Developing an Ethics of Youth Media Production Using Media Literacy, Identity, & Modality

Abstract

This critical, theoretical paper conceptualizes what determines an ethics for youth media production. Through discussions of media literacy, identity, and multimodality, I attempt to shift the question away from “What are the ethical ways in which youth use media?” toward the question “What are the ethics we have created as media literacy educators within which youth create media?” I assert that we must widen our lens to revision ethics as a complex interplay of definitions of media literacy, representations of youth identities, and understandings of modality as we move toward envisioning what constitutes an ethics of youth media production.