Beyond Content: Social Media Interfaces as "Texts" in Critical Media Literacy

Abstract

The interface of a social networking service (SNS) plays a crucial role in shaping how users engage with and experience the platform (Suchman, 2007; Verbeek, 2015), influencing their interactions, self-expression, and social connections. However, young users may not always recognize interface elements—such as layout, colors, menus, buttons, infinite scrolling, autoplay, and notifications— and their potential influence on attention and engagement (Anderson and Wood, 2021). While media education initiatives frequently deconstruct media "texts" with young people, they largely focus on content-related issues such as misinformation, neglecting the impacts of interface design on perceptions and experiences. This study advocates for an expanded media literacy approach that considers interfaces as "texts" to be critically analyzed. Rooted in critical media literacy (Kellner and Share, 2005), this project aims to document adolescents' representations and experiences of social media interfaces and identify educational strategies promoting critical competences. Conducted in French-speaking Belgium, it adopts a design-based research method (Anderson & Shattuck, 2012) to create and evaluate an offline pedagogical activity. Initial focus groups with 35 adolescents aged 13–18 provided insights that shaped the activity's design, shedding light on young users' awareness of interface components, their potential role and effects, and their attitudes towards these design features. The prototype of the activity was tested in four schools. It combines semiotic approaches (Jewitt and Henriksen, 2016; Souchier, Candel and Gomez-Mejia, 2019) with experiential learning (Kolb, 2015), creating a game-based simulation where learners engage in speculative design (Willis and Anderson, 2013). This approach encourages students to analyze and (de)construct social media interfaces, reflecting on their production and reception contexts. Ultimately, this research calls for an expanded approach to media education that includes interface awareness as a key component of Digital Literacy.