Show simple item record

dc.contributor.authorMichaels, Natasha Roseline
dc.date.accessioned2019-08-19T13:15:02Z
dc.date.available2019-08-19T13:15:02Z
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10464/14452
dc.description.abstractThe evolution of social media activism calls for a critique into the commonly accepted trope of adolescent political apathy and naivety. In this study, I explore specific examples of adolescents’ strategic use of social media platforms such as Instagram to disseminate and circulate their political beliefs. I trace a selection of memes used for spreading awareness of current social justice issues such as the #BlackLivesMatter movement in 2013 to the #StudentStandUp movement of 2018. The memes used in these social movements demonstrate how adolescents create and/or circulate memes and multimodal texts with the intention of forging empathetic connections (through words and images) to affect others into political action against social injustices. Drawing upon critical affect literacy and a Freirean model of Radical Love (1970/2005) – or an action-based love for humanity- I apply lenses of critique to examples of memes and discussions that adolescents have on online to demonstrate how critical literacy evolves and reveals their capacity to recognize and repeat patterns as a tool for sophisticated communication. The study reveals that adolescents are satisfying mandates of the Ontario English Curriculum while attesting to their empathetic use of a voluntary, leisurely, space of social media. I draw upon Dawkins (1976/2006) framework of cultural idea-meme evolution and couple it with the Foucauldian (1975/2008) idea of power relations to establish the foundational idea that power is present in the cultural competition of ideas, that creates the inequities adolescents are critiquing in social media. The study concludes that adolescents are competently using, circulating and/or creating memes to inspire revolution while demonstrating critical literacy skills.en_US
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.publisherBrock Universityen_US
dc.subjectSocial Media Activismen_US
dc.subjectAdolescents and Multimodal Literaciesen_US
dc.subject#BlackLivesMatter #StudentStandUpen_US
dc.subjectRadical Loveen_US
dc.subjectCritical-Affect-Literacyen_US
dc.titleFreirean Radical Love and Transformative Empathy: The Multimodal Literacies of Adolescent Social Media Activismen_US
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertationen
dc.degree.nameMaster of Educationen_US
dc.degree.levelMastersen_US
dc.contributor.departmentDepartment of Graduate and Undergraduate Studies in Educationen_US
dc.degree.disciplineFaculty of Educationen_US
refterms.dateFOA2021-08-11T02:58:41Z


Files in this item

Thumbnail
Name:
Brock_Michaels_Natasha_2019.pdf
Size:
2.040Mb
Format:
PDF

This item appears in the following Collection(s)

Show simple item record