IGF 2012 Workshop Proposal :: (No: 187) Society before and after the Internet and digital media

Status:

IGF Theme(s) for workshop: Emerging Issues

Main theme question address by workshop: Questions 1,2,3

Concise description of the proposed workshop:

The modern Internet is over 25 years old. We have generations of people who were born well before it and also those for whom the Internet has been the main tool of education, entertainment and business for their whole lives. To further bridge the gap between different age groups in Internet governance, we bring together active Internet users from varying age groups and backgrounds. Discussion will aim to pinpoint key differences and similarities in how digitally native youth and people, whose period of youth took place long before global networking became mainstream, see the Internet. Focus will be to assess the impact of Internet as a historical and social phenomenon, but topics cover a wide range of questions about education, politics, distribution of information and business such as:

What features and services of the modern internet does today's youth take as self-evident compared to people who witnessed the system evolve?
What can today's youth learn about how things were done before the Internet age?
What great examples are there to show how Internet has revolutionized economy and education?
What kind of concepts were imagined before the Internet but really couldn't really be materialized before the current digital era?
Why do some people and institutions think of the Internet as a Wild West that is waiting to be tamed while others hold it as a safe haven?

Background Paper:


Name of the organiser(s) of the workshop and their affiliation to various stakeholder groups:

Joonas "JoonasD6" Mäkinen
Board member, Electronic Frontier Finland

Have you, or any of your co-organisers, organised an IGF workshop before?: Yes

Please provide link(s) to workshop(s) or report(s):

I have been organizing the Youth Coalition on Internet Governance Dynamic Coalition and related workshops.
IGF11 workshop Challenging Myths about Young People and the Internet: http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/component/chronocontact/?chronoformname=…
A general statement about YCIG-related events at IGF2011 can be found here: http://www.ycig.org/index.php/2011/10/2011-ycig-statement/

 

Provide the names and affiliations of the panellists you are planning to invite:

Michael Parenti, civil society, US/AT
Amelia Andersdotter, government, MEP, SE
Yrjö Länsipuro, civil society, ISOC, FI
Jyrki Kasvi, civil society, TIEKE, FI
<youth from Americas/Africa>
<youth from Asia>

Name of Remote Moderator(s):

Tim Davies