Youth, Technology, and Citizenship Research Project
Dr. Stephen Gennaro Ph.D. York University
This research has been reviewed and approved by the Human Participants Review Sub-Committee, York University’s Ethics
Review Board and conforms to the standards of the Canadian Tri-Council Research Ethics guidelines
VERBAL INFORMED CONSENT SCRIPT
(to be delivered ORALLY to CHILD PARTICIPANTS by researcher under 16
(no child signatures required)
PAGE 1of 3
Hello, my name is
and I am a student in Dr. Steve Gennaro’s course
in the Department of Humanities at York University. Dr. Gennaro teaches in the Children’s Studies Program
and his research explores how young people use Social Networking Sites like Facebook and Twitter. For my
course work I need to find out from children and teenagers your age about how you use Facebook. The project
seeks to work with approximately 200 children between the ages of 13 and 18 years old.
Here is a brief description of the project:
Youth, Technology, and Citizenship Research Project
This is a project about literacy and about how human beings read, write, and communicate. More
specifically, it is a project about media literacy and how technological innovation has created media that
produces texts, stories, and images often without properly explaining them to the reader or viewer and
therefore the reader or viewer requires some basic understanding of how those texts are created, who they
are created for, and how the texts themselves get taken up by audiences. Digging even deeper, this is a
project about new media literacy that is interested in how market based phenomena like globalization,
synergy, and convergence have altered the role of communication in our daily lives. Even more so, it is a
project about a new critical media literacy that seeks to explore not only the ever changing forms and
structure of media but the ways in which human interaction with those media affect social relations. And
perhaps most importantly, this is a project about how our understanding of what is a literacy, media
literacy, and critical media literacy has been fundamentally changed by social networking sites (SNSs),
2.0 technologies, and online personalization aka: “The Googleburg Galaxy.”
Doing research with children is an essential part of the structure of this project. In this project we work
directly with children, (defined by the United Nations in the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child
as anyone under the age of 18 years old) through an ethnographic research project that examines the ways
in which young people are exposed to media messages and how their interaction and consumption of
popular culture texts influence the ways in which young people make sense of the world around them.
The project is particularly interested in how children use digital technologies like Twitter and Facebook to
express their own voice, language, and understanding of the social world around them.
This project uses the three-pronged approach to critical media/cultural studies (Kellner 2009) to conduct
participatory research (Mayall 2009) from a child-centred paradigm (James and Christensen 2009) that
explores the interaction between children under 18 (United Nations 1989) and popular culture (Mitchell
and Reid-Walsh 2004) to gain a sense of: (a) What are SNSs (social networking sites) and their
connection to contemporary children’s culture? (b) What are the ways in which children use SNSs? (c)
How do children view SNSs in their own lives?
Youth, Technology, and Citizenship Research Project
Dr. Stephen Gennaro Ph.D. York University
This research has been reviewed and approved by the Human Participants Review Sub-Committee, York University’s Ethics
Review Board and conforms to the standards of the Canadian Tri-Council Research Ethics guidelines
VERBAL INFORMED CONSENT SCRIPT
(to be delivered ORALLY to CHILD PARTICIPANTS by researcher under 16
(no child signatures required)
PAGE 2 of 3
I am asking if you would agree to participate in my research by having 2 conversations lasting approximately
15-20 minutes each with me. We will be meeting together online. Below is a description of how each of the
conversations will work:
1) Upon obtaining consent, the research itself will take place on Facebook or Twitter. Since the bulk of
the research takes place on-line on Social Networking Sites (SNSs) the importance of respecting the child
subject’s privacy is of top priority and therefore, the child subjects themselves will be consulted at all
stages of the research.
2) In this particular project, I will meet with each child research subject on 2 separate occasions.
3) In the first meeting, the research will begin with a guided tour from the children of their Facebook
profiles or Twitter pages. This tour will take place electronically by email, video, Skype, chat (i.e. MSN
messenger or Facebook chat), or by whatever means the child subject deems appropriate. The child
chooses what information they will make available and what information they will keep private. They are
in complete control of the research and will be allowed to stop the guided tour at any time. As a
researcher, I am simply a tourist or passenger into the child’s world during the first visit with the children.
