Youth digital participation: Measuring social impact

Pawluczuk, Alicja; Webster, Gemma; Hall, Hazel; Smith, Colin

Abstract

Current scholarly debate around digital participatory youth projects and approaches to their evaluation are examined in this article. The analysis of the literature presented here reveals (1) an over-reliance on traditional evaluation techniques for such initiatives, and (2) a scarcity of models for the assessment of the social impact of digital participatory youth projects. It is concluded that the challenges and limitations of social impact evaluation practice in digital participatory youth projects should be addressed through the adoption of alternative, participant-centred approaches. These issues are discussed in reference to a current ongoing study that seeks to identify solutions for enhancing social impact evaluations of participatory digital initiatives by young people.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 12, 2018
• Online Publication Date: May 17, 2018
• Publication Date: 2020-03
• Deposit Date: Mar 12, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 12, 2018
• Journal: Journal of Librarianship and Information Science
• Print ISSN: 0961-0006
• Electronic ISSN: 1741-6477
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 52
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 3-15
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0961000618769975
• Keywords: digital participation, digital youth, youth participation, social impact, social impact evaluation, participatory evaluation
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/1112435
• Contract Date: Mar 12, 2018