Author ORCID Identifier
0000-0001-8367-4358
Date of Award
5-12-2023
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Middle-Secondary Education and Instructional Technology
First Advisor
Michelle Zoss, Ph.D. (Co-Chair)
Second Advisor
Gholnecsar Muhammad, Ph.D. (Co-Chair)
Third Advisor
Jennifer Esposito Norris, Ph.D.
Fourth Advisor
Charity Gordon, Ph.D.
Fifth Advisor
Detra Price-Dennis, Ph.D.
Abstract
The purpose of this qualitative case study was to understand the ways in which Black girls between the ages of 13 and 18 leveraged social media to address sociopolitical issues relevant to their lives within a digital literacy collaborative. This study drew upon Black feminist-womanism theories to unpack how the girls’ digital content creating on social media shifted during their time in the program, how they addressed sociopolitical issues through their content, and the composing processes instrumental to their digital content creating via social media. As forerunners in digital content creating, it appears that Black youth, particularly Black girls are drawing upon social media as a public platform to engage in sociopolitical transformation and that their literary practices appear to bear resemblance to Black women writers of the past. In order to learn more about adolescent Black girls’ digital content creating, I hosted a digital literacy collaborative where each session served as a space to learn about the importance of digital content creating to the girls’ lives. Data sources from these sessions included pre-program and post-program interviews, participants’ digital content, screen recordings, and think alouds which were analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings from this study revealed that throughout the digital literacy collaborative, the girls in this study gradually saw their social media platforms as an additional space for their sociopolitical engagement. Their sociopolitical engagement on social media consisted of bring awareness to the issues of importance to them and fostering conversations amongst their viewers. As the girls created content, their composing process was recursive. This study has the potential to assist literacy scholars, educators, and others to better understand the literacies Black girls draw upon during this specific social time to articulate their epistemologies, ideologies, and visions of the future.
Recommended Citation
Mosley, LaTasha T., "Beyond the Screen: An Exploration of Black Girls' Social Media Content as Dialogue." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2023.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/35534983
DOI
https://doi.org/10.57709/35534983
File Upload Confirmation
1