I will not have any additional access to the child’s Facebook profile upon completion of the guided tour,
as I will NOT be recommending that the child subject adds me as a “friend” on Facebook.
4) Upon completing the guided tour, data from the tour will be recorded and sorted.
5) A second meeting, also electronically by email, video, Skype, chat (i.e. MSN messenger or Facebook
chat), or by whatever means the child subject deems appropriate will then follow. Here, an interview with
the child subject will be conducted on how they use the digital space. Questions will be asked to allow
the children to voice their opinions about their use(s) of SNSs. The child will have the freedom to refuse
to answer any questions they do not want to answer and will be allowed to stop the interview at any time.
6) Upon completion of the interviews, all the interviews will be transcribed and information from the
interviews will be recorded and sorted
You do not have to participate at all, or, even if you agree now, you can stop participating at any time. If there
are any questions you do not want to answer, all you have to do is tell me you’d rather not answer those
questions.
I will make sure that your participation remains absolutely confidential and anonymous and confidentiality will
be provided to the fullest extent possible by law. I will not include your name in my final report about this
project, but I will use your contributions to our conversation as part of the report I will write for my course grade.
Although this report will become part of the Canadian Children’s Culture Collection in the Division of
Humanities at York University and possibly appear in part or in whole in later publications, nothing in the report
will identify you as part of this study.
All of the personal data from the project will be securely stored in my possession for a period of 24 months,
where only I will have access to the information, and all the data will be destroyed after the retention period.
Upon withdrawal from the study, all associated data collected will be immediately destroyed wherever possible.
Youth, Technology, and Citizenship Research Project
Dr. Stephen Gennaro Ph.D. York University
This research has been reviewed and approved by the Human Participants Review Sub-Committee, York University’s Ethics
Review Board and conforms to the standards of the Canadian Tri-Council Research Ethics guidelines
VERBAL INFORMED CONSENT SCRIPT
(to be delivered ORALLY to CHILD PARTICIPANTS by researcher under 16
(no child signatures required)
PAGE 3 of 3
I hope that you will enjoy participating in this conversation by getting the chance to share your ideas and
feelings and to allow me and my colleagues to understand more about children’s relationships with Social
Networking Sites. Our conversation should not upset you in any way: in fact, it should be enjoyable for all of
us.
I have also asked your parents (or guardians or adult caregiver) for their permission for you to take part in this
project. If you have any questions or concerns, you can contact my Professor:
Dr. Stephen Gennaro
Email: sgennaro@yorku.ca
On Facebook: steve gennaro
On Twitter: @_sgennaro
Would you like to take part in this project?
___________________________
Name of Child
_______________
Response of Child
_____________________________________
Researcher Signature
_________________
Date
_____________________
Date
Youth, Technology, and Citizenship Research Project
Dr. Stephen Gennaro Ph.D. York University
This research has been reviewed and approved by the Human Participants Review Sub-Committee, York University’s Ethics
Review Board and conforms to the standards of the Canadian Tri-Council Research Ethics guidelines
WRITTEN INFORMED CONSENT FORM
FOR ADULT CAREGIVERS OF CHILD PARTICIPANTS
and CHILD PARTICIPANTS OVER THE AGE OF 16 YEARS OLD.
PAGE 1of 4
Hello, my name is
and I am a student in Dr. Steve Gennaro’s course
in the Department of Humanities at York University. Dr. Gennaro teaches in the Children’s Studies Program
and his research explores how young people use Social Networking Sites like Facebook and Twitter. For my
course work I need to find out from children and teenagers how they use Facebook. The project seeks to work
with approximately 200 children between the ages of 13 and 18 years old.
