[SIGCIS-Members] Families, hackers, and a pre-history of the Maker Movement

[Meryl Alper]

Maybe of interest to this group: An article I just published in the (open
access) International Journal of Communication, entitled: "Can Our Kids
Hack It With Computers?" Constructing Youth Hackers in Family Computing
Magazines (1983-1987).  Presented the material at this past year's SHOT
conference.

Abstract:
Building upon existing scholarship on media representation of hackers and
the social history of personal computing, this essay positions U.S.
families making sense of microcomputers in the mid-1980s as central to the
history of hacking. Archival material for this project consists of 74
issues of youth- and family-focused computing magazines of this era, within
which discussions of hacking were frequent. This essay maps an array of
discourses about young hackers constructed in relation to hopes and
anxieties about networked technologies. Besides connecting microcomputers
to particular family ideals, these magazines also put forth a
family-friendly notion of youth hackers. While microcomputers entered the
home with notions of hacking attached, I argue that family computing in
turn shaped contemporary conceptions of hacking.

http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/2402/1092

Best,
Meryl

-- 
Meryl Alper
Ph.D. Candidate in Communication
Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism
University of Southern California
malper at usc.edu
merylalper.com
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