But that didn’t stop the fans; within days of the episode's airing, a genuine Inspector Spacetime fandom had emerged, devoted to celebrating and debating a show that never was. A message board was created to coordinate the creation of the show's fictional canon, with fans receiving tips from the actor who played the Inspector on Community. The show's producers took note of this response, naturally, and Inspector Spacetime has become one of the show's running gags.

This sort of response is nothing new, of course: it parallels the relationship between Doctor Who and its fans, particularly in the long period when that show was off the air. Nor is the amount of work involved in creating this material that unusual -- fan-fiction has been one of the mainstays of the Internet since the days of Usenet. What is perhaps unusual is that all of this started on Community, one of the lowest-rated shows on American network television and a likely target for cancellation at the end of this season (at the time of writing, it had been removed from the midseason lineup, with no return date announced.) The disconnect is obvious: if Community is so engaging that one of its throwaway gags inspires an entire fictional fandom, why aren't more people watching it? But perhaps the reverse question is more important. Given the commitment that fans have to the show, are ratings measuring the wrong thing?

Of course, Nielsen ratings have come a long way from the days when Star Trek was canceled. As well as raw numbers, they also measure demographic data, and so far as the networks are concerned all viewers are not created equal: Community is one of the top-rated shows among young viewers with college degrees, but only if you count those who watch it after its initial airing (which adds a full 40 per cent to its viewership, an unusually high number). That's a lot of qualifiers, though, and advertisers don't generally count time-shifting viewers on the not unreasonable grounds that they're likely to skip past the commercials. The fact that NBC has not announced if Community will return in the new year suggests that even with both demographics and time-shifting taken into account, the network is not happy with its numbers.

Advertisers may be right to be wary of shows, like Community, with small but devoted audiences: there's little evidence that those audiences are any more likely to buy the products advertised than those who watch shows with larger but more casual viewerships. Even the example of Star Trek, which famously went from a canceled television series to a never-ending succession of movies and spinoffs, should be taken with caution. The short-lived series Firefly has a fanbase that is equally dedicated -- in fact, you're more likely to see a "Browncoat" in costume these days than a Trekkie -- but Serenity, the feature-film follow-up, was a flop.

It would be a shame, though, if a show that inspires so much devotion were to become a victim of mass-market economics. It may be that to support shows like these, networks need to look beyond advertising as a source of revenue. One way to make money off a property with a small but loyal fanbase is through merchandising -- Star Trek lived on in tie-in toys and novels for many years before returning to the screen, and the Wonder Woman comic is essentially a loss-leader to justify the existence of Wonder Woman merchandise. It's only recently, though, that broadcasters have been able to sell niche content directly to viewers. HBO, for instance, has had tremendous success in using high-quality shows to lure subscribers; AMC uses the cachet of Mad Men, which has a similarly small but devoted viewership, to offset its more commercial (and cheaper) offerings of old movies; and Netflix is pioneering the idea of selling TV series directly to the viewer by reviving Arrested Development, a series whose appeal was very similar to Community's. Ten years from now we may look back at Community as an early step in the evolution of how TV pays for itself -- or as one of the last victims of the advertising-driven model.

Learning about civic issues online

One of the easiest ways teachers can use the Internet to help get students engaged is to let them learn about civic issues that are current and relevant to students. For example, Michele Cooper’s math class at Holy Cross Catholic Elementary School in LaSalle, Ontario, is using the Web to collect data about topics such as education, literacy, hunger and income equity, in order to raise their awareness about social justice issues. These students are learning how to evaluate and present information about political issues, but just as importantly they’re learning how to find facts and opinions that may not match their own.

A study on Youth and Participatory Politics by the MacArthur Foundation found that although many young people encountered a wide variety of opinions and perspectives on political and civic issues, a third said they had not been exposed to any political opinions at all. Two key factors that determined whether youth would encounter political opinions online were whether they were engaged in online communities – related to politics or not – and whether they had been taught digital literacy skills. Teaching young people how to find and evaluate a wide range of views is essential to producing engaged and well-informed adults. 

Connecting with experts and activists

There’s also a more direct way in which teachers and youth can be exposed to different views and perspectives: by using the Internet to connect with experts and activists. Tina Bergman’s Grade 7/8 class at Breadner Elementary School in Trenton, Ontario, has drawn on a variety of experts to shed light on different issues relating to their course work, such as consulting with Dr. Gerald Conaty, the Director of Indigenous Studies at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, to learn more about the federal government’s relationship with First Nations throughout Canada’s history and by taking a digital fieldtrip to the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology in Drumheller, Alberta, to learn more about environmental issues relating to water use.

