Facework on Facebook as a new literacy practice

This paper focuses on 25 UK teenagers’ language and literacy practices on Facebook; it draws on data from interviews as well as from Facebook ‘walls’. To explore whether Facebook provides opportunities for new literacy practices through text-making, the research considers how teenagers use the site to present themselves and ‘do friendship’. Continuities of the teenagers’ interactions were traced across the domains of school, home and Facebook and were found to reflect both ‘traditional’ and new ways of self presenting and of ‘doing friendship’.

► I interview groups of teenagers in Friendship groups.
► I look at their Facebook sites.
► Teenagers use Facebook to socialize in traditional ways.
► New ways of socializing are emerging.
► New Social Literacy Practices are emerging.