the workshop is to strengthen the collaborative network of scholars, policy-makers and practitioners engaged with this topic and to enable coordination and the identification of a research, policy and practice agenda. In so doing, we will enhance our ability to contribute to ongoing public debates and policy development in the field.

We welcome proposals for papers and panel discussions.

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS 

Professor Andy Phippen, University of Plymouth 

Professor Emma Bond, University of Suffolk 

Dr Emily Setty, University of Surrey, will also be discussing a new eNurture UKRI funded project exploring young people’s perspectives on online ‘transgressions’ with collaborators from the Institute for Criminal Policy Research, Birkbeck; The Open University and Young Minds.

Dr Laura Thompson, University of Hertfordshire

Dr Emma Nottingham, University of Winchester

Dr Michelle Lyttle Storrod, Rutgers University

Chantelle Cummings, University of Trinidad and Tobago

Jonny Hunt, Bournemouth University

Chelsea J. Mainwaring, Goldsmiths, University of London

Dr Holly Powell-Jones, City, University of London

Marianne Forsey, SOAS, Centre for Gender Studies

Søren Christian Krogh, Aalborg University

Dr Faith Gordon, Australian National University and the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, London

Rebecca Mace, UCL

Kathryn Tremlett, South West Grid for Learning

ORGANISER

Dr Emily Setty, Department of Sociology