Children’s Participation in Social Media Spaces: Tweens’ Content Creation Practices, Influencer-Generated Content and Educating for Active Digital Citizenship in the Upper Primary Years

Abstract

This study explores pre-adolescent children’s performances of digital citizenship on social media (SM) through an examination of their content creation practices and how content generated by social media influencers (SMIs) shapes their roles as digital citizens when they engage in media production activities on SM. It has also aimed to consider how digital citizenship (DC) education focusing on SM content creation learning can be delivered in the upper primary years. These phenomena were investigated by undertaking a single-embedded case study in an independent primary school located in Sydney which involved 10, Stage 3 (Year 5/6) students and two, Stage 3 teachers.

Findings indicated that children exercise a mélange of rights and responsibilities through various ‘micro-practices of making’ associated with SM content creation. But, despite their independent initiation and accomplishment of these practices, children’s creative agency in SM spaces was revealed to be largely moderated by adults, most notably parents, but also educators and those responsible for designing platforms.

Data was also suggestive of SMIs mediating children’s content creation pursuits on SM, whereby children emulated SMIs' role as the ‘professional entertainer’. This was demonstrated through children's appropriation of SMIs' perceived online personas and motivations to create for self and others, alongside their adoption of similar design and production strategies modelled by influencers. However, these conclusions are only tentative with further research needed to verify the exacting effect SMIs exert on children’s DC competences tied to creating on SM.

Moreover, in Stage 3 classrooms, instruction on DC as relating to the topic of media production on SM was found to take responsible practices of making and sharing as its core focus. However, an explicit and meaningful teaching of DC was impacted by various pedagogical and structural dilemmas with accommodating learning on SM content creation.