OPC Media: “What if we changed our posture?”

The intentions of cultural professionals with regard to young people are laudable, generally structured around cultural democratization. Their aim is to provide access to “valuable” cultural forms and offerings that young people would not spontaneously seek out in traditional venues such as the theater, cinema, museum... and above all in the school setting. But most of them are hardly receptive to it, sometimes even rejecting or indifferent to it, even though they devote a great deal of time and attention to other cultural practices on digital networks. What can we learn from their use to reflect on our own professional postures? How can we equip ourselves to design projects and mediations that once again concern young people?

Digital, a new space for cultural democracy

A common misconception persists in the cultural sector: the ideal of a cultural project is based on the physical presence of a group. The objective (evaluated quantitatively) is to fill theaters, museums, cultural centers or cinemas to capacity. It’s an approach that focuses on places, not people. But do we see a film better in a cinema than at home on our phones? Of course, it’s different, but postulating a hierarchy has little respect for people’s use and culture, or more precisely for cultural rights (which are enshrined in law). This value judgement obscures essential questions: do these people live close to cultural venues? Do they have the financial means to go out? Do they know what’s on offer, and does it match their interests?

During the years 2020-2022, marked in France by the confinement of populations and other restrictions on movement imposed by the public authorities - without any debate having taken place - digital uses developed de facto, accelerating cultural processes that had already been at work for some twenty years. During this period, paradoxically, digital space has enabled the continuity of exchanges and democratic access to culture, thanks in particular to numerous alternative networks, where physical places were deprived of this in many ways. Digital technology has been a bonding factor. Everyone, not just young people, has had to invent new ways of interacting. During the years 2020-2022, marked in France by the confinement of populations and other restrictions on movement imposed by the public authorities - without any debate having taken place - digital uses developed de facto, accelerating cultural processes that had already been at work for some twenty years. During this period, paradoxically, digital space has enabled the continuity of exchanges and democratic access to culture, thanks in particular to numerous alternative networks, where physical places were deprived of this in many ways. Digital technology has been a bonding factor. Everyone, not just young people, has had to invent new ways of interacting.

This episode in our collective life should help us to rethink the potential offered by online cultural exchanges and experiences, in all their specific aspects. As a source of both singular and constructive approaches, they can change our personal and professional paths, as well as our social roles. Embracing all the richness to which digital gives access (training thanks to tutorials, the liveliness of cultural and political communities, meeting platforms, collaborative artistic practices, the job market, etc.) can teach us to forge new professional postures and “reconnect” us to our missions vis-à-vis young people.

Posture: judgment or curiosity?

Let’s start with an example question: do you use the TikTok application on your cell phone? In 2022, the vast majority of young people spent an average of 95 minutes a day on it, far more than on any other social network. If you’re not a TikTok user, what’s your initial reaction? I’d like to share with you the reaction I had six years ago, when I discovered this social network and superficially consulted some of its content. I thought it was “rubbish”, even dangerous for my self-image. I found it worrying that young people were spending so much time on it. I immediately thought that my role was to alert them and try to lead them towards more virtuous practices!

What was my position then? That of an a priori judgment on the digital practices of young people, without giving the slightest credit to what they were so passionate about. Basically, it was a contempt for a practice that I judged to be devoid of the slightest interest and highly problematic from an ethical point of view, without having really sought to know or understand it. This posture is very reassuring, as it allows us to establish ourselves in a position of superiority, of “knowing”. But if you judge the practices of the person you’re addressing very harshly, and try to supplant them with others - so that they’ll “open up” to what’s unknown to them - without taking into account what interests them, without making the effort to forge a bond, it’s normal - and even rather healthy - to receive nothing but legitimate disdain in return. But would the opposite be demagogic, dangerous or harmful for the cultural sector? Does taking a sincere interest in the cultural references of the person you wish to reach represent any kind of risk? It seems to me, on the contrary, that it would open up spaces for encounters and sharing, particularly with young people.

Embracing all the richness to which digital gives access can teach us to forge new professional postures and “reconnect” us to our missions vis-à-vis young people.

Gutenberg, Wikipedia and TikTok

Let’s continue with TikTok, bearing in mind that this commercial platform remains a double-edged sword. Financed by targeted advertising, it is riddled with surveillance and censorship, and gathers abusive or even dangerous content, just like Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, LinkedIn and others (which are just as harmful to freedoms as they are full of fantastic potential). These are unscrupulous capitalist multinationals, often operating illegally, that have captured the essence of our cultural practices.

