How social media discourses organize communication online: a multi-level discursive analysis of tensions and contradictions in teens’ online experiences

Abstract

Media reports frequently frame youth as foolish but also uniquely vulnerable when it comes to social media. However, adult framings of teen online activities and teens’ reported experiences regularly differ due to the privileging of adult concerns. In this paper, we take a youth-centered approach to teen online activities exploring the constitutive processes of social media and the micro-, meso-, and macro-level discourses associated with youth social media use. Through in-depth interviews with 55 culturally and socio-economically diverse young people, we examine the contradictions and tensions that organize teens’ experiences online, as well as the discursive resources they draw on to navigate online life. Our research showcases a multi-level discursive analysis that enables scholars to see how discourses intertwine to organize communication online, foregrounding theoretical implications about how young people resist and reify certain discourses about social media, as well as how identity and imagined audiences are maintained online.