Intergenerational Knowledge, Social Media, and the Composition Community: Insights and Inquiries (2021)

Keywords

social media composing, intergenerationalism, media literacy

Abstract

Social media has been a cornerstone of my professional life since before I formally entered my doctoral studies, but I never rushed to sign up for new platforms. I didn’t use Facebook until 2007, when I joined because a friend encouraged me to. I took even longer to create a Twitter account; in March 2016, I joined, once again because a professional peer highlighted its networking and informal professional development uses. I still maintain both accounts: Twitter as a mostly professional online space, Facebook as a hybrid space showing professional and personal interests. During my doctoral studies, my interest in social media deepened: such media became something I both researched and practiced in multiple contexts and capacities. In considering where we are in terms of intergenerational exchange, I want to use social media as a lens to read some of composition’s current fieldwide issues (as well as how those concerns might be intergenerational) by exploring four insights. I hope that, in doing so, we begin to determine what knowledge and pedagogies we hope to carry forward about these media and their place in the composition classroom.

Citation Information

Type of Source: Journal Article

Author: Amanda M. May

Year of Publication: 2021

Title:Intergenerational Knowledge, Social Media, and the Composition Community: Insights and Inquiries

Publication: Comp Studies 49(1)