Youth and Digital Media

http://jar.sagepub.com/cgi/content/short/25/1/145

Interactive food and beverage marketing:targeting adolescents in the digital age

This article discussed the relationship between adolescents, digital media, and how this age group has become the primary target of a new "Media and Marketing Ecosystem." Six key features of interactive media were discovered and include: ubiquitous connectivity, personalization, peer-to-peer networking, engagement, immersion, and content creation. These six key features are emblematic of the ways in which young people are both shaping and being shaped by this new digital culture. It stated that "The advertising industry, in many instances led by food and beverage marketers, is purposefully exploiting the special relationship that teenagers have with new media, with online marketing campaigns that create unprecedented intimacies between adolescents and the brands and products that now literally surround them." Major food and beverage companies like coca cola, mcdonald's, burger king, and kentucky fried chicken are taking these elements to a new level and reaching adolescents through this new digital age. Such companies take advantage of this age group and have greater impacts than they know possible.

http://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(09)00149-9/abstract

or

http://journals2.scholarsportal.info.proxy.library.brocku.ca/show_html.xqy?uri=/1054139x/v45i0003_s/s18_ifabmtaitda.xml&school=brock

Coming of Age Online: The Developmental Underpinnings of Girls' Blogs

This article discussed adolescent girls who use blogging for self-expression and peer interaction. It was a study of 20 girls aged 17 to 21 who had been blogging for 3 or more years. They observed how the content and writing style of these girls' blogs had changed considerably over the years and their observations reflected key changes in self-development and peer relationships that typically occur during the transition from adolescence to emerging adulthood. Girls were illustrated as being very expressive, emotional and reliant on their blogs and that this new type of online expressive writing has allowed females to develop meaningful relationships with others, to gain confidence, and to live more meaningful lives.