Adolescents’ Analyses of Digital Media Related to Race and Racism in the 2020 U.S. Election: An Assessment of Their Needs and Skills

• Published date: 01 January 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00027162231195186
• Author: Matthew Coopilton,Brendesha M. Tynes,Stephen M. Gibson,Joseph Kahne,Devin English,Karinna Nazario
• Date: 01 January 2023
• Subject Matter: Civic Empowerment of Underrepresented Communities

208 ANNALS, AAPSS, 705, January 2023

DOI: 10.1177/00027162231195186

Adolescents’

Analyses of

Digital Media

Related to Race

and Racism in

the 2020 U.S.

Election: An

Assessment of

Their Needs

and Skills

By

MATTHEW COOPILTON,

BRENDESHA M. TYNES,

STEPHEN M. GIBSON,

JOSEPH KAHNE,

DEVIN ENGLISH,

and

KARINNA NAZARIO

1195186ANN THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYADOLESCENTS’ ANALYSES OF DIGITAL MEDIA

research-article2023

Adolescents’ heavy engagement with digital news and

social media brings them considerable exposure to

race-related content, especially during election cycles.

We assess how well young people navigate that kind of

digital content, using a nationally representative longi-

tudinal study in which baseline data was collected dur-

ing and after the 2020 election. We categorize young

people’s responses to two real-life examples of digital

media related to participation in the election as begin-

ner, emerging, and mastery level in terms of their abil-

ity to critique racism. We also find responses that we

categorize as race evasive, anticritical, and white

supremacist. Most of these young people performed at

the beginner level, and a minority achieved mastery.

We argue that there is a clear need for young people to

be better prepared to assess race-related online infor-

mation and that educators need to support them in

developing those skills.

Keywords: digital literacies; online civic reasoning;

critical race digital literacy; 2020 election;

critical race media literacy; adolescent

civic engagement; computational propa-

ganda

During the 2016 and 2020 elections, race-

related disinformation and propaganda

proliferated online (e.g., DiResta et al. 2018;

Reddi, Kuo, and Kreiss 2023). This content

Correspondence: mwhamilt@usc.edu

Matthew Coopilton (formerly Hamilton) recently com-

pleted their PhD in urban education policy/education

psychology at the University of Southern California

and is now a President’s Sustainability Postdoctoral

Fellow at the USC School of Cinematic Arts’ Interactive

Media and Games Division. Their research focuses on

how people learn and develop critical digital literacies,

especially through playing and designing games.

Brendesha M. Tynes is Dean’s Professor of Educational

Equity and professor of education and psychology at

the University of Southern California. Her research

focuses on the racial landscape adolescents navigate in

online settings, online racial discrimination, critical

race digital literacy, and the design of digital tools that

empower youth of color.

ADOLESCENTS’ ANALYSES OF DIGITAL MEDIA 209

furthered racist agendas, undermined informed electoral engagement, and con-

tributed to broad race-related political polarization. If adolescents are to be gain-

fully politically engaged in this historical moment, they need to develop skills to

critically assess and analyze race-related digital media. Teaching those skills,

then, should be integral to civics learning in the post-2020 sociopolitical world.

Educators and scholars have increasingly been highlighting the importance of

digital and media literacy (e.g., Garcia et al. 2021; Kahne, Hodgin, and Eidman-

Aadahl 2016; Kellner and Share 2007; Tynes et al. 2021). Teenagers tend to

access news media online; 53 percent of young people ages 18 to 29 found online

sources such as social media and news websites/apps to be more helpful than

other sources for learning about the 2016 U.S. election (Gottfried et al. 2016). A

2018 report found that three-quarters of teens say they get news from social

media “often” or “sometimes” (Dautrich 2018).

Entangled as they are in the digital world, teens must develop critical digital

literacy skills to help them navigate life online. With these skills, teens will be

better equipped to build healthy communities (Mihailidis 2018) by understand-

ing how the internet shapes information (Lynch 2016). Adolescents need to know

how to seek and find high-quality information (Breakstone et al. 2021; Metzger,

Flanagin, and Medders 2010), how to challenge oppressive media narratives

(Mills and Unsworth 2018; Tynes et al. 2021), how to navigate an oppressive digi-

tal infrastructure with biased algorithms (Noble 2018; Tynes et al. 2021), and

how to critique corporate digital platforms (Benjamin 2019; Garcia and de Roock

2021). These digital skills will both enable youth to engage media reports about

electoral politics in a manner consistent with such democratic ideals as informed

and agentic decision-making and will also help them navigate polarized, and pos-

sibly abusive, media content. Few studies have assessed young people’s critical

Stephen M. Gibson is currently a fourth-year doctoral candidate in the Developmental

Psychology program at Virginia Commonwealth University. His research focuses on contextual

factors that protect or mitigate the effects of racism on mental health symptomatology among

Black youth.

Joseph Kahne is Ted and Jo Dutton Presidential Professor for Education Policy and Politics at

the University of California, Riverside. Professor Kahne’s research, writing, and school reform

work focus on ways that educational practices, policies, and contexts impact equitable out-

comes and support youth civic and political development.

Devin English is an assistant professor in the Department of Urban-Global Public Health at

Rutgers University. His current research aims to promote the health and wellbeing of Black

LGBTQ youth communities through understanding and confronting the intersection of racism

and heterosexism.

Karinna Nazario is a developmental psychology PhD student at the University of California,

Santa Cruz. Her research examines adolescents’ and emerging adults’ civic identity develop-

ment on social media. She is particularly interested in how aspects of young people’s cultural

identities such as political ideologies and worldviews shape, and are shaped by how they navi-

gate information online and develop digital literacy skills.

NOTE: This study was funded with a Lyle Spencer Award to Transform Education from the

Spencer Foundation. This article and findings do not necessarily represent the views of the

foundation.