Abstract

This article presents a critical account of one teen’s sense of audience as she enacted literacies on social media platforms and provides strategies that can inform the teaching of audience and purpose in ways responsive to teens’ digital literacies. Informed by case-study research and insights gained from interviewing, observing, and collecting digital artifacts, I discuss how Samirah X, a self-described teen actress and social justice advocate, engaged in writing practices on social media for three different main perceived audiences: cultural and racial community audience, socially conscious audience, and parental audience. Other sub-audiences from Samirah X’s case narrative are presented: audience as Black people, culture, and identity; audience as Black women and girls; and audience as Blacks who experience injustice and acts of violence. At the conclusion of this article, I provide implications for teaching English Language Arts focused on how social media work can fulfill state standards.

Journal
Written Communication
Published
2025-04-01
DOI
10.1177/07410883241303918
CompPile
Search in CompPile ↗
Open Access
Closed
Topics
Export

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

References (89) · 6 in this index

  1. Computers and Composition
  2. Parents, teens and digital monitoring
  3. Borderlands / La Frontera: The new Mestiza
  4. 10.1080/19313152.2018.1470434
  5. Bailey M. (2021). Misogynoir transformed: Black women’s digital resistance. University Press. https://doi.org…
Show all 89 →
  1. Barton R. Cappello M. (2023); Visualizing hope through Black children’s multimodal messages reflecting the mu…
  2. 10.1016/j.chb.2015.11.022
  3. Who’s afraid of critical race theory
    University of Illinois Law Review
  4. Contemporary rhetorical theory: A reader
  5. 10.1598/JAAL.49.2.4
  6. Research in the Teaching of English
  7. It’s Complicated: The social lives of networked teens
  8. Delgado Bernal D. Burciaga R. Flores Carmona J. (2012). Chicana/Latina testimonios: Mapping the methodologica…
  9. 10.1080/00405841.2016.1116852
  10. 10.1177/0042085916628611
  11. English Language Arts Standards. (2021). Common core state standards initiative. https://www.thecorestandards…
  12. 10.1007/s11528-019-00428-9
  13. 10.1080/17439884.2020.1773851
  14. Garcia A. Mirra N. (2021). Writing toward justice: Youth speculative civic literacies in online policy discou…
  15. Garcia A. Seglem R. Share J. (2013). Transforming teaching and learning through Critical Media Literacy Pedag…
  16. Educating for civic reasoning and discourse
  17. Garcia A. Mirra N. Morrell E. Martinez A. Scorza D. A. (2015). The council of youth research: Critical litera…
  18. Gerber H., Abrams S., Curwood J., Magnifico A. (2017). Conducting qualitative research of learning in online …
    Conducting qualitative research of learning in online spaces
  19. Golden N. A. (2017). “In a position I see myself in:” (Re)Positioning identities and culturally-responsive pe…
  20. 10.7709/jnegroeducation.85.3.0274
  21. 10.3102/0034654318794134
  22. Youth as content producers in a niche social network site
    New Directions in Youth Development: Theory, Research & Practice
  23. 10.1177/2372732219865290
  24. 10.1080/17439884.2015.1064954
  25. 10.7551/mitpress/9780262034470.001.0001
  26. Haddix M. (2009). Black boys can write: Challenging dominant framings of African American adolescent males in…
  27. 10.1002/jaal.474
  28. Haddix M. Sealey-Ruiz Y. (2012). Cultivating digital and popular literacies as empowering and emancipatory ac…
  29. Culturally sustaining pedagogies: Teaching and learning for justice in a changing world
  30. Research in the Teaching of English
  31. Kelly L. L. (2020). Exploring Black girls’ subversive literacies as acts of freedom. Journal of Literacy Rese…
  32. Harlem on our minds: Place, race, and the literacies of urban youth
  33. Adolescents’ online literacies: Connecting classrooms, media, and paradigms
  34. 10.1111/lit.12186
  35. 10.3102/00028312032003465
  36. 10.2307/748192
  37. Litt E. Hargittai E. (2016). The imagined audience on social network sites Social Media & Society 2(1) 1–12. …
  38. Engaging audience: Writing in an age of new literacies
  39. Magnifico A. (2010). Writing for whom? Cognition motivation and a writer’s audience Educational Psychologist …
  40. 10.1177/1461444810365313
  41. #OnlineLiteraciesMatter: A multi-case study approach of Black and Brown youths’ literacy …
  42. McDaniel D. (2023). Supporting justice-oriented English instruction through teens’ digital activist literacie…
  43. Qualitative research and case study applications in education
  44. 10.1111/0161-4681.00071
  45. 10.25159/0027-2639/1006
  46. Mirra N. Garcia A. (2017). Civic participation reimagined: Youth interrogation and innovation in the multimod…
  47. Mirra N. Garcia A. (2020). “I Hesitate but I Do Have Hope”: Youth speculative civic literacies for troubled t…
  48. 10.1002/rrq.313
  49. 10.1177/1086296X18784335
  50. Doing youth participatory action research: Transforming inquiry with researchers, educato…
  51. 10.1080/00405841.2021.1983316
  52. 10.1177/00317217221079976
  53. Educating for a critical democracy: Civic participation reimagined in the Council of Yout…
    Democracy and Education
  54. Cultivating genius: An equity model for culturally and historically responsive literacy
  55. 10.58680/ee201628670
  56. From pen to pin: The multimodality of Black girls (re)writing their lives
    Ubiquity: The Journal of Literature, Literacy, and the Arts
  57. 10.1080/2005615X.2017.1313020
  58. Patterson A. (2018). YouTube generated video clips as qualitative research data: One researcher’s reflections…
  59. 10.58680/ee201628671
  60. 10.1002/trtr.1398
  61. 10.4324/9780429244391
  62. Price-Dennis D. Holmes K. Smith E. E. (2016). “I Thought We Were Over This Problem”: Explorations of Race in/…
  63. The multiple identities and literacies of Black girlhood: A conversation about creating s…
    Journal of Language and Literacy Education
  64. Advancing racial literacies in teacher education: Activism for equity in digital spaces
  65. Literature as exploration
  66. Shrodes A. (2022). “SAME GURL”: Political feeling in LGBTQ+ digital composing. Journal of Literacy Research 5…
  67. Storytime: Young children’s literary understanding in the classroom
  68. 10.1080/00131940903480233
  69. 10.1080/1554480X.2011.579048
  70. 10.1177/0042085911398920
  71. 62nd yearbook of the literacy research association
  72. 10.1177/107780040200800103
  73. Solórzano D. G. Yosso T. J. (2002b). Critical race methodology: Counter-storytelling as an analytical framewo…
  74. Written Communication
  75. The art of case study research
  76. 10.3102/0091732X16687973
  77. 10.58680/ee202332697
  78. Research in the Teaching of English
  79. Latina/o ethnicities, critical race theory, and post-identity politics in postmodern lega…
    Berkeley La Raza Law Journal
  80. Written Communication
  81. 10.1598/JAAL.50.4.3
  82. Case study research: Design and methods
  83. 10.1080/1361332052000341006
  84. Critical race counterstories along the Chicana/Chicano educational pipeline