Teens define media

Melissa Paredes, a 16-year-old in Lompoc, Calif., maintains a Web site where she posts her own poetry and pictures and shares music. So when she was mourning her stepfather, David Grabowski, earlier this year,
she reflexively channeled her grief into a multimedia tribute. Using images she collected and scanned from photo albums, she created an online slide show, taking visitors on a virtual tour of Grabowski's life -- as a toddler, as a young man, at work. A collage of the photographs, titled "David Bruce Grabowski, 1966-2005," closes the memorial. "It helped me a lot," Melissa said in an instant message, the standard method of communication among millions of American
teenagers who, according to a study released Wednesday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, are fast becoming some of the most nimble and prolific creators of digital content online. For all of its poignant catharsis, Melissa's digital eulogy is also a story of the modern teenager. Using the cheap digital tools that now help chronicle the comings and goings of everyday life -- cell phone cameras, iPods,
laptops and user-friendly Web editing software -- teenagers like Melissa are pushing content onto the Internet as naturally as they view it. "At the market level, this means old business models are in upheaval," said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew project. "At the legal level, this means the definition of property is up for grabs. And at the social level, it means that millions of those inspired to create
have a big new platform with which they shape our culture.
Source: Tom Zeller Jr., The New York Times via CNET news.com