Learning about citizenship through games

Another way that teachers are using new media to make civic engagement relevant to their students is through games and virtual worlds. Video and computer games are a classic example of “starting where the learner is,” because most young people – both boys and girls – play some kind of computer game on a regular basis. As well, the interactive quality of games helps to make the content more relevant and immediate, and encourages civic participation by letting students feel as though they are making a difference. Some classrooms use games that are specifically designed to address civic and political issues, such as iCivics, a suite of games revolving around civic engagement issues that were co-designed by former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. (Most of these relate to specifically American issues, but the sub-game Activate deals more broadly with ways to promote change in social justice issues.) Another game that was created with political issues in mind is Path of the Elders, which introduces players to the culture and history of the Mushkegowuk and Anishinaabe First Nations and simulates the negotiation of the James Bay Treaty. Another option is Alternate Reality Games, which use custom-made Web sites, blogs and videos to simulate possible events. Some of these, such as World Without Oil, deal with political issues and are appropriate for classroom use (like iCivics and Path of the Elders, World Without Oil comes with a lesson plan package to help teachers bring it into the classroom.)

Teachers aren’t limited to games that were specifically designed to teach civic engagement, though. Many have used commercially-available games such as the SimCity and Civilization series, in either off-the-shelf or customized versions: Jen Dyenberg, a Canadian teacher currently living in Scotland, has used SimCity 3000 to make the “nuts and bolts” of municipal government more engaging to students and to help them understand the different pressures that shape the development of a city.

Taking action online

What’s truly unique about the Internet, though, is not that it is a channel for letting content into the classroom but that it allows students to have an impact outside the classroom. Teachers have two different opportunities to get their students involved on the Internet: by helping them to make a difference in an online community and to use the Internet to make a difference in their own communities.

Stephen Van Zoost, a teacher at Avon View High School in Annapolis, Nova Scotia, gave his students an opportunity to make a difference both online and in their community by expanding and improving the Wikipedia articles on two nearby towns, Stanley and Three Mile Plains. Brenna Gray, an instructor at Douglas College in New Westminster, British Columbia, did a similar project and found that students were more concerned about the quality and accuracy of their work when they knew it would be published online.

Because it has such low barriers to participation, Wikipedia can be a great introduction to the idea that young people can be active participants in online communities. The Internet can also be a vehicle to help spread awareness of what youth are doing offline: the Canadian Teachers’ Federation’s Imagineaction Web site showcases a wide variety of civic engagement projects across Canada, from community gardens to promoting social action through studying Canadian authors.

It may seem like a long way from expanding a Wikipedia article to the kind of civic engagement seen in the “Arab Spring” (where social networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter were used to help organize for mass social change) or projects such as Ushahidi, which has been used for initiatives such as tracking violence following the elections in Kenya and organizing relief efforts in Haiti. In fact, though, young people in Canada are using the Internet to get involved in real social change, advocating on issues such as copyright and graduated driver’s licenses (both areas where Facebook campaigns were credited with successfully influencing public policy). Teachers, too, are beginning to use the Internet to make civics education more relevant and engaging for students and to draw stronger connections between their course content and real-world civic engagement. The Internet allows youth to participate as full citizens in online communities and to make their voices heard in offline ones: it’s time that we took advantage of that to bring authentic civic engagement into the classroom.

For more information on how digital media can be used to make youth more active citizens, read Media Awareness Network’s report From Consumer to Citizen: Digital Media and Youth Civic Engagement.

  

Given the early age at which children are now going online, there are many reasons to be concerned about their privacy and personal information. Many people -- parents in particular -- are unaware of how commercialized young children's online experiences are. Media Awareness Network’s 2005 study Young Canadians in a Wired World found that 95 per cent of the top 20 most popular websites among Canadian youth aged 8-17 had significant commercial content. A survey of the top 15 most popular American kids' sites in September of 2011 shows that all but one have at least some commercial content, with the majority either being expressly commercial or linking to commercial sites.

The commercial nature of kids' sites is a significant privacy concern because many youth-oriented websites solicit personal information in a variety of ways: some require children to register before they can access premium content, while others ask kids to submit their personal information -- or their friends' -- in contests and surveys, usually with access to additional content as the reward. (As well as doing it themselves, many of these sites also host advertising material that also solicits personal information.) As well, many popular sites such as Club Penguin give kids the opportunity to socialize with each other, raising the question of what information can safely be given out and what should be withheld.

