I presented this talk to counselors and educators for an independent school district in Texas. It was intended to provide a contextual understanding of teens' digital media practices by situating them within historical and developmental contexts. The primary purpose was to demonstrate the need for adults and youth-focused institutions to support the development of digital media literacies. Rather than taking a "don't take any risks" approach or a "media are dangerous approach", this talk focuses on the positive ways young people engage with digital media for the purposes of identity exploration, socialization, learning, creativity, and autonomy. Developing digital media literacies, including network and social literacies, empowers students to actively and responsibly participate in the creation of their own media ecologies.

1. Dr. Jacqueline Ryan Vickery, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Radio, Television, & Film
College of Arts & Sciences
University of North Texas
Email: jacqueline.vickery@unt.edu
Twitter: @JacVick
Faculty: rtvf.unt.edu
Personal: jvickery.com

3. B.A. in Communication, 2006
University of Oklahoma

5. M.A. in Media Studies, 2008
Ph.D. in Media Studies, 2012
University of Texas

6. Tenure-Track Research Professor
University of North Texas
2012-current

8. Associated Researcher
The Digital Edge
clrn.dmlhub.net

10. Worth the Risk: The Role of
Regulations and Norms in Shaping
Teens’ Digital Media Practices

11. In Her Own Words: Analyzing Girls’ Identities, Communities, and
Cultures through Blogs

17. Social context
Historical context
Agency
Ingenuity
Creativity
Autonomy

18. “Kids need someone to
watch their back and not
snoop over their
shoulders. They need
adults who are as
engaged in their online
lives as they are with
their offline lives – not
less and not more.”
- Henry Jenkins

26. Identity

29. Autonomy
Create

30. design
network
Information
social

31. Social Literacy
“The ability to understand and
operate successfully within a complex
and interdependent social world. It
involves the acquisition of the skills of
active and confident social
participation, including the skills,
knowledge and attitudes necessary
for making reasoned judgments in a
community…Social literacy is
concerned with the empowerment of
the social and ethical self which
includes the ability to understand and
explain differences within individual
experiences.”
Arthur & Davinson

32. Network Literacy
“the ability to effectively tap social networks
to disperse one's own ideas and media
products”
Henry Jenkins
“unlike print literacy, in network
literacy we become peers in the
system and indeed to be ‘good’ at
network literacies is to contribute as
much as it is to consume”
Adrian Miles

34. “Network literacy means linking
to what other people have
written and inviting comments
from others, it means
understanding a kind of writing
that is a social, collaborative
process rather than an act of an
individual in solitary. It means
learning how to write with an
awareness that anyone may
read it: your mother, a future
employer or the person whose
work you're writing about.”
Adrian Miles

36. “One of the most urgent
challenges regarding
technology, diversity, and
equity is the need to expand
digital literacy; that is, the
development of young people’s
capacity not only to access and
use digital media but to use
digital media in ways that
create more enhanced and
more empowered expressions
of learning, creative
expression, and civic
engagement.”
S. Craig Watkins

37. literacy
risk

38. Risk
Harm

39. Adults
Literacies
Strategies

40. References
• Arthur, James and Davinson, Jon. (2000). Social Literacy and Citizenship
Education in the School Curriculum. The Curriculum Journal, Vol. 11, No. 1,
pp. 9-23.
• Jenkins, Henry. (2006). Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture
(Part Six). Confessions of an Aca-Fan.
• Miles, Adrian (2007). Network Literacy: The New Path to Knowledge.
Screen Education Autumn.45, pp. 24-30.
• Vickery, J.R. (2012). Worth the Risk: The Role of Regulations and Norms in
Shaping Teens’ Digital Media Practices. University of Texas, Dissertation
Repository.
• Watkins, S. Craig (2012). Digital Divide: Navigating the Digital Edge.
International Journal of Learning and Media, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 1-12.

42. Dr. Jacqueline Ryan Vickery, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Radio, Television, & Film
College of Arts & Sciences
University of North Texas
Email: jacqueline.vickery@unt.edu
Twitter: @JacVick
Faculty: rtvf.unt.edu
Personal: jvickery.com