Here is a brief description of the project:
Youth, Technology, and Citizenship Research Project
This is a project about literacy and about how human beings read, write, and communicate. More
specifically, it is a project about media literacy and how technological innovation has created media that
produces texts, stories, and images often without properly explaining them to the reader or viewer and
therefore the reader or viewer requires some basic understanding of how those texts are created, who they
are created for, and how the texts themselves get taken up by audiences. Digging even deeper, this is a
project about new media literacy that is interested in how market based phenomena like globalization,
synergy, and convergence have altered the role of communication in our daily lives. Even more so, it is a
project about a new critical media literacy that seeks to explore not only the ever changing forms and
structure of media but the ways in which human interaction with those media affect social relations. And
perhaps most importantly, this is a project about how our understanding of what is a literacy, media
literacy, and critical media literacy has been fundamentally changed by social networking sites (SNSs),
2.0 technologies, and online personalization aka: “The Googleburg Galaxy.”
Doing research with children is an essential part of the structure of this project. In this project we work
directly with children, (defined by the United Nations in the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child
as anyone under the age of 18 years old) through an ethnographic research project that examines the ways
in which young people are exposed to media messages and how their interaction and consumption of
popular culture texts influence the ways in which young people make sense of the world around them.
The project is particularly interested in how children use digital technologies like Twitter and Facebook to
express their own voice, language, and understanding of the social world around them.
This project uses the three-pronged approach to critical media/cultural studies (Kellner 2009) to conduct
participatory research (Mayall 2009) from a child-centred paradigm (James and Christensen 2009) that
explores the interaction between children under 18 (United Nations 1989) and popular culture (Mitchell
and Reid-Walsh 2004) to gain a sense of: (a) What are SNSs (social networking sites) and their
connection to contemporary children’s culture? (b) What are the ways in which children use SNSs? (c)
How do children view SNSs in their own lives?
Youth, Technology, and Citizenship Research Project
Dr. Stephen Gennaro Ph.D. York University
This research has been reviewed and approved by the Human Participants Review Sub-Committee, York University’s Ethics
Review Board and conforms to the standards of the Canadian Tri-Council Research Ethics guidelines
WRITTEN INFORMED CONSENT FORM
FOR ADULT CAREGIVERS OF CHILD PARTICIPANTS
and CHILD PARTICIPANTS OVER THE AGE OF 16 YEARS OLD.
PAGE 2 of 4
I am asking if _______________________ (child name) would agree to participate in my research by having 2
conversations lasting approximately 15-20 minutes each with me. We will be meeting together online. Below is
a description of how each of the conversations will work:
1) Upon obtaining consent, the research itself will take place on Facebook or Twitter. Since the bulk of the
research takes place on-line on Social Networking Sites (SNSs) the importance of respecting the child subject’s
privacy is of top priority and therefore, the child subjects themselves will be consulted at all stages of the
research.
2) In this particular project, I will meet with each child research subject on 2 separate occasions.
3) In the first meeting, the research will begin with a guided tour from the children of their Facebook profiles or
Twitter pages. This tour will take place electronically by email, video, Skype, chat (i.e. MSN messenger or
Facebook chat), or by whatever means the child subject deems appropriate. The child chooses what information
they will make available and what information they will keep private. They are in complete control of the
research and will be allowed to stop the guided tour at any time. As a researcher, I am simply a tourist or
passenger into the child’s world during the first visit with the children. I will not have any additional access to the
child’s Facebook profile upon completion of the guided tour, as I will NOT be recommending that the child
subject adds me as a “friend” on Facebook.
4) Upon completing the guided tour, data from the tour will be recorded and sorted.
5) A second meeting, also electronically by email, video, Skype, chat (i.e. MSN messenger or Facebook chat), or
by whatever means the child subject deems appropriate will then follow. Here, an interview with the child subject
will be conducted on how they use the digital space. Questions will be asked to allow the children to voice their
opinions about their use(s) of SNSs. The child will have the freedom to refuse to answer any questions they do
not want to answer and will be allowed to stop the interview at any time.
6) Upon completion of the interviews, all the interviews will be transcribed and information from the interviews
will be recorded and sorted
____________________ (child name) does not have to participate at all, or, even if you agree now, either the
parent or the child can stop participating at any time. If there are any questions ____________________ (child
name) does not want to answer, either the parent or the child can tell me you’d rather not answer those
questions at any time.