Young children now have much more opportunity to post photos and videos online, thanks to webcams having become a standard feature in laptop computers, and the availability of photo and video functions in many cell phones. All of these factors mean that for even very young children, privacy education must go beyond "don't talk to strangers"; kids today need to be taught how to safely and responsibly manage their and others' privacy in a wide range on contexts.

On October 20, MNet will release a new resource -- Privacy Pirates: An Interactive Unit on Online Privacy (Ages 7-9)—that introduces children to the concept of online privacy and teaches them to distinguish between information that is appropriate to give out and information better kept private. In Privacy Pirates, children are asked to put together a map leading to pirate treasure. To do this they must answer questions about privacy and personal information from a serious of colourful pirates, each of whom has one piece of the map. The focus is on positive feedback, rewarding children for correct choices instead of punishing them for wrong ones; research has shown that young children respond inaccurately to negative feedback (see Anna C. K. van Duijvenvoorde, et al. “Evaluating the Negative or Valuing the Positive? Neural Mechanisms Supporting Feedback-Based Learning across Development”. The Journal of Neuroscience, 17 September 2008.) For that reason we also kept the consequences of getting a question wrong as small as possible, allowing students to retry each question immediately.

The game’s educational content is spread over two segments. In the first segment, set aboard the pirate ship, children meet the Mentor, who introduces them to the idea of privacy management, explains what personal information is and lays out some of the essential ideas of the game, such as the importance of consulting a trusted adult before making a major decision about privacy and the permanence of online materials.

In the second segment children arrive on “Internet Island” and meet nine different pirates, each of whom has a distinct identity and represents a different topic such as passwords, contests and surveys and privacy policies. Each pirate has a bank of randomly selected questions on that topic, which means that children can replay the game several times and still encounter new content. In a classroom setting, this also means that each student will have a different experience playing the game, leading to more valuable group discussions.

Throughout the game, players have access to the Mentor character who will give advice if needed by providing hints that suggest which strategy will lead to the right answer (without giving it away). This underlines the key skill of asking a trusted adult for help whenever a child is uncertain about the right choice as well as allowing the game’s educational content to be delivered on-demand and in a practical context. As the game goes on, the player’s progress is tracked through the assembling of the treasure map on screen; once the player has assembled all six pieces of the map they are rewarded with the “treasure” (a congratulatory screen and printable certificate).
 
MNet has been creating interactive Internet literacy tools since 1998, when it launched Privacy Playground: the First Adventure of the Three Little Pigs. With each project MNet has broadened its focus, adding resources that deal with topics such as online advertising to children, ethical Internet use, online hate and propaganda, and parenting in the Internet age. In addition to classroom and community-based resources, MNet also produces a professional development program – the Web Awareness Workshop Series – which educates teachers about issues related to children and teens' online activities.

Privacy Pirates: An Interactive Unit on Online Privacy (Ages 7-9)

Reading as Deconstruction, Writing as Construction:

After thirteen years of teaching, I realized that the skills for critical analysis of media texts are quite similar to those required for analysis of traditional literary texts – in fact, all texts are forms of media, including Shakespearean plays. Although the language of Media Studies differs from literary analysis, the approach is essentially the same; take apart or “deconstruct” each form in order to understand how it is constructed and how it utilizes various devices to communicate. Each part of a text form can be compared to another text form, so I showed my students how both modern and traditional forms of communication use many of the same devices. With inspiration from Robert Marzano’s work on integrating technology into the classroom through instructional practice, I helped my students, who already understand intuitively how to read and deconstruct a film and compare its symbolism with the symbolism of Shakespeare’s plays. I changed my language in both the English and the Media Studies classroom to suit both disciplines; when showing a film, I told them that they were not “watching”, but “reading or deconstructing”. For example, when considering the imagery of Romeo and Juliet, I showed them how Baz Luhrmann “writes or constructs” a scene in the film using fire as a concrete symbol to abstractly represent the idea of unbridled passion and hatred; students then compared an auditory symbol to a visual symbol.

