Youth participatory action research: Methods and the study of audiences
Publication Date
9-27-2024
Document Type
Contribution to a Book
Publication Title
The Routledge Companion to Media Audiences
DOI
10.4324/9781003268543-54
First Page
547
Last Page
559
Abstract
This chapter explores the complementarity of critical ethnography and youth participatory action research (YPAR) in studies of young social media audiences. While the study of media audiences may not be the initial focus of YPAR work, the chapter argues that this methodological approach foregrounds the problematic relationship between audiencing practices and the representational strategies that operate within a legacy of colonialism. As YPAR takes as its starting point the lived experiences of economically disadvantaged young people of color who too often feel unheard and unseen, the method allows researchers to probe the relationships between increasing pluralization, declining political participation in the electoral process, and reflective a conceptual framework termed mediated public connection: an orientation toward a public world beyond one's private life that is sustained through media consumption practices. In its advocacy of YPAR work, the chapter considers how YPAR efforts can provide access to hard-to-reach populations, inform scholarly and policy agendas, and place audience research in dialogue with critiques of how academic research participates in data colonialism. The chapter reflexively considers more than a decade's worth of media-rich youth-led participatory action research projects that took place with young people living in marginalized communities in the same US metropolitan area.
Department
Chicana and Chicano Studies
Recommended Citation
Lynn Schofield Clark, Carlos Jimenez, and Johnny Ramirez. "Youth participatory action research: Methods and the study of audiences" The Routledge Companion to Media Audiences (2024): 547-559. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003268543-54
