Surely you've heard of Inspector Spacetime, the cult British TV series that's run (with interruptions) since 1962. It has a tremendously active, engaged fanbase that's created blogs, videos and music devoted to it. Oh, and one more thing -- it never existed. It was made up as a thirty-second gag on the sitcom Community, as a parody-cum-homage of Doctor Who.

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.

The classic 1985 science fiction novel Ender’s Game is one of several books of that period that foresaw both the advent of the Internet and its eventual importance in society. While certain aspects of its portrayal seem dated – in particular, it more resembles the text-based bulletin board systems of the time than today’s graphic Web – one element stands out as being particularly prescient: the use of the Internet to allow youth to participate fully in society. While today’s young people aren’t using the Internet to take over the world, as the characters in the novel do, they are increasingly using it to change the world, and more and more teachers are using the Internet to bring civic engagement into the classroom.

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.

In the last year or two many writers and researchers have been trying to correct the common perception that young people do not care about privacy. While the public may finally be getting the message that teenagers do value their privacy -- as they define it -- the idea that younger children have any personal information worth protecting is still a new one. Certainly, most people would probably be surprised to learn how early children are starting to surf the Net: the average age at which children began to use the Internet dropped from age 10 in 2002 to age four in 2009 (Findahl, Olle, Preschoolers and the Internet, Presented at the EU-kids online conference, London, June 11, 2009); and, thanks to the iPhone and iPad, that number has probably dropped even lower.

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)