More than 30 years since Hannah Arendt's death in 1975 at the age of 69, her novel theory of the public realm continues to attract attention and debate. In this article, the author contributes to this discussion by drawing on Arendt's theory of public life to investigate the space of youth media production in relation to questions of democratic habituation. Arendt is not typically thought of in relation to youth or media, but her concern for the nature of public acts, and for the way such acts expand people's lives by producing worldliness, offers a powerful framework for thinking about teenagers' media production work. The author introduces Arendt's thinking on the public realm and then uses her framework to examine the complex experiences of youth video production mentors involved in a summer digital media program located in Vancouver, Canada. The author situates a review of the youths' experiences in Summer Stories in relation to the development of what Henry Jenkins (2006a, 2006b) calls a culture of participation in contemporary Western societies. The author notes that while such a culture would appear to offer youth more opportunities than ever to produce their own cultural expressions, this does not mean such expressions are free of disciplinary practices that regulate and limit youth conduct. The author provides examples to support this argument and then turns to the experiences of youth mentors in Summer Stories. Through these experiences, the author indicates how and when production work nurtures democratic habits by fostering what Arendt contends is central to public life, that is, a form of thinking that is responsive to others, to the fact that people are all part of a shared world. (Contains 4 notes.)