Qualitative Research on Youths' Social Media Use: a Review
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Middle Grades Review Volume 4 | Issue 2 Article 4 September 2018 Qualitative Research on Youths’ Social Media Use: A review of the literature Mardi Schmeichel University of Georgia, [email protected] Hilary E. Hughes University of Georgia, [email protected] Mel Kutner University of Georgia, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/mgreview Part of the Education Commons Recommended Citation Schmeichel, Mardi; Hughes, Hilary E.; and Kutner, Mel (2018) "Qualitative Research on Youths’ Social Media Use: A review of the literature," Middle Grades Review: Vol. 4 : Iss. 2 , Article 4. Available at: https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/mgreview/vol4/iss2/4 This Research is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Education and Social Services at ScholarWorks @ UVM. It has been accepted for inclusion in Middle Grades Review by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks @ UVM. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Schmeichel et al.: Qualitative Research on Youths' Social Media Use Qualitative Research on Youths’ Social Media Use: A Review of the Literature Mardi Schmeichel, University of Georgia Hilary E. Hughes, University of Georgia Mel Kutner, University of Georgia Abstract In this article we explore how educational researchers report empirical qualitative research about young people’s social media use. We frame the overall study with an understanding that social media sites contribute to the production of neoliberal subjects, and we draw on Foucauldian discourse theories and the understanding that how researchers explain topics and concepts produces particular ways of thinking about the world while excluding others. Findings include that: 1) there is an absence of attention to the structure and function of social media platforms; 2) adolescents are positioned in problematic, developmental ways; and 3) the over-representation of girls and young women in these studies contributes to the feminization of problems on social media. We conclude by calling for future research that can serve as a robust resource for exploring adolescents’ social media use in more productive, nuanced ways. INTRODUCTION contexts described in these studies. The concept of what social media use “is” was operationalized The life of social media platforms has been in a wide variety of ways, and perhaps as a relatively short, but attention to this domain of result, the study designs and the social media technology and its impact on youth and youth behaviors captured and analyzed varied widely. culture is at the forefront of scholars’ research Further, the social media literature citations that agendas across multiple disciplines. authors used to situate the studies were Additionally, there has been a constant stream of inconsistent, in the sense that they did not trace advice, concern, and reporting about youths’ back to a set of foundational texts. Overall, the social media practices in popular culture qualitative literature in which the studies were discourses (e.g., Dunkley, 2017; Heitner, 2017; grounded reflected a disparate set of ideas, Mastroianni, 2016; Whitson, 2017). Based on purposes, and theories. findings from two of the authors’ previous work on social media (Author 1, Author 2), we began While a great deal of attention is paid to youths’ preparing for a qualitative study to explore how engagement with popular media, we wondered and why youth engage with social media and the what the pattern of divergent studies we found consequences of those practices for youth and might mean for other academics and educators for society. who turn to research to explore and understand this phenomenon. These concerns led us to The research presented in this article postpone our current study in order to first germinated from our initial literature review of conduct an analytical review of the qualitative the existing research on young people’s social research that attends to youths’ social media use. media use. We were surprised both by what we After describing our theoretical framework and found, and even more, what we did not find in methodological processes below, we present the literature. We realized from the start, for three salient findings from our analysis that example, that there were considerably more reflect the ways in which the neoliberal framing quantitative research studies than qualitative of youth and a constrained understanding of studies. Perhaps more importantly, we found social media are reproduced through this that within the qualitative research literature, literature. We then discuss suggested there was not a coherent pattern in the way considerations for future research focusing on researchers described adolescents’ social media youths’ social media use. use. By this we mean that there was not a consistent set of behaviors, conditions, or Published by ScholarWorks @ UVM, 2018 1 Middle Grades Review, Vol. 4, Iss. 2 [2018], Art. 4 Theoretical Frameworks Taking up this Foucauldian concept regarding discourse, we sought to understand how the We frame the overall study with an language researchers use contributes to the understanding that social media sites contribute maintenance of particular discourses through to the production of neoliberal subjects. This the continual citation of particular versions of critical perspective of social media as a meaning and understandings. Our analyses of technology of neoliberalism relies heavily on the research literature involved paying close media studies theorists (e.g., Gill, 2007, 2008, attention to the language used to describe social 2016; McRobbie, 2009) who foreground media and youth in order to trace the discourses neoliberalism as a factor shaping media uses. present in the discussions. In doing so, we Within this work, neoliberalism is understood as explored how these descriptions might shape a discursive and material force that extends the readers’ perceptions of youths’ social media logic of the market to aspects of social life practices, and how they might limit the ways in previously not subjected to economic rationales which young people’s social media behaviors (Foucault, 2008). In other words, were framed in the literature. In the analysis entrepreneurial motivations are understood to that follows, we describe patterns in the data extend to all conduct and “interpellate that described youths’ social media behaviors in individuals as entrepreneurial actors in every certain ways, and not others, and consider how sphere of life” (Brown, 2005, p. 42). In this these themes might contribute to shaping ideas sense, a wide variety of human behavior, of what is “normal” and “common sense” about including social media use, is seen to be driven young people’s social media use. by interests and rationales informed by economic concepts, like “value”, “efficiency”, and Data Collection “branding.” Research drawing on analyses of the intersection of neoliberalism and social media Our research team began by searching for peer- offers valuable tools to examine the causes and reviewed research focusing on social media and consequences of the introduction and explosion youth in four education databases: Education of social media technologies over the last several Research Complete, Educational Administration decades. Abstracts, ERIC, and PsycINFO. We used several filters to shape our initial search. First, we Within this larger neoliberal framing of the limited the search to articles published since study, we also drew on Foucauldian discourse 2007 to focus on social media platforms that are theories and the understanding that how in current use (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, researchers explain topics and concepts Snapchat, etc.). Further, we used age specific produces particular ways of thinking about the descriptors (e.g., “youth,” “tweens,” world while excluding others. As Mills (2004) “adolescents,” “middle school students,” “high describes, Foucauldian-influenced research school students”) to identify research targeting positions “discourse as something which our focus on youth. Finally, we eliminated non- produces something else (an utterance, a peer reviewed research and articles not concept, and effect), rather than something published in English. This initial search yielded which exists in and of itself” (p. 15). Specifically, 744 results. language contributes to the production of discursive structures which “have effects on We then undertook four rounds of review. In the ways of thinking and behaving” (Mills, 2004, p. first round, our goal was to identify studies that 15). As such, the productive power of language used qualitative research methods and focused does not lie within the meaning of the words, but on adolescents. As qualitative researchers in through the potential of language to plug into education concerned with how adolescents are systems of understanding that produce meaning, constructed and constrained in popular culture form subjects, and regulate conduct (MacLure, discourses and research literature, our primary 2003). In other words, the language we use as interest was in analyzing how other qualitative qualitative researchers to situate our work and researchers were framing studies of young frame our findings does not stay bound within people’s use of social media in education the published document; rather, it contributes to journals. At least one member of the research already existing discourses that produce team read each abstract to determine the particular understandings and obscure others. methodology and