"Embracing Digital Literacies: A Study of First-Year Students’ Digital Compositions"

Facebook Genre Content

Several participants felt that writings that are fun and light-hearted in tone made up the content that was most appropriate for social media genres. Since for many participants social media is a tool to stay connected with friends, posts that describe events in people’s lives and “positive things” are important to maintain a feeling of closeness despite geographical distance between friends and writers in the community. Ava commented:

I have family that posts oh I’m so depressed … today is a horrible day. I’m ready to shut down … I feel like that’s not appropriate for Facebook. I wouldn’t want like all my friends knowing I’m having a bad day. I … like positive things and like happy things that you want people to know about you.

For Ava, writing on Facebook allows her to share selected aspects of her life with friends and family members. Ava explained her view of the main function of Facebook as “keep[ing] in touch … with people you’ve known.” Like a greeting card sent in the mail, the brief “positive” and “happy things” she writes and reads help her sustain relationships through the images and writings shared on Facebook.

Ava and other participants expect their social media audience to publish writings that will make them laugh, or convey good news to stay in touch with one another. Participants demonstrated how they were able to work within this genre convention through their posts about current activities, or about enjoyable events that took place. For instance, Ava described a softball victory on Facebook by writing, “Just got 4^th place in nationals. Finally on my way home!! I can’t believe summers already over.” Mike, a reflective student who writes online book reviews and communicates with friends through Facebook and Twitter, posted on Facebook, “Beautiful night at At&t Park! What a great game so far!” And Natalie captured her first day of college emotions when she wrote, “First day of [school]! EXCITING! I know most people aren’t excited for school, but I was!”

Through the long hours students spend on Facebook, they learn the boundaries of what genre content is required by the community and what content is not. Facebook users who push or cross these boundaries are sometimes regarded unfavorably. As one example, participants explained the importance of being careful to not “project” opinions onto Facebook audiences. Ethan, for instance, discussed how he tries to make Facebook posts as nonpolitical as possible because he does not “want to get into any arguments.” In general, these students felt that Facebook is a place where personal topics that could offend others should typically be avoided.

Two participants described religion as one personal topic that is inappropriate for the genre of Facebook. Mike recognizes that among his friends and associates, religion can be an unsuitable topic. After posting a review on Facebook about a book he had recently read, Mike remarked:

I guess you don’t really see a lot of people sharing on Facebook this kind of book … Most people probably wouldn’t want to share it. In many ways it’s a religious book and I know a lot of people don’t want to talk about religion or share religion on Facebook. I kind of sensed that maybe it was uncomfortable. It might have made some people uncomfortable or something like that.

Although Mike may not be following typical genre conventions of Facebook, he is aware of the effect his writing may produce on his online audience. Like the youth in boyd’s research (2007), in digital, public writing environments, both teenagers and young adults “must determine where they want to be situated within the social world they see, and then attempt to garner the reactions to their performances that match their vision” (p. 137). Mike’s choice to write about selected personal topics does not necessarily demonstrate a lack of genre knowledge; his recognition of the consequences of bending genre conventions points instead to his sensitivity to Facebook content conventions. Despite recognizing that his writings can be unconventional, Mike consciously chooses to occasionally share writings that speak to this aspect of his identity.