Global Digital Youth (Harvard University and Oxford University) since 2009.
This project is an ethnography focusing on cross-cultural research into youth and digital media in the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan. Through an examination of youth engagement with digital technologies in everyday life, this research investigates the implications of social and cultural issues such as identity, digital literacy, creativity, and opportunities and risks in the global world.
☆Takahashi, T. (2016)“Creating the Self in the Digital Age: Young People and Mobile Social Media” In Digital Asia Hub (ed.) “The Digital Good Life in Asia’s 21st Century”. Hong Kong. [PDF]
☆Takahashi, T. (2011) Japanese Youth and Mobile Media. In Thomas, M (ed.) Deconstructing Digital Natives. NY and London: Routledge.
New Media Literacy 2010~2011
The aim of this project is to expand the scope of “media literacy” in the mass media age into “new media literacies” in the current digital age. In the digital age, children and young people engage with multiple media such as mobile phones, the internet, digital television and game consoles in their everyday lives. Through their media engagement, they face new types of opportunities and risks. This research examines multiple dimensions of new media literacies in both US and UK contexts.
☆Takahashi, T. (2011) New Media Literacies in the Digital Age: cross-cultural research from US and UK. Yoshida Hideo Memorial Foundation.
Cross-media and Mobile Phones 2009〜2011
Mobile phones are no longer merely telephones – they are a convergence of various digital media such as the internet, television, a digital camera, a video camera and many other utilities. This project investigates youth engagement with mobile phones in everyday life in the cross-media age in both Japan and the UK.
Digital Natives 2007~2008
This research builds on the two concepts of “Digital Natives” and “Digital Immigrants” – the former are young people born into contemporary digital society. They have always been surrounded by digital media such as cell phones and the internet. The latter are the older generation who were introduced into the digital world in their later lives. John Palfrey, professor at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, studied how young people use the new digital media in their daily lives in the global context. Refering to his study and others, we use a sample of university students to conduct our own quantitative research into the lives of Digital Natives in Japan.
☆Takahashi, T., Honda, K and Terashima, T (2008) A study on Digital Natives and Audience Engagement: Results of a Quantitative Study on College Students and Media. Applied Sociology 50. Rikkyo University. (in Japanese)
Social Networking Sites 2007~2009
Much has been written about how Social Networking Sites (SNS) have provided new avenues for self-expression, connectivity and ‘self-creation’ among young people. However, little attention has been paid to geographical and cultural variables. This project takes up the Japanese case by analysing how its youths engage with SNS, such as MySpace and Mixi through an ethnography of Japanese youths living in the media-rich Tokyo Metropolitan Area.
☆Takahashi, T. (2009) MySpace or Mixi? Japanese Engagement with SNS (Social Networking Sites) in the Global Age. New Media and Society, vol.12, No.3, pp. 453-475.
☆Takahashi, T. (2009) Digital Natives and Everyday Life: Ethnography on Japanese Youths’ Engagement with SNS. The Japan Society of Information and Communication Research 92:15-28. (in Japanese)
☆Takahashi, T. (ed.) (2008)Comparative Research on Children and Young People and Information Media: Survey on College Students and Digital Media. The Telecommunications Advancement Foundation. (in Japanese)
Children and Media 2005~2006
The aim of this project is to consider how Japanese children and young people engage with media and ICT amidst the current social and cultural changes in Japanese society in the face of globalisation. Drawing on my ethnographic research on ‘audience engagement’ in Japan, this study addresses cultural specificities and commonalities between Japanese and Western childhood media, whilst offering insights from a non-Western perspective, a move which I hope will contribute towards an internationalisation of media studies.
☆Takahashi, T. (2008) “Japanese Young People, Media and Everyday Life: Towards the Internationalizing Media Studies”. In K. Drotner and S. Livingstone (eds) International Handbook of Children, Media and Culture. London: Sage.