Despite all this, TikTok is a social network whose uses deserve our interest. The application presents itself as a platform for educational content, which in fact it is. It is equipped with very simple, yet very powerful image and sound creation tools. In terms of functionality, it surpasses the ideal “editing table” dreamed up by Jean-Luc Godard. 83% of users have posted at least one video, which means that virtually everyone is involved in the collective creation process. What’s more, 53% of the platform’s “creators” (regular content producers) are aged between 18 and 24. Unexpectedly, 42% of its users are between 30 and 49, and 61% are women.

The algorithm that suggests this or that video studies your tastes with finesse, and also systematically tests new content with 100 to 200 people. As a result, your first video can generate millions of views, purely on the basis of the interest it arouses, without the need for a marketing strategy to “sell” it. It’s the first platform to have built its audience on this kind of approach, and to have given powerful means of production to those who use it and share their creations with others, based solely on the interest aroused by their work. The result is genuine creative emulation and cultural democracy in action. Significant innovations in the field of audiovisual language are taking place. What we discover is exciting and peer-driven. Isn’t that inspiring?

Knowing that major media outlets, cultural institutions and legitimate artists are already very active on TikTok, and that many artists have also been discovered thanks to it, this should lead us to formulate this conclusion about our conception of cultural offerings: TikTok is an instance for the production of cultural legitimacy in fields as varied as dance, theater, teaching, philosophy, music learning, personal development, feminism, and so on.

Let’s not forget that other “technologies” for sharing knowledge and culture have also become established throughout history. Twenty years ago, if someone had told us that an encyclopedia freely and solely written by tens of thousands of volunteers, with peer moderation, would be more relevant and complete than Encyclopædia Universalis in terms of the quality and updating of its scientific, historical and cultural content, would we have believed them? Yet Wikipedia exists. Another example: the invention of the printing press in the 1450s. Discredited by the intellectual elites of the time, who thought it would debase culture and pervert religion, it actually threatened their power. Yet the printing press, so decried in its day, had the phenomenal and beneficial democratic consequences we all know about, starting with the aptly named Renaissance.

Framework, listening and letting go

The professionals I work with on training courses all agree that it’s difficult for them to get away from reassuring, overbearing dogmas about the presumed shortcomings of youth and the dangers of digital technology. Based on their own experiences, they often testify to having become aware (during and after training) of the general attitude of adults towards young people, which is generally normative, lacking in consideration for others, and even completely erroneous, leading to stigmatization and exclusion, and preventing mutual enrichment. This self-criticism reveals the breadth and depth of the work to be done, both in terms of listening and establishing a framework of trust.

Openness to the other requires us to work on ourselves, renouncing our own criteria and allowing ourselves to receive what the other proposes, by accepting to be destabilized. It is by being disturbed that we are enriched. Neuroscience shows that we must resist our reflexes in order to learn. A framework is what authorizes. It allows self-expression. The singularity of each individual then becomes an enriching contribution to the collective. But to be able to speak up, you need to feel confident, and not be afraid of being judged, mocked or even excluded from society. This process is no different when working with young people. To give them their rightful place, we need to build a framework of trust in which they feel recognized as individuals, and which enables them to contribute.

Here’s a non-exhaustive list of questions (both playful and deliberately disturbing) that I recommend professionals ask themselves when designing cultural projects for young people, in order to let go of any reservations they may have:

What are my preconceived ideas about young people’s digital practices?
Do I feel I have a “good culture” that’s better than the one they refer to?
Do I think social networks are dangerous for young people, and why?
How many times do I check my phone a day? Have I ever counted? Am I too addicted to digital communication?
Do I take care of my digital privacy, and how? Or not?
Do I feel that digital relationships (e-mail, social networks, videoconferencing, lives...) are dehumanizing?
Can I estimate how much time I spend in front of screens every day? Do “young people” spend more or less time than I do?
What are my qualitative evaluation criteria for cultural, educational or social projects for young people?
Can I be changed by a project with young people, or is it up to me to change them?
Have I ever co-constructed a project with young people, and how?
Have I ever shouted at young people, or been shouted at by them, and in what kind of situations?
Do I think it’s wrong to watch a film on a phone?
Am I sure that a cinema showing that young people are obliged to attend is preferable to a film they have freely chosen to watch illegally on the Internet?
Do I have a TV and do I turn it on? To watch what and for how long a day on average?
What value have I given to the digital productions (photos and videos) produced by my structure and by the young people who take part in projects? Where and how is this digital heritage stored, for how long and as part of a human storytelling strategy?

I encourage cultural professionals to dare to play this game of questioning - even if it’s an informal meeting of an hour every two months, between colleagues or partners - to share their practices and points of view concerning young people, and to engage in dialogue, without any stake in productivity, in order to gain mutual distance. This process of self-questioning is an important step towards changing the way in which cultural projects for young people are conceived with the various partners involved (institutional, cultural, social, artistic, educational), as well as working and cooperation methods. It’s by working differently that we’ll be able to produce something different.