The Digital Edge. S. Craig Watkins

fashioned a social gaming network that was completely separate from their life and peers at school. After participating in a summer design project Diego developed a fascination with game authoring software and online tutorials related to building gaming computers. In these and other instances, students adopted social media to cultivate interests and identities that were not rooted in their local peer cultures.

      One of the hallmark features of the social media landscape is the formation of participatory cultures, defined by Jenkins et al. as “a culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression … strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices.”28 The Internet has certainly expanded the ways in which affinity groups connect with and engage each other. Digital formations of participatory culture are marked by distributed expertise, collective intelligence, and the creation and circulation of media content. Proponents of participatory culture point to the rise of social and creative milieus in which members believe that their contributions matter and they also feel a connection to one another. Participatory cultures are rich in social capital insofar as they reinforce reciprocity and community.

      Throughout our fieldwork we repeatedly encountered instances of students who were reluctant to share their creative work or ideas related to a particular domain of interest in the context of online participatory communities. This is a noteworthy discovery insofar as the sharing of creative content in communities that offer feedback, support, and the opportunity to cultivate a more dynamic online social network is widely regarded as an era-defining feature of today’s media and cultural landscape. Why were Freeway students reluctant to circulate their creative work in online participatory cultures? Students offered a mix of reasons.

      In some instances, students were uncertain about the quality of their creative work and how it might be received. Students also expressed concern about Internet trolls and mean-spirited comments that can diminish the desire to share creative work. After he posted two videos in which he was playing the guitar, Diego was greeted by a troll who called it “the worst piece of guitar playing s@!t I have ever seen. You should be embarrassed to post this.” Diego’s response included a couple of expletives of his own. Though not advisable, his retort was certainly understandable. As far as we know he never shared anything else in a context like this again during our time in the school.

      We speculate that robust involvement in participatory culture is mediated by the many dimensions of cultural capital such as in-group knowledge, familiarity with community norms and communication styles, and reputation. For instance, in-group knowledge about a specific technology, platform, skill, or interest facilitates entry into and engagement in a participatory community. Moreover, members of participatory cultures develop shared vocabulary and understandings that define community norms and facilitate communication and the exchange of ideas. Finally, engagement in participatory culture is also shaped by reputation and recognition. Effective participation through the sharing of content or feedback establishes an individual’s social status and influence within the community.

      Participatory cultures certainly foster inclusion and engagement. But participatory cultures also create the conditions for exclusion and disengagement, making it more difficult for some to cultivate the knowledge, cultural fluency, and status that are requisites for effective participation. What are the implications of this exclusion? Owing to their limited engagement in participatory cultures, many Freeway students were unable to expand and diversify their social networks beyond their peers at school, which limited opportunities to deepen their expertise, cultivate cultural fluency and status, and enrich their capacity to circulate their creative work among a wider milieu of content creators. Whatever their reasons for not actively engaging online participatory cultures, the impact was clear: Freeway students were much less likely to benefit from the feedback, support, and network-building capacity that are often generated.

      Teens, Social Media, and Pop Culture

      Popular culture was also a key driver in the social media practices among Freeway students. While considerable attention has focused on matters like the increase in screen time and media consumption, teen social media practices also enable new modes of identity work and expressive culture.

      Freeway students coveted social media and mobile devices because they offer an unfettered path to games, videos, and music. Social and mobile media also offer teens opportunities to explore their creative aspirations and new notions of self. As with previous generations of teens, for example, pop music was a central force in the lives of Freeway students. Music is central to the identities and communities that teens carefully construct and serves many different purposes—social, psychological, political—in their lives.29 Social media remakes the pop music rituals of teens in a variety of ways. In their engagement with social media, teens make meaningful social and psychological investments in music artists, genres, and narratives that reflect their desires, sensibilities, and aspirations.

      No matter where they were in school—in class, in the hallways, hanging out with friends—Freeway students always seemed to be plugged into music via their mobile devices and earbuds. At Freeway, students followed their favorite bands and music artists through social media. Gabriella maintained a separate Twitter account just to coordinate her music interests. She enjoyed getting updates from the bands that she follows and hearing excerpts of their songs. Selena and Amina both posted lyrics they favored on Twitter. Users of Tumblr covered their walls with images and lyrics from their favorite artists. Fans of rap music used social media channels to explore hip hop’s digital underground, a creative world bustling with mix tapes (i.e., original rhymes accompanied with elaborate remixes of popular songs and beats), homemade videos, and constant social media chatter about culture, politics, and the mundane aspects of everyday life.30

      Some students also developed customized media channels to coordinate their personal investments in pop music. In instances like these, teens took to social media to curate their own pop music interests and experiences. Kyle was among a handful of students in our sample who used YouTube as a music media destination. Music-related content on YouTube was a source of creative inspiration for him and the hip hop band that he experimented with. Many aspiring musicians and bands have adopted YouTube as a channel for sharing their music in hopes of connecting directly with audiences.

      Sergio also used YouTube as his very own personal music platform. He visited the world’s biggest online video site every day, in part, to discover new bands. Sergio subscribed to nearly three hundred music channels, “mainly like independent musicians or bands who are promoting themselves on YouTube,” he told us. Students adopted YouTube to watch music videos, follow their favorite music artists, and build a community around their music-based affinities and identities. In 2014, Google moved to convert these kinds of music-driven interests and practices into a formal and more viable music streaming channel and revenue source called YouTube Music Key.31

      Whereas corporate radio and pop culture brands like MTV were once the undisputed gatekeepers of teen pop music interests and identities, teens are immersed in a steady and fluid stream of social media interactions that are profoundly transforming the traditional flows of power and influence in the pop culture landscape. Corporate media remains powerful, but the intensity of its influence has been subtly and steadily altered by the practices and relationships enabled by social media. Many bands, especially upstart and indie artists, view social media as an opportunity to fashion their creative identity and connect directly with fans. Moreover, fans view social media as an opportunity to connect with each other and fashion their own distinct identities, communities, and sensibilities. Social media channels are just as likely as traditional media channels to influence teen pop music interests, tastes, and consumption. Among other things, shifts like these allow black and Latino teens to assert greater control over which media they consume, thus serving to bring greater diversity to the stories and storytellers they encounter in pop culture.

      Pop culture is also a vital terrain of cultural capital for teens. It is a primary resource in the acquisition of in-group prestige and status.32