Constructing Dysfunction: News Coverage of Teenagers and Social Media

Abstract

Cultural storytellers such as journalists play a meaningful role in shaping how adults think about the role that social media play in teenagers’ lives. To better assess what adults might be learning, we employed a critical, qualitative approach to examine how contemporary news media constructed cultural understandings of teens’ relationship with social media. Our analysis of 339 print and online news articles from 2013–2014 found that the news media constructed a mediated reality that placed dysfunction as the defining characteristic of teens’ relationship with social media. The news articles consistently positioned teenagers and social media as at odds with one another, entwined in an unhealthy, frequently dangerous union. Discussions of the self-expressive, creative, and communicative practices of teen social media users were undermined or absent altogether. Altogether, the coverage created a mediated reality that denied teenage agency and obscured the diversity of teenagers’ experiences and social media practices.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Susannah R. Stern

Susannah R. Stern (Ph.D., University of North Carolina, 2000) is a professor in the Department of Communication Studies at University of San Diego. Her research interests lie at the intersection of adolescence, identity development and media practice.

Sarah Burke Odland

Sarah Burke Odland (Ph.D., University of Iowa, 2005) is a Lecturer in the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado at Denver. Her research interests include gender, media, and critical studies.