Migrant Youths’ Authoring of Self(ves) Through New Media

• In Event: Identity, Agency, and Voice: Immigrant Resilient Practices Across Diverse Contexts

Abstract

This paper examines how migrant youth author complex identities in new media space, drawing on their transnational experiences and marked differences as resources rather than deficiency. The ecological model of human development (Bronfenbrenner, 2005) and new literacy studies (Gee, 2010; Kress, 2000) inform this study to locate the multiply-nested, and often intersecting life contexts of migrant youths and their multimodal literacy practices in new media space. Specifically the study examines how Korean migrant youths make use of new media to construct and articulate their identities across multiple spaces that are local, global, and transnational.
Using an ethnographic case study approach over six months (Leander & McKim, 2003; Orellana, Reynolds, Dorner, & Mesa, 2003), this study analyzes multiple data sources including semi-structured interviews, informal conversations, literacy texts across online and offline contexts (school assignments, home literacy works, videos, PPTs, Prezis, digital blogs), and identity maps of four Korean migrant youths. A grounded theory approach was used for the analysis of interview transcripts and traditional literacy texts (Corbin & Strauss, 1990). For identity maps and media literacy practices, the study drew on the concepts of ‘design’ (Kress, 2000) and ‘curatorship’ (Potter, 2012) to look at the ways in which youths created and communicated meanings, and potentially their identities, by incorporating diverse modes of texts.
Three main themes that emerged from the analysis include: (1) Relevance to life contexts – new media use was the most salient when the purpose resonated with their life contexts. In these contexts, new media was the essential tool for youths to explore their interests, to expand social relationships with family and friends beyond the spatio-temporal limitations, and to share their perspectives with both local and transnational audiences. (2) Resistance to social categories – youths were highly aware of their ‘marked’ identities, particularly as ‘Asian’ and non-citizen. However, youths developed ways to counteract these unwanted identifications with new media literacy practices; either by choosing to hide their visible identities and actively participate in online communities of shared interests, or by positively advocating such marked identities by drawing on the culture, language, and history of their home country. (3) Re-presentation of identities – new media allowed youths a creative third space where they articulated rich, complex identities to diverse audiences, which was reflected in the way they engaged with various cultural topics, language modes, and media tools often in hybrid forms. The “curatorship” (Potter, 2012) of identities reflected in these practices indicate the resilience and agency of migrant youths in managing the complexity of their transnational and glocalized (both globally and locally mediated) identities. Above all, new media provided youths with opportunities to “author the self(ves)” (Merchant, 2006) in diverse contexts. The authoring process was meaningfully facilitated through youths’ awareness of, and connection with the audience to whom youths made and represented different stories of their complex identities. The study presents educational implications in terms of how to bridge youths’ authorship using new media with literacy education in school.

Author

• Sujin Kim, University of Missouri