Abstract
In this chapter, we examine new media’s impact on East Asian countries by presenting the findings from our focus group study of secondary and preuniversity students in Singapore on their new media practices. Our findings suggest that a digital culture of informal learning has emerged and developed through the youth’s online participation in different new media such as Facebook, YouTube, and different gaming spaces. This digital culture of informal learning is characterized by: (1) self-directed learning (learning on one’s own), social learning (learning from others including peers, family members, and online participants), and learning through prosuming (involving both consuming and producing) and (2) interlinks across formal and informal learning spaces. We conclude with a discussion of these two main features of informal learning culture.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Anderson, K. T., & Wales, P. (2012). Can you design for agency?: Exploring the ideological mediation of an out-of-school digital storytelling workshop. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 9, 165–190.
Buckingham, D. (2007). Beyond technology: Children’s learning in the age of digital culture. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Carrington, V., & Robinson, M. (2009). Digital literacies: Social learning and classroom practices. London: Sage.
Castells, M. (2010). The rise of the network society: Information age: Economy, society, and culture (Information age series 2nd ed., Vol. 1). West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
Colley, H., Hodkinson, P., & Malcolm, J. (2004). Informality and formality in learning: A report for the Learning and Skills Research Centre. UK, London: Learning and Skills Research Centre, The Lifelong Learning Institute, University of Leeds.
Commission of the European communities. (2000). A memorandum on lifelong learning. Commission staff working paper. Retrieved April 3, 2014, from http://www.bologna-berlin2003.de/pdf/MemorandumEng.pdf
Creeber, G., & Martin, R. (2009). Digital culture: Understanding new media. Berkshire: Open University Press.
Gee, J. P. (2010). New digital media and learning as an emerging area and “worked examples” as one way forward (The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation reports on digital media and learning). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Gere, C. (2008). Digital culture (2nd ed.). London: Reaktion Books Ltd.
Hartley, J. (1999). Communication, cultural and media studies: The key concepts. London/New York: Routledge.
Hawk, A. (1993). Future culture manifesto: A manifesto on the here-and-now technocultural [R]evolution. Retrieved April 3, 2014, from http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/future_culture_manifesto.html
Hull, G., & Schultz, K. (2001). Literacy and learning out of school: A review of theory and research. Review of Educational Research, 71(4), 575–611.
Ito, M., Baumer, S., Bittanti, M., Boyd, D., Cody, R., Herr-Stephenson, B., Horst, H. A., Lange, P. G., Mahendran, D., Martinez, K. Z., Pascoe, C. J., Perkel, D., Robinson, L., Sims, C., & Tripp, L. (2010). Hanging out, messing around, geeking out: Living and learning with new media. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Jenkins, H., Clinton, K., Purushotma, R., Robinson, A. J., & Weigel, M. (2006). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century. Retrieved July 10, 2007, from http://www.newmedialiteracies.org/files/working/NMLWhitePaper.pdf
Kim, B., Tan, L., & Kim, M. (2010). Unpacking learners’ voices for educational game design. In Proceedings of world conference on educational multimedia, hypermedia and telecommunications (pp. 3370–3375). Chesapeake: AACE.
Liang, R. (2007). Change and continuity in the culture of Singapore’s primary school teachers from 1959 to 2006. Doctoral dissertation, Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
Livingstone, S. (2002). Young people and new media: Childhood and the changing media environment. London: Sage.
Manovich, L. (2003). New media from borges to HTML. In N. Wardrip-Fruin & N. Montfort (Eds.), The new media reader (pp. 13–25). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Rabinovitz, L., & Geil, A. (Eds.). (2004). Memory bytes: History, technology, and digital culture. Durham: Duke University Press.
Ritzer, G., & Jurgenson, N. (2010). Production, consumption, prosumption: The nature of capitalism in the age of the digital ‘prosumer’. Journal of Consumer Culture, 10(1), 13–36.
Schugurensky, D. (2000). The forms of informal learning: Towards a conceptualization of the field (NALL Working Paper No. 19, 2000). Centre for the Study of Education and Work, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto and Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. Retrieved July 10, 2007, from http://www.nall.ca/res/19formsofinformal.htm
Sefton-Green, J. (2003, reprint). Digital diversions: Youth culture in the age of multimedia. London: Routledge.
Sefton-Green, J. (2004). Literature review in informal learning with technology outside school (Report 7, Futurelab series). UK: Nesta Futurelab, University of Bristol.
Shaffer, D. W., Squire, K. R., Halverson, R., & Gee, J. P. (2005). Video games and the future of learning. Phi Delta Kappan, 87(2), 104–111.
Shibutani, T. (1986). Social processes: An introduction to sociology. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Silver, D. (2004). Internet/cyberculture/digital culture/new media/fill-in-the-blank studies. New Media & Society, 6(1), 55–64.
Thomas, D., & Brown, J. S. (2011). A new culture of learning: Cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change. Lexington, Kentucky, USA: Create Space.
Turkle, S. (1995). Life on the screen: Identity in the age of the Internet. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Wong, L. H., Chin, C. K., Tan, C. L., & Liu, M. (2010). Students’ personal and social meaning making in a Chinese idiom mobile learning environment. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 13(4), 15–26.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Liang, R.Y.H., Wang, LY. (2015). Singapore Youth’s Digital Culture of Informal Learning. In: Lin, TB., Chen, V., Chai, C. (eds) New Media and Learning in the 21st Century. Education Innovation Series. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-326-2_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-326-2_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-287-325-5
Online ISBN: 978-981-287-326-2
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawEducation (R0)