Girls in the Public Sphere: Dissent, Consent, and Media Making

Abstract

ABSTRACT Since the early 2000s, girls’ participation in the public sphere has undergone what may appear to be a radical transformation. For the first time, this group has gained access to the media technologies needed to not only easily access information but also broadcast messages to a wide audience—one that extends well beyond the ‘bedroom culture’ to which girls have traditionally been confined. While this is something to celebrate, the arrival of girls in the public sphere has also come at a cost. The for-profit companies that own the social media platforms that girls now adopt to communicate with each other and to broader audiences don't necessarily care about what girls have to say, but they do profit from the data girls generate. Whether it is just talk (gossip shared amongst friends) or dissent (material produced and shared as a form of resistance as is the case in feminist hashtag activism), the content girls generate online can now be collected, mined, and commodified. Girls’ arrival in the public sphere, then, is a phenomena that can only be fully understood by exploring their dissent in conjunction with the terms of consent that accompany digital media making.