Social media saturates contemporary society. Reflexively, social media is a tangible and constantly updated representation of society. Social media acts an ideal site to examine the manifestation of social issues. It is also a space where everyone has power to contribute, positively or negatively. Because youth today are so inundated with this technology, it is of great importance that schools help orient critically receptive and actively engaged attitudes toward social media use. Equipping students will the skills to read social media as text representing society, as well as a sense of responsibility to leverage social media technology as a means to connect, discuss, collaborate, and engage, is of utmost importance.
Twitter is a particularly unique and powerful social media platform for critical media analysis and community engagement. Its impact on adolescent development is both positive and negative. Cognitively, it reinforces trends of shortening attention span by limiting posts to 140 characters. Such a condensed information-streaming platform encourages the type of blindly receptive behavior that plagues social media use. However, Twitter has great potential to have a positive impact on adolescent identity development. Twitter widens range of social influences that contribute to identity development. Furthermore, twitter users have the ability to curate these influences to suit and shape their developing identities. In this way, twitter also provides a community for aspects of an individual’s identity that may not be supported in the school or social setting. Twitter also acts as a news source, allowing users to follow news outlets, social movements, etc. This exposes adolescents to information they otherwise might not have sought out or received.
While Twitter has many benefits for personal use, it can also be used as a tool in the classroom. Traditional texts reflect society in specific ways. However, they address a limited scope of issues and become easily outdated. Using Twitter as a text for building critical social literacy though media studies avoids these problems. Twitter is constantly updated and reacts to issues in the immediate social context of those studying it. By using Twitter as text students are much more able to see the connection between text and society, allowing students to readily identify social issues. In traditional schooling, responses to social issues in text could only be abstract. By incorporating Twitter into pedagogy students can exercise their agency as members of the community, voicing their ideas, supporting movements, and contributing support to trends with positive social impact. This social-actualization piece is something nearly impossible to achieve through traditional teaching methods.
It is of the utmost importance that students actualize the learning outcomes of school in their everyday lives. Such action solidifies learning in powerful ways, and prepares adolescents to be actively engaged members of their community. Twitter gives adolescents a place to actualize learned ideas about community engagement. In physical community engagement initiatives the contributions of adolescents are not always welcome or respected. Online, these distinctions do not matter. This modality gives teachers a tool to help students identify their social issues through critical media analysis. It also gives students a space to act on individual social responsibilities that result from a students identification social issues exigent to his identity or community.
To demonstrate how the above discussion can be implemented in practice I provide an example activity that would be greatly beneficial for adolescent learners:
There have been many social movements that began as a hash-tag and gained traction by trending on Twitter. Many such movements involve race, religion, sexual orientation, and other aspects of identity. Examples include #blacklivesmatter, #alllivesmatter, and #I’llridewithyou. Many hashtags exist that create communities of discourse and action for individuals committed to specific causes. Examples of these hashtags can be found in the following link: http://www.socialbrite.org/2010/09/08/40-hashtags-for-social-good/.
By examining the stories behind hashtags such as #blacklivesmatter or “I’llridewithyou, and their social impact, students gain an understanding of the way social media can tangibly influence society by highlighting problems, rallying support behind them, and providing the impetus for solutions. In groups, students would then use Twitter to identify social problems, or react to social problems in their community, and compose a tweet and accompanying hash tag in reaction to those issues. Such an activity allows students to exercise skills in critical media literacy, as well as skills in community engagement for social justice.
Adam, I think you bring up a lot of really valid points regarding the influence of Twitter in students’ lives. First and foremost, I appreciate how you outright acknowledge that students will be exposed to both positive and negative feedback within this realm, paralleling it to any sort of real life exposure; in providing students with full disclosure during their adolescence, letting them know that they will be confronted with both positive and negative feedback, you, as an educator, are seasoning them for their futures in higher education and eventually the workplace (Twitter being their tutorials). Obviously one would have to be sensitive in this presentation, given the fragile age and disposition of adolescent learners, and I think you pay appropriate mind to such.
Furthermore, I think the next crucial point you address is the attention to honing writing craft via Twitter. The concision of craft required in the Twitter domain is interesting to note, and the limitation of 140 characters mandates attention to word choice, thus encouraging students to pack power and punch to their statements. This prepares them not only for college essay writing (consider the Common App and supplementary character limitation requirements), but also for writing for quality and not quantity. Also, this helps hone in on meaning rather than unnecessary flourish for the ELA teacher teaching writing; rather than emphasizing unnecessary adjectives, the teacher can help students reach impact writing. As you said, this can contribute toward writing for a meaning, thus helping engender social awareness in students.
Finally, I just want to actualize everything you wrote about by applying it to something I saw in the classroom today. Today was national writing day, celebrated on Twitter with the hashtag #writeaboutit. At my field work placement, the students “celebrated” national writing day by formulating their own tweets (on paper) about why they write to post around the school. Before writing these tweets, we asked these sixth grade students to tell us why they tweet. They gave us various reasons, all covered in your critique, ranging from, “it gives me a voice,” to “I like to write my thoughts,” to “it helps me make a change.” Then they actually wrote their tweets, and though they struggled with the actual implementation of writing on paper, I saw the execution of everything you wrote, Adam. These students learned a great deal from the act of tweeting; not only do they learn about their own identities, their routines, and their actions, but they also feel that in recording their views about injustices (in any forms), they can invoke change.