Thornham, HM and Gomez Cruz, E (2015) ‘Raw Talent in the Making’: Imaginary journeys, authorship and the discourses of Expertise. Convergence: the journal of research into new media technologies, 21 (3). pp. 314-327. ISSN 1354-8565
Abstract
In the digital age, it seems that participation has been conflated with literacy; content with engagement; novelty with innovation; and ubiquity with meaning (see for example, Thornham & McFarlane 2014, Gillespie 20010, Dean 2008, Livingstone 2009, van Dijck 2013) and encapsulated in terms such as ‘digital native’, ‘digital divide’, or ‘born digital’. In turn, these conflations have done something to technology, which is constructed as malleable, a supportive facilitator; and the user, who is constructed as active agent. Neither of these, account for mediations, or – crucial for us – the notion of the imaginary, which emerges in our research as so central to expertise. Drawing on ethnographic work carried out in Studio 12, a media production facility for young people with disadvantaged backgrounds in Leeds, UK, we propose that the concept of expertise emerges through a bigger array of social capital as well as traditional structures of power such as class, gender and race. Expertise is claimed, evidenced, and generated. For us, however, expertise emerged not only as elusive, but also because it was premised on a disjuncture between lived and everyday youth, and the promises of becoming in a future orientated (technological, imaginary and creative) landscape.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Editors: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | (c) 2015, Author(s). This is an author produced version of a paper accepted for publication in Convergence: the journal of research into new media technologies. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Expertise; authorship; creativity; imagination; third sector; capital; Leeds; young people |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Media & Communication (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EPSRC EP/K003585/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 23 Apr 2015 14:38 |
Last Modified: | 08 Mar 2016 12:39 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1354856515579841 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/1354856515579841 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:84122 |