While participation in social media has become everyday practice among young people, there have been few studies examining how youth as social media users are represented in the media discourse. Focusing on the promotional materials of an award-winning and widely-viewed documentary film, The Social Dilemma, this paper examines the media depictions of youth that attract the public’s attention. Through a social semiotic analysis, we analyzed the representational, interactive, and compositional meanings in the poster and trailer to identify how young people have been represented in the media discourse. Our findings show that they are constructed as vulnerable social media users who are manipulated by social media companies. We argue that such depictions of youth not only negate their sense of agency but also ignore their active engagement in the participatory culture afforded by social media. The implications of such depictions propagate a protectionist perspective of youth. This can undermine efforts towards the development of an empowerment approach in digital literacy education.

中文翻译：

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将青年代表为弱势社交媒体用户：对《社会困境》宣传材料的社会符号学分析

虽然参与社交媒体已成为年轻人的日常实践，但很少有研究探讨青年作为社交媒体用户在媒体话语中的表现。聚焦一部屡获殊荣、广受好评的纪录片宣传片，社会困境，本文探讨了吸引公众注意力的媒体对青年的描述。通过社会符号学分析，我们分析了海报和预告片中的代表性、互动性和构成意义，以确定年轻人在媒体话语中的表现形式。我们的研究结果表明，他们被构建为受社交媒体公司操纵的弱势社交媒体用户。我们认为，这种对年轻人的描述不仅否定了他们的主体意识，而且忽视了他们对社交媒体提供的参与性文化的积极参与。这种描述的含义宣扬了年轻人的保护主义观点。这可能会破坏数字素养教育中发展赋权方法的努力。