"Fan Fiction" Networks Rescue Promising Young Authors

The Social Network Show welcomes back Dr. Katie Davis to the September 24, 2014 episode.Dr. Katie Davis, an Assistant Professor who studies the role of digital media technologies in young people's lives talks about the role of digital media in young people's imagination, specifically the "fan fiction" sites. Dr. Davis along with other researchers studied the fan fiction communities, like fanfiction.net to understand what is drawing people to these websites. What they found is very positive and you can hear the details on this show.Dr. Katie Davis is an Assistant Professor at The University of Washington Information School, where she studies the role of digital media technologies in adolescents’ academic, social, and moral lives. She also serves as an Advisory Board Member for MTV’s digital abuse campaign, A Thin Line. Prior to joining the faculty at the UW iSchool, Katie worked with Howard Gardner and colleagues as a Project Manager at Harvard Project Zero, where she was a member of the GoodPlay Project and Developing Minds and Digital Media Project research teams. In addition to publishing and presenting her research in scholarly venues, Katie regularly shares her work with parents, teachers, business leaders, and policymakers in an effort to build connections between research and practice.Katie is the co-author with Howard Gardner of The App Generation: How Today’s Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World, which was published in October 2013 by Yale University Press. The book represents a synthesis of the research that Katie conducted with colleagues on the Developing Minds and Digital Media Project and the GoodPlay Project at Harvard Graduate School of Education. Drawing on interviews with young people, focus groups with the adults who work with them, and comparative analyses of youth’s artistic productions from 1990-2011, the book explores how today’s “digital youth” are different from the youth who grew up in a pre-digital era.LinksThe App Generation Digital Youth @ UW iSchool Harvard Project ZeroTo learn more about Katie, visit her website