Nurturing Maker Culture for Young Girls: privacy, safety and MMOs for girlsKate Raynes-GoldieInternet Studies, Curtin University@oceanpark

Overview

Overview of MMOs for kids

Impact on girls and their development as natural makers and hackers

Solutions

Maker culture

BREAKING, MAKING, HACKING, DIY

UNDERSTANDING, OPENING THE BLACK BOX

EMPOWERMENT, AUTONOMY

CRITICAL THINKING, IMAGINATION, CREATIVITY

CREATION RATHER THAN CONSUMPTION AS IDENTITY

SHARING, OPENNESS, MENTORSHIP

MMOs for kids

Safe spaces

Designed to be black boxes

Hidden concerns

Advertising/commodification

Surveillance

Gendering

Intellectual property

Club Penguin (Disney)

Freemium

No IP ownership, ads or gender

Biggest focus on safety

Designed for ages 6-14 but open to all

Barbie Girls (Mattel)

Freemium, but giant Barbie ad

Only female avatars

Shopping, fashion, boys

No explicit age limits, but aimed at tweens and early teens

“By submitting or sending Your Submissions to Mattel, you grant Mattel a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully transferable, assignable and sublicensable right and license to copy, reproduce, distribute, publish, transmit, modify, adapt, translate, display, distribute, sell, license, publicly perform, prepare derivative works based upon, and otherwise use or exploit Your Submissions throughout the world in any and all media. You represent and warrant that: (a) you have the right and authorization to make the foregoing grant without the consent of any third party, and (b) Your Submissions are accurate and, as permitted to be used by Mattel in this User Agreement, do not and will not infringe any right of any third party.”

Webkinz (Ganz)

Must by toy for 1 year access

Strongest focus on virtual goods

Minigames

Pet can be different gender than child

“...Ganz shall exclusively own all known or hereafter existing rights to the User Content of every kind and nature throughout the world, and shall be entitled to unrestricted use of the User Content for any purpose whatsoever, commercial or otherwise, without compensation to the provider of the user content.”

Consequences

Discouraging creativity, autonomy, critical thinking

Hindering skills needed for privacy and trust

Normalizing convert surveillance

Nurturing maker culture

New Moon Girls

Award winning social network, magazine, community

Girls 8 and up

Ad-free, but pay to play

New Moon Girls

Co-mentoring rather than just surveillance

Positive, empowering messages for girls

Making rather than consuming

But where are the parents?

Thanks!

KATE@K4T3.ORG@OCEANPARK