Similarly, I spoke to my students about the intersection of reading and writing and deconstruction and construction – and how one is the inverse of the other. They began to appreciate this connection, and the ways in which understanding the form of a text provided them with the ability to write in whatever form they chose. By understanding how documentary is constructed (or written) and communicates, they were able to construct (or write) their own documentaries, and they better appreciated the methods of persuasion both verbally and visually. By understanding how Shakespeare uses imagery and symbolism in a drama, they were able to construct Twitter posts using vivid imagery and symbolism; they deconstructed Shakespeare’s imagery, and then constructed their own.

Once they understood the form of each text, and the devices of each form through deconstruction, they were able to purposefully write or construct. Through analysis (or deconstruction) and practice (or construction), they were able to think critically about the strengths and weaknesses of each new form of communication. 

Practices in Building the Bridge:

To build that bridge of understanding across time, I experimented with a new media form. I wanted to bridge the world of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet with the world of Twitter, and I called this assignment “Such Tweet Sorrow”, a name which I borrowed from a Twitter project by an acting troupe in the UK. Initially, my students groaned and complained about the “meaninglessness” of Twitter, the pitiful celebrity worship, and the egotism of those who post trivia from their own lives. However, this perspective changed once they had a chance to construct or write with this new media form.

For this assignment, students formed groups of six, each assuming the role of a pivotal character in Romeo and Juliet while we read the play aloud in class. They created Twitter accounts in character, personalized them, followed one another, and at the end of each day, they wrote and posted Tweets. In 140 characters, they had to reveal events of the plot and mood, demonstrate knowledge of character, and use imagery to help communicate meaning.

 
At the end of the play, they wrote reflections on the assignment; this metacognitive strategy proved to be very revealing. My students expressed difficulty in writing concisely with a limited number of characters, and described strategies for brainstorming to generate interesting and relevant ideas, strategies for drafting potential posts, and using an online dictionary or thesaurus to help them reduce the number of characters required, as well as strategies for editing each post. They learned from the posts of other classmates whom they “followed”, they were surprised by the amount of time and effort required to post something meaningful, and they realized that even Twitter posts can be poetic. At the end of the assignment, their views of Twitter were more moderated, recognizing strengths and weaknesses in this new media form and how it can be used by various groups and individuals.

Using a new media form my students learned how to be precise and concise. I realized in this one venture into the use of new media forms that my students employed all steps of the writing process authentically without prescriptive direction, and they demonstrated reading comprehension (deconstruction), creative writing (construction), critical thinking, and reflection (metacognition) on this new media form that occupies space in popular culture. Twitter provided the bridge to understanding a traditional form, but also engaged my students in the modern world allowing them to think critically about communication, and this new media form; their views on both Shakespeare and Twitter were broadened and deepened. Through deconstructing a Shakespearean play, and constructing in a new media form, students linked the past with the present while critically thinking about the revolution of text forms in their own world.

 

Melanie White is an English and Media Studies teacher at Longfields Davidson Heights High School in the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board. She has worked as an Educational Advisor for McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd on Remix:A Revolution of Text, a new textbook for Senior High School English classes. As part of the iLit series, this textbook of previously unpublished works focuses on the new forms of communication and recognizes that reading and writing has been undergoing a revolution. This text acknowledges the authentic modes of communication used by teens and youth culture recognizing social media and a variety of graphic texts. Questions focus on reading for meaning, critical thinking, metacognition, and student voice. Sample copies of this text can be purchased at the following link: www.iLit.ca

 

The most interesting thing about this case is that it brings to light the disconnect between how we've been taught to regard data on our computers and the reality of how digital information is stored and secured. Early on, marketers of digital media had to find ways to bridge consumers' perceptions of the gap between our offline lives and the digital world that came into being with the advent of computers. Technology marketers had to overcome huge conceptual hurdles in order to present computers to us as something useful, desirable, and easily mastered. There is a reason why computer operating systems such as Windows, and Mac OS have been successful in bringing about widespread adoption of home computing: their language and interface were purposefully developed around metaphors for real world activities and objects, linking them to the practices of every day life. This is why the background of a graphical operating system is called a desktop. We work with files and documents that are kept in folders. Data that we store online is kept in a cloud or locker. Data we no longer wish to keep is sent to a trash can or recycle bin. We refer to Internet usage as traffic occurring in cyberspace. These physical metaphors for what is essentially a bunch of 1s and 0s coded onto a hard disk have made us more willing to purchase and use computers by making an otherwise alien concept seem more familiar. The Colorado case, however, has revealed an unintended side effect of these metaphors. We have come to believe in these symbolic representations of how computers work and what they do to the point where we now face a crisis of understanding.

