"Against a Sharp White Background": Toward Race-Based Intersectional Research in Youth Media Studies

Abstract

W e set out on this In Focus section with the general intent of bringing together scholars working in contemporary youth media studies. This is our own background, as Louisa has written extensively on teen television shows and the youth fan cultures that surround them, and Tim has examined youth in American movies going back to early Hollywood. As we began considering established scholars in the fi eld to solicit for contributions, we soon found evidence of the increasing attention to youth concerns beyond traditional fi lm and television texts, as much recent scholarship has focused on children and young adults using and creating social media. This increased attention to youth digital cultures should not have been a surprise given the state of the academy and, more so, the preoccupations of young people today. The youth population is indeed spending less time watching TV and going to movies and more time doing something—anything—on the Internet. When they are watching fi lms and TV programs, they’re often consuming that media online and then transforming their media engagement into authorship in digital venues, creating fan art and fan fi ction, or off ering reviews and critiques through social media networks. Increasingly, youth media engagement is also becoming more mobile because, for a variety of