Co-Constructing Contemporary Media Environments and Black Academic Identities

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 13
  In Roundtable Session: Media Practices and/as Identity Work

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the specific ways that Black adolescents use multiple forms of media and technology to co-construct their academic identities. Through the use of grounded theory, I deployed multiple methods to understand Black youth’s day-to-day engagements with media (film, television, and social media), and how they interpret the information they interact with. The research question that guided this study asked: In what ways do Black adolescents construct their academic identities through their engagements with Black representations in multiple forms of media? The results helped generate a framework which was titled Media Co-constructed Black Academic Identities (MCBAI).

Author

• Josh Schuschke, Johns Hopkins University