The conceptual divide around which this current problem is elaborated is based on the metaphors we use to understand digital technology and new media. Common understanding of a computer hard drive imagines it as a physical container holding actual documents. We view encryption as the lock that keeps the box closed. It is this perception that has led prosecutors in Colorado to demand that a suspect be compelled by the court to decrypt her computer in order to permit investigators to "look inside" at her files. Were this metaphor accurate, there would be no problem with demanding a computer be "unlocked" in this way. Courts frequently force suspects to open locked boxes, vaults, or rooms: this isn't terribly new or controversial. The case in Colorado, however, throws legal precedent into question because while computers have traditionally been conceived of as physical containers, they aren't: in reality when we encrypt files, we are transforming them into something else, not storing them. What is actually being done on computers is a translation of the operator's language into binary code, with encryption further translating that code into ciphertext. So instead of being locked away, your files are converted to a foreign language that only certain people can read. When you enter your password to decrypt those files, they are translated for you and you are able to then read them. It is this disconnect between perception and reality that is at the heart of the controversy in the Colorado case.

If computers are not storage space, but rather storage media, then they have more in common with the paper on which physical files are written than with the filing cabinets or lockboxes in which they are stored. The content of a file is ultimately a language and encryption passwords are the Rosetta Stone to that language. If such is the reality, then demanding a suspect decrypt her files is like forcing her to translate an unknown language, and this is where application of the law becomes problematic. Consider the situation if the defendant had kept her records written by hand on a piece of paper in a language the authorities could not read. Could a court really force her to translate that information for the benefit of prosecutors? Lawyers for the woman in Colorado argue that authorities cannot force a suspect to translate information for them because this challenges an individual's right to not incriminate oneself. In Canada we also have similar laws that protect us against being compelled to speak out against ourselves, so a challenge of this kind could prove a watershed moment for digital law. At stake is how the law understands the way digital media works as well as individuals' protections under Section 11 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which protects citizens from being compelled to be a witness in proceedings against themselves.

Regardless of the outcome, this case demonstrates the need for citizens and lawmakers to question our epistemological positions regarding the intersections of technology and everyday life.

Questions for Consideration

Take a moment to think of the ways in which our interactions with digital technology are mediated through metaphors for the physical world. Certainly these metaphors render the otherwise strange workings of digital technology more familiar, but do they come with a price?

How do you feel about the legal entanglements around encryption and our conceptions of it?

The Internet described in the cartoon was considerably different from the one we know today: it was an online world composed entirely of text and accessed almost exclusively by government employees, academics and university students. 1993 marked the launch of Mosaic, the first graphic Web browser; it was also the year that America Online began to offer relatively cheap and easy Internet access, marking the beginning of the Internet as a mass phenomenon. Today’s Internet, and its place in our lives, is fundamentally different from what it was when that cartoon was published, and yet it remains one of the touchstones of our understanding of online life. In fact, though, the past decade has seen near-constant conflict over how we represent ourselves online – and the age of online anonymity may in fact now be over.

It’s certainly true that anonymity was the rule in early online environments: discussion groups such as Usenet, early social networks like the WELL and local bulletin board systems all took a casual attitude towards identity that made it possible for users to present themselves as whoever they said they were. Another possible contributing factor is the large number of early Internet users who were involved in role-playing of various kinds and were accustomed to presenting an altered or tailored identity in public. This was a fundamental aspect of Internet culture in 1993, and the flood of casual Internet users who began to arrive in that year largely adopted it – at least at first. This had a number of effects: for some it led to an increased confidence and an ability to participate in discussions from which they would otherwise be excluded, while it gave others license to bait and insult others – an activity that came to be known as “trolling.” (Though those who engage in trolling are referred to as “trolls,” the term did not actually originate from an association with mythical monsters but from the act of trailing a fishing line behind a boat: the purpose of trolling is not specifically to wound but to see what kind of reaction the troll can provoke in others.) As more and more of people’s lives moved online, trolling increasingly gave way to a more focused, targeted and intentionally hurtful behaviour – cyberbullying – and soon the news was full of stories of children being victimized by anonymous bullies.

