Producing Sites , Exploring Identities: Youth Online Authorship by Susannah Stern.

Producing Sites , Exploring Identities: Youth Online Authorship by Susannah Stern.

The article that I have chosen to discuss is called Producing sites, Exploring Identities: Youth Online Authorship, which is a chapter from Youth, Identity and Digital Media. The focus of this article is on what makes writing in the online environment appealing for teenagers and how it shapes their experience of the world around them. Stern focuses on the use of personal home pages and blogs in her discussion she does not include social networking sites as they have their own particular issues that need addressing in addition to the ideas raised in this article.

The key thoughts that I will comment on are those pertaining to the idea that teenagers are given a voice in which they can address their growing sense of self and place in the world. Dresang and Koh (2009) agree with Stern and note that "digital age youth who express opinions are forming and demonstrating their identities by creating information. They constantly negotiate their identity and values by interacting with information in the diverse and connected global society". Stern (2008) says that teenagers can play with various constructions of self in order see how they fit in with their micro world as well as the whole world at large. They can also experiment with different versions of self in an arguably safe place and get instant feedback back. Some teenagers see the blog as a place in which they can reflect on themselves and see the transition from child to adult take place, others use the blog as a kind of therapy where they can divulge attitudes and secrets to the world. The use of blogs is diverse but the common link is the individual playing with self-identity and self-inquiry.

It seems that parents, educators and media have many different views of what it means to be a teenager and how they interact with new media. There seems to a buzz around the safety of our youth online as there are a sexual predators waiting to take advantage of our children. According to Stern our teenagers are aware of the threat but blasé about it in the same breath. From Stern’s findings I can understand why this is so. The amount of self worth and feelings of well-being that our young people get from the power of having a voice far outweighs these negative aspects. Mazzarella (2005) notes that the Internet can offer a safe place where teenagers are free to be themselves with out endangering their real life relationships. Perhaps if Stern’s findings were read by more of the adult community there would be less confusion over why our teenagers are drawn to this type of self-expression. Parents would be comforted in the knowledge that there children had a place away from their families that they could explore aspects of self and critically reflect on their position in the world. My role as an educator will focus on providing environments where we can openly discuss what details of our identity are important to keep private and how we can shape a positive digital footprint.

Why are our children stepping on to the world stage and putting their thoughts and feelings out there for the world to see? Stern found that it was largely due to the curiosity of seeing what would happen mixed with a desire to master new technology.  Teenagers were keen to ‘learn by doing’ which is at the very core of inquiry based learning. Surely if our students are intrinsically motivated to go on a journey of self discovery and inquiry we as adults need to be filled with hope that these skills will translate to other aspects of their lives where they can put these skills of questioning and critical thinking into play.

Stern found that there were several different types of identity play happening on personal web pages and blogs. One of these types of exploration centered around the construction of self. Teenagers wanted to create a person who they hoped to be or who reflected a more analytical or witty version of themselves. This aspect of self was who they are when they don’t fear what their peer group of family would say. The findings demonstrated that these aspects of self where still the same people as the off line ‘them’ but just showed aspects of their personalities that they may not feel brave enough to explore in real life for fear of rejection from their peers. On this same line, teenagers that are exploring new aspects of their sexuality or counter culture that they feel may not sit well with their current construction of self have a safe place where they can explore that side of themselves with like minded people.

Another interesting use of blogs and personal home pages by teenagers is when it used to document the growth of that individual from child to adult. The individual can look back at how much they have grown or how their opinions have changed and see it as a digital scrap book where they can post images, video, poetry and art.  Harrison and Barthel (2009) comment on the use of content creation and sharing personal artistic content such as artwork, stories, photos or videos as amoung the most popular category of content creation online. Some teenagers were said to see their blogs as a form of therapy where they can just get all of their ideas out of there head and feel more centered as a result of it. What a wonderful way for us as adults to know that our youth are finding ways of exploring their place in the world in a creative and reflective way.

Stern found that one of the ways that young people discovered blogs was by being set class work that included blog construction. I intend to keep using blogs as a tool in the classroom in the hope that some of my students will continue on with them and start a journey of self-discovery.

Dresang, E & Koh, K. (2009). Radical change theory, youth information behavior, and school libraries. Library Trends, 58(1), 26.

Harrison, T. M., & Barthel, B. (2009). Wielding new media in web 2.0: Exploring the history of engagement with the collaborative construction of media products. New Media & Society, 11(1-2),
155. doi:10


Mazzarella, S. R. (2005) Girl wide web: Girls, the Internet, and the negotiation of identity. New York : Peter Lang.

Stern, S. (2008) Producing sites, exploring identities: Youth online authorship. In D. Buckingham, Youth, identity, and digital media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.