Conveners
- Sun Sun LIM, Communications and New Media Programme Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences National University of Singapore AS6, 11 Computing Drive, #03-01 Singapore 117416
- Jochen Peter, The Amsterdam School of Communications Research ASCoR University of Amsterdam Kloveniersburgwal 48,1012 CX Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Venue
National University of Singapore
Communications and New Media Programme 
Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences
National University of Singapore
AS6, 11 Computing Drive, #03-01
Singapore 117416

Date: June 20, 2010

Asia and Europe are both innovation powerhouses with regard to new media such as the Internet and mobile phone. Home to several of the world’s leading technology companies, with governments that are equally enthusiastic about informatization, the two continents share considerable interest in promoting the diffusion of new media and technology. In both Asia and Europe, young people are the most avid adopters of new media, while also the ones most affected by them. On the one hand, young people may find enormous learning opportunities in this new media environment with unprecedented access to information, new methods of socializing and new platforms for expressing their identities. On the other hand, young people may be confronted with unreliable or age-inappropriate information; may make unsavoury contacts online; and may engage in, or become victims of, asocial behaviour.

While recent research has greatly advanced our knowledge of the risks and opportunities of young people’s new media use, its generalizability is fundamentally limited by its single-country, single-culture orientation. Although Asian and European teenagers’ use of new media seems to have convergent trends, we know nearly nothing about the influence of factors that differ between the two cultures. Many fundamental questions remain unanswered: How do more individualistic European cultures, compared to more collectivistic Asian cultures affect teenagers’ use of media and technology? How does the relatively stronger role of the family in Asian cultures shape parental supervision and guidance of youths’ media use? How does the relatively shorter industrialization time of many Asian countries affect the adoption of, attitudes to, and use of new technologies? How do varying levels of sexual permissiveness across Asia and Europe influence the impact of age-inappropriate material, such as internet pornography, on adolescents’ sexual socialization?

This workshop is a first step in answering these and similar questions. It seeks to fill the significant gap in our knowledge about cultural influences on both the positive and adverse impact of new media on young people, ranging from the development of social skills, to political awareness, to sexual socialization, and to personal growth. It will consider issues which are particularly salient in the research and policy agendas of the two continents, including:

• New media and young people’s sociality: With the rising use of new media platforms such as blogs, vodcasts, online game environments, social networking sites, live feeds and mobile communications, how do young people in Asia and Europe integrate these diverse communication channels into their daily lives? What consequences do these new media have on adolescents’ identity development, their social skills, and their interpersonal relationships?
• New media and inter-cultural communication: In today’s globalised world, is young people’s Internet use forging greater inter-cultural communication and true inter-nationalization or does it contribute to the reverse, that is, increasing mono-cultural communication, nationalization, and even perpetuating ghettoisation? 
• New media and global digital divides: On a global scale, how is the digital divide manifesting itself in terms of skill disparities and what are their long-term implications for young people? Going beyond the issue of access, is there evidence of widening digital divides between cultures in terms of digital proficiencies?
• New media and political involvement: How does the growing ubiquity of new media – and access to an unprecedented amount of information – influence young people’s political participation in countries within Asia and Europe? Are there differences between countries with long-standing democratic traditions compared to countries with newly established democracies?
• New media and media literacy: What are the implications of the intensifying deployment of new media in educational instruction in schools across Asia and Europe? Are young people’s media literacy skills sufficiently robust for such a pedagogical environment and if not, what policy interventions are required? Do the different educational systems in Asia and Europe have an impact?
• New media and sexual socialization: How do young people cope with the abundance of pornographic material on the internet? Which role does sex education play? Can parents mitigate potentially undesirable effects of such material on teenagers? Is there a difference in the impact of such material in sexually pragmatic European societies as compared to sexually value-oriented Asian societies?

Bringing together leading researchers from a diverse range of Asian and European countries, the papers presented at the workshop will employ a wide range of theoretical perspectives and research methods. The workshop’s multi-national, multi-theoretical and multi-methodological character will serve as the basis for rich, contextualised discussions and comparative analysis of the media experiences of young people in Asia and Europe. The workshop aims to go beyond merely developing an awareness of the cultural specificities and limitations of research currently done in either Europe or Asia. Instead, it seeks to set an agenda for cross-cultural research on new media and young people, so as to stimulate future research collaborations between the continents.