Just passing along a link to an excellent op-ed piece in the 9/22 edition of The New York Times, written by Danah Boyd and Alice Marwick, titled “Bullying as Real Drama.”
By all means go to the link and read the whole thing. Here’s a hunk of it, including what I think is the key insight: that it is very difficult, even painful, for children to identify themselves as either bully or victim, abusive or powerless.
Many teenagers who are bullied can’t emotionally afford to identify as victims, and young people who bully others rarely see themselves as perpetrators. For a teenager to recognize herself or himself in the adult language of bullying carries social and psychological costs. It requires acknowledging oneself as either powerless or abusive.
In our research over a number of years, we have interviewed and observed teenagers across the United States. Given the public interest in cyberbullying, we asked young people about it, only to be continually rebuffed. Teenagers repeatedly told us that bullying was something that happened only in elementary or middle school. “There’s no bullying at this school” was a regular refrain.
This didn’t mesh with our observations, so we struggled to understand the disconnect. While teenagers denounced bullying, they — especially girls — would describe a host of interpersonal conflicts playing out in their lives as “drama.”
At first, we thought drama was simply an umbrella term, referring to varying forms of bullying, joking around, minor skirmishes between friends, breakups and makeups, and gossip. We thought teenagers viewed bullying as a form of drama. But we realized the two are quite distinct. Drama was not a show for us, but rather a protective mechanism for them.
Teenagers say drama when they want to diminish the importance of something. Repeatedly, teenagers would refer to something as “just stupid drama,” “something girls do,” or “so high school.” We learned that drama can be fun and entertaining; it can be serious or totally ridiculous; it can be a way to get attention or feel validated. But mostly we learned that young people use the term drama because it is empowering.
Here is part two of our series from Ypulse Insights president Dan Coates dedicated to covering the Millennials Event that took place in Washington, DC yesterday at the Newseum to review and comment on recent data published by the Pew Research... Read the rest of this post
While Meredith has been keeping your Ypulse Daily Update fresh with everything you need to know about what's happening in youth media and marketing as well as providing her always-insightful analysis, I have been diving into planning this year's big... Read the rest of this post
Reaching Your Target Audience Online:
A Guest Post by Greg Pincus...
Happy New Year readers! I've been away from my office for weeks, I've trudged through the snow, I'm back at my desk, and I'm starting off 2010 with a guest post by Greg Pincus.
Greg's guest post was sparked by a comment he left on Jane Friedman's There are No Rules blog which I asked him to expand on. (Click here to read the post and the comments.)
Read on–and please leave comments yourself if you can offer advice about reaching an audience of young readers online...
If you’re an author or illustrator who’s blogging, Tweeting, Facebooking or using other social networks to build your platform, you need to think strategically about who you’re going to reach online and how you’re going to do it.
Some choices are easy–you’re not likely to use LinkedIn to appeal to the kids who read your picture books. But if you write YA, in particular, you often have to make some more complex choices since your potential readership is actually online…and in large numbers.
Teens, however, don’t use the web the way adults do. As a result, most author/illustrator blogs and websites don’t attract teenage readers unless the author is already known to them. Twitter connections follow a similar pattern.
This means that if you’re offering up a “this is my journey” or writing advice or book review blog or just tweeting as as yourself, you should focus on appealing to the gatekeepers rather than teen readers. If you want to reach your core readership, you need to consider building a community around a central idea or offering up interactivity that your potential readers want and can’t replicate elsewhere. Some examples:
- Author P.J. Haarsma built a game which attracted a huge audience that became the core supporters of his books. The game community helped test storylines and championed the books to their friends, too.
- The women behind Readergirlz have built a community around authors, books, and reading. The site is a destination offering interactivity, changing content, and projects that involve offline participation, as well. While the site is not directly about the Readergirlz “divas” themselves, the connection to the readers still exists for them individually as well as collectively.
- Finding underserved, pre-existing communities can be an effective path to having a teen readership, as Lee Wind has done with his blog I’m Here. I’m Qu
Editor's Note: Ypulse will be taking the rest of the week off for the holiday, but we'll be back on Monday. Happy New Year!
The decade in music (nice retrospective from USA Today on the rise of digital, the fall of record companies and the future of... Read the rest of this post
Timberland announces its 2009 'Earthkeeper' Heroes (which is part of its ongoing Earthkeepers Movement launched back in 2008. Plus check out Project Greensearch – a "green" modeling competition.)
- New Pew Research report on teens and mobile... Read the rest of this post
Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the sixth annual Personal Democracy Forum here in New York. The overarching discussion addressed how technology has and will continue to affect politics in terms of participation and collaboration, but the... Read the rest of this post
danah boyd posted a provocative "tweet" the other day which also appeared on her Facebook status:
"I wish I knew how to measure passionate user engagement. No one believes me when I argue that FB passion among youth is fading."
A bunch of folks... Read the rest of this post
A spoonful of satire helps the newscast go down (recent polls show more Americans prefer to tune into Stewart and Colbert than traditional anchors. Motivating young people to stay well informed? I'd say that's good news) (AdWeek)
- YouTube EDU (a... Read the rest of this post
I'm starting to get excited about this year's pilgrimage to SXSW Interactive (it will be my fourth year attending and speaking). I know the panel picking process is very competitive so I feel honored to have been chosen to reprise the What Teens... Read the rest of this post
Love the advice; it's a cut above the usual "start a blog" words of wisdom.
I know a few would-be writers who fuss and refuse to work on a platform. "That's for my agent," they say.
And they fail to get an agent. And they wonder why. Hmm...
Thank you for the practical tips!
Yay Greg!!
So let's get practical...if you aren't published yet (me, hi!) then is it best for your blog to appeal to other writers...but then when you DO get published (me, someday?) shift the focus to a teen readership?? Or perhaps have TWO blogs? One for fellow writers and one for readers? This has always perplexed me.
But lots of things do.
:-)
Thanks, Alice, for having me over to your place. It's much appreciated. And jmartin - you're welcome!
Robin - most likely, even after you're published, your blog will attract some fans but won't likely grow that fandom... unless you're offering something that your target audience wants. So instead of worrying about that, ask yourself a series of questions: why am I online? who am I hoping to appeal to...and why? Can I offer something unique... and how will that help me?
There is no "best" group to appeal to by default. Who will help you accomplish your goals? That's the best group for you. Sometimes it's just a number. Sometimes it's writers or teens or librarians or agents or or or. The key is to spend your time productively, and for that you need to have clear goals that are reachable based on what you're going to do... and who that could possibly appeal to.
Does that make sense? (And I look forward to when you drop the "someday?"!)
Here is a sneaky question. What would you think about deliberately preplacing key words, or phrases, into a text, as part of the story line. These could then be drawn to as part of the marketing strategy for a specific market segment. Ever tried anything like this?
Terrific post, Greg! You've given me much to think about as I work on my YA novel.
Thanks, Carmela. I'd tell you the time to start establishing a presence is "NOW!" but I know you're already doing that!
And writingisdevine - I'm not exactly sure what you're driving at. Putting keywords in a manuscript won't help if it's not online... and "keywords" are only effective if the people looking for them are gonna be happy when they find you. Strong, well-targeted keywords on a site can certainly help, but in a text, I don't see what they'd do. Besides, if you've written a strong text, there will naturally be the right-for-you keywords in it already, without sneakiness!
Happy new year!
Knowing your audience is so important. I am feel much more connected to blogs and forums in which the blogger(s) or leader(s) have a genuine interest in viewer/reader feedback and creating a community.
Thanks for supporting readergirlz!
Thanks for the shoutout, Greg! This is an awesome article.