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- 'I am not being sponsored to say this': a teen youtuber and her audience negotiate branded contentPublication . Jorge, Ana; Marôpo, Lidia; Nunes, ThaysThe field of microcelebrity is increasingly monetised, professionalised, and institutionalised, with the growing recognition of content creators as social media influencers. This article looks at the integration of branded content within youth digital culture, where participatory possibilities for self-expression are more and more entwined with consumer culture. It seeks to discuss how digital producers understand brand culture and how audiences negotiate the meanings of the commercialism inserted in their content. We look at the case of SofiaBBeauty, a successful young Portuguese youtuber, who has been vlogging since she was 12. The article analyses her association with brands in 12 videos in 2017 (vlog, haul, giveaway, Q&A, first impression, etc.), and the comments by the users showing acceptance and appraisal of, negotiation, or criticism towards, the brand and/or the youtuber. We explore the way Sofia connects her self-presentation with products/brands to appear close to her young audiences, and brands her persona as she is growing up to adulthood; how she presents her commercial recommendations as genuine and pregnant with affect, and whether the audience accepts it or not; as well as how she positions herself in the global YouTube community of practice, where connection with brands aggrandizes her persona in the eyes of the audience. Sofia's videos create a post-feminist subject where consumption is articulated with independence, capability, and empowerment (Banet-Weiser, 2011), while engaging her audiences in a commodification process (Berryman & Kavka, 2017).
- Social media, interrupted: users recounting temporary disconnection on InstagramPublication . Jorge, AnaThis article looks at the discourses of Instagram users about interrupting the use of social or digital media, through hashtags such as “socialmediadetox,” “offline,” or “disconnecttoreconnect.” We identified three predominant themes: posts announcing or recounting voluntary interruption, mostly as a positive experience associated to regaining control over time, social relationships, and their own well-being; others actively campaigning for this type of disconnection, attempting to convert others; and disconnection as a lifestyle choice, or marketing products by association with disconnection imaginary. These discourses reproduce other public discourses in asserting the self-regulation of the use of social media as a social norm, where social media users are responsible for their well-being and where interruption is conveyed as a valid way to achieve that end. They also reveal how digital disconnection and interruption is increasingly reintegrated on social media as lifestyle, in cynical and ironic ways, and commodified and co-opted by businesses, benefiting from—and ultimately contributing to—the continued economic success of the platform. As Hesselberth, Karppi, or Fish have argued in relation to other forms of disconnection, discourses about Instagram interruptions are thus not transformative but restorative of the informational capitalism social media are part of.
- Ferramentas jornalísticas na educação: uma rádio online para jovensPublication . Brites, Maria José; Santos, Sílvio Correia; Jorge, Ana; Catalão, DanielThe relationship between journalism and education remains in a yet weakly explored camp, although journalism can embody a pedagogical tool, oriented to the practice of journalistic concepts and techniques. In this article, we explore a case-study of an online radio developed with youth communities, using participant observation, interviews and focus groups conducted in the scope of the project RadioActive Europe (2013-14). We argue that these young participants take similar roles in daily life and particularly in school to those used in contexts of radio participation. Learning through action, however, implies long lasting intervention processes so that the transposal of roles taken up in the project may be more perennial, dynamic and fluid in the personal life processes.
- Media education competitions: an efficient strategy for digital literacies?Publication . Pereira, Luis; Jorge, Ana; Brites, Maria JoséIn this paper we present results from research in Portugal about competitions in schools that involve digital education (2010-2015). The aim of this study is to discuss its effectiveness as a strategy for developing Media Education. The 16 activities we have collected are mostly targeted at the school population and show an emphasis on media production, a dimension that is often not considered part of formal learning, which is more focused on reading than on writing. The results lead us to raise questions about the importance of non-formal education. Interestingly, most of these initiatives have been designed to take place in the school context and are, in various ways, supported by the Ministry of Education, a situation which blurs the boundaries between formal and non-formal learning. The analysis of the data leads us to this specific recommendation: these initiatives should be formally evaluated in order to understand their real impact on the acquisition of news media education skills.
- EditorialPublication . García-Jimenez, Antonio; Jorge, Ana
- Book review of Van der Graaf, S. (2018). ComMODify: user creativity at the intersection of commerce and community. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Publication . Jorge, AnaThis book by Shenja Van der Graaf offers a detailed study to investigate user participation in a platform of the software industry, crucially a “firm-hosted platform that thrives on user participation and creativity” (p. 16). The author, currently a Senior Researcher at imec-SMIT of Vrije Universiteit in Brussels, seeks to address the gap in existing scholarship on user-participation which “has tended to be based frequently on intuitive claims about user participation” (p. 9). The research focuses on modding, an abbreviation for the practice of modifying a game by a developer. In looking at Second Life as the main case, this work “tells a story of content creation, connectivity and commodification between the developer firm and user communities indicative of tensions such as those about exploitation and privacy we are currently facing online associated with the transition from user-based to market-based platforms like Facebook” (p. 3).
- Mummy influencers and professional sharentingPublication . Jorge, Ana; Marôpo, Lidia; Coelho, Ana Margarida; Novello, LiaSharenting (sharing parenting on social media) has become a widespread activity, and some of those parents become family influencers. Female influencers have been on the rise, partly as an alternative to the precariousness of the job market. This article presents a qualitative study on 11 Portuguese mummy and family influencers, analysing social media content observed throughout 2.5 years, as well as media discourses on them. It focuses on how these female content creators portray parenting and family, work–life balance as an influencer and their boundaries for privacy and intimacy. It demonstrates how prominent mummy influencers reproduce a neoliberal ethos which favours an individual management of reconciling motherhood and a career in the context of post-austerity and precarity, through an emotional discourse that promotes relatability with the audience, converted into an essentially consumerist agenda.
- RadioActive101-Learning through radio, learning for life: an international approach to the inclusion and non-formal learning of socially excluded young peoplePublication . Ravenscroft, Andrew; Dellow, J.; Brites, Maria José; Jorge, A.; Catalão, DanielThis article describes an original international approach to inclusion and non-formal learning of socially excluded young people, through participatory internet radio - RadioActive101. First, we critically discuss the social and digital exclusion of young people. We then describe our approach - that includes participatory action research methods that are influenced by the work of Dewey and Freire, and operate as a process of complex intervention. This supports the inclusive co-production of radio content in ways that support non-formal learning in two EU contexts–the UK and Portugal. We then summarise and compare a qualitative investigation of RadioActive101. This showed positive results, with important similarities and differences between the two contexts. Participants reported that RadioActive101 was motivating and contributed to the development of contemporary skills, and also stimulated improvements in psychosocial dimensions such as confidence (self-efficacy) and self-esteem. This investigation informed the development of an original recognition system for non-formal learning that maps EU Key Competences for Lifelong Learning to radio practices and activities that are recognised through electronic badges. Our reflections emphasise that in order to support the non-formal learning of socially excluded young people we must foreground our attention to fostering psychosocial dimensions alongside developing contemporary competences.