However, just as most of the people posing as twelve-year-old girls turned out to be undercover police officers, the relationship between anonymity and bullying is more complicated than it at first appeared. A 2008 study, “Extending the School Grounds? – Bullying Experiences in Cyberspace,” showed that roughly two-thirds of bullying victims knew the identity of the perpetrators – or at least were fairly certain that they did – and was one of several studies to show that online and offline bullying often go hand-in-hand. It’s worth noting that the purpose of this study was to test existing assumptions about cyberbullying, including its association with anonymity. It may be that the belief in a connection between bullying and anonymity wasn’t necessarily wrong – but that the nature of the Internet itself has changed

Consider Facebook, the site most emblematic of the differences between the Internet of the 90s and today’s online world. While it’s certainly possible to create a false Facebook profile, for most of its users that would entirely defeat the purpose of using it. This is particularly true of young people, who generally re-create their offline social webs on the site. Under these circumstances, false profiles might be used only if they are an “open secret,” and thus not genuinely anonymous. (One can imagine youth doing this in order to socialize with their friends but not their parents, for instance.) Moreover, it is impossible to be genuinely anonymous on Facebook: a profile must have some identity, even if it is a fictional one. During the years of predator panics Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg spoke of his site’s open approach to identity as an improvement over the anonymity previously associated with the Internet, and while the jury may be out on that there’s no question that it has driven a seismic shift in our attitudes towards online identity. Even the comment threads of blogs, newspapers and magazines, one of the last redoubts of Usenet-style trolling, are moving away from allowing casual or anonymous identities and requiring those who leave comments to establish permanent logins or even audition for the right to make posts without direct oversight from moderators.

That’s not to say, that everyone online today is who they claim to be. What’s happened instead is that anonymity has, to a large extent, been replaced by pseudonymity – the assumption of false and, in some cases, multiple identities. While many of the problems associated with anonymity (such as the loss of inhibition and personal responsibility thought to enable cyberbullying) may also occur when users take on pseudonymous identities, there are some important differences between the two. The most important is that anonymity is, by definition, a disposable identity, to be used once and then discarded at little or no cost; pseudonymous identities, on the other hand, demand investments to be effective. Twitter, for instance, is infested with celebrity impersonators, but it nevertheless depends on its users having a stable and consistent identity with which to win followers. To be real on Twitter is less important than to be entertaining, but you must be consistently entertaining – a Twitter account is, essentially, a brand that must be developed and maintained just as much as a true personal identity.

One example of this is “sock puppetry,” the creation of false identities to lend apparent support to your position. This may be done in a more or less impersonal way, as when authors create fictitious personas to praise their own books on Amazon, or it may be more involved: for example, the cartoonist Scott Adams (“Dilbert”) was recently discovered to have created a false identity, “PlannedChaos,” with which to defend himself in a discussion on the Web site Metafilter. Other contributors’ reactions gave PlannedChaos’s opinions little weight, though; while Adams had successfully hidden his true identity, the new one he created had no particular credibility.

As we develop our online identities by building their credibility and developing peer networks around them, they become more valuable to us and we are less willing to risk them. Vendor and purchaser rating systems at online commerce sites such as eBay help to tie people to consistent identities: it’s always possible to abandon an identity that has attracted negative feedback, but that means starting over with an identity with no track record, itself a red flag.

This holds true even in environments where there is no expectation of presenting the “real” you. We are unlikely to use our real names when we play World of Warcraft, but the more we “level up” – both in terms of advancing our character in the game and developing his alliances and interpersonal connections – the more we have invested in him and the more he begins to be as real and valuable as our “true” identity. This may not mean an end to cyberbullying – for it those communities where anonymity is still the norm, such as 4chan, Formspring, and Xbox Live, that bullying is most strongly associated – but it does mean that bullying, and other negative behaviours once associated with anonymity, now nearly always take place in a context where there is something for the perpetrators to lose.

The fact is that we are less anonymous online than ever – indeed in many ways it is now harder to be anonymous online than off . While we might encounter a half-dozen video cameras or passcard readers in any given day, everything we do online is tracked, recorded and keyed to our IP address and our endlessly developing user profile, so that even the content we encounter is tailored to us. Nor is maintaining multiple identities something unique to the Internet: we are all different people, to greater and lesser degrees, in different contexts, whether it is with different groups of friends, with parents or workmates. Young people, in particular those who are members of visible minority groups, often engage in what’s called “code switching” – moving between different dialects and social norms depending on context, such as when addressing peers, parents or teachers. The Internet, though, allows us to separate those identities more easily than we can offline, and most of the data that is gathered about us is held by the corporations whose sites we visit, not by the people in our social networks. As pseudonymity, rather than anonymity, becomes more and more the rule, we may find it essential to teach young people to manage all of their online identities wisely and ethically.