I will make sure that your participation remains absolutely confidential and anonymous and confidentiality will
be provided to the fullest extent possible by law. I will not include your name in my final report about this
project, but I will use your contributions to our conversation as part of the report I will write for my course grade.
Although this report will become part of the Canadian Children’s Culture Collection in the Division of
Humanities at York University and possibly appear in part or in whole in later publications, nothing in the report
will identify you as part of this study.
All the data from the project will be securely stored in my possession for a period of 24 months, where only I
will have access to the information, and all the data will be destroyed after the retention period. Upon
withdrawal from the study, all associated data collected will be immediately destroyed wherever possible.
Youth, Technology, and Citizenship Research Project
Dr. Stephen Gennaro Ph.D. York University
This research has been reviewed and approved by the Human Participants Review Sub-Committee, York University’s Ethics
Review Board and conforms to the standards of the Canadian Tri-Council Research Ethics guidelines
WRITTEN INFORMED CONSENT FORM
FOR ADULT CAREGIVERS OF CHILD PARTICIPANTS
and CHILD PARTICIPANTS OVER THE AGE OF 16 YEARS OLD.
PAGE 3 of 4
I hope that ____________________ (child name) will enjoy participating in this conversation by getting the
chance to share ideas and feelings and to allow me and my colleagues to understand more about children’s
relationships with Social Networking Sites. Our conversation should not upset anyone, in any way: in fact, it
should be enjoyable for all of us.
If you have any questions or concerns, you can contact me:
Dr. Stephen Gennaro
Email: sgennaro@yorku.ca
On Facebook: steve gennaro
On Twitter: @_sgennaro
On Skype: phdsteve
UNDER AGE 16: (to be completed by parent/guardian)
Would you be willing to allow your child to take part in this project?
I ____________________________________________ (parent/guardian name) agree that my
child, ___________________________________________ (please print full name of child), aged
_________________ (age of child), for whom I am a guardian, may take part in Dr. Stephen Gennaro’s Youth
Technology and Citizenship Project. I understand that agreeing to allow my child to take part means that I am
willing to allow my child to have a conversation or conversations with the researcher and will allow the
researcher limited contact with my child’s Facebook profile, as directed by my child themselves. My child’s
participation is voluntary, and he or she can withdraw at any stage of the project. I also understand that any
information my child provides is confidential and that no information that could lead to the identification of any
individual will be disclosed in any reports on the project, or to any other party: no identifiable personal data will
be published.
_________________________________________________________ (please print)
Parent’s/Guardian’s Name
_________________________________________________________
Relationship to Participant
___________________________________________
Signature of Parent/Guardian
_______________________________
Date
___________________________________________
Researcher’s Signature
_______________________________
Date
Youth, Technology, and Citizenship Research Project
Dr. Stephen Gennaro Ph.D. York University
This research has been reviewed and approved by the Human Participants Review Sub-Committee, York University’s Ethics
Review Board and conforms to the standards of the Canadian Tri-Council Research Ethics guidelines
WRITTEN INFORMED CONSENT FORM
FOR ADULT CAREGIVERS OF CHILD PARTICIPANTS
and CHILD PARTICIPANTS OVER THE AGE OF 16 YEARS OLD.
PAGE 4 of 4
AGE 16 or OLDER (to be completed by child participant)
I ____________________________________________ (child name) aged
_________________ (age of child), agree to take part in Dr. Stephen Gennaro’s Youth Technology and
Citizenship Project. I understand that agreeing to take part means that I am willing to have a conversation or
conversations with the researcher and allow the researcher limited contact with my Facebook profile. I am
aware that my participation is voluntary, and that I can withdraw at any stage of the project. I also understand
that any information I provide is confidential and that no information that could lead to the identification of any
individual will be disclosed in any reports on the project, or to any other party: no identifiable personal data will
be published.
_________________________________________________________
Participant
___________________________________________
Signature of Participant
_______________________________
Date
___________________________________________
Researcher’s Signature
_______________________________
Date