What’s a threat on social media? How Black and Latino Chicago young men define and navigate threats online

Youth living in violent urban neighborhoods increasingly post messages online from urban street corners. The decline of the digital divide and the proliferation of social media platforms connect youth to peer communities who may share experiences with neighborhood stress and trauma. Social media can also be used for targeted retribution when threats and insults are directed at individuals or groups. Recent research suggests that gang-involved youth may use social media to brag, post fight videos, insult, and threaten—a phenomenon termed Internet banging. In this article, we leverage “code of the digital street” to understand how and in what ways social media facilitates urban-based youth violence. We utilize qualitative interviews from 33 Black and Latino young men who frequent violence prevention programs and live in violent neighborhoods in Chicago. Emerging themes describe how and why online threats are conceptualized on social media. Implications for violence prevention and criminal investigations are discussed

Youth Violence Myths and Realities: A Tale of Three Cities

A study of media coverage of youth violence, actual crime data, and interviews with committed youth and the professionals that work with them

Defense, Disrespect, and #Deadly: A Qualitative Exploration of Precursors to Youth Violence Informed Through Hospital-Based Violence Prevention Program Follow Up

Success of youth violence intervention and prevention effects, particularly for gun violence, will be enhanced when efforts are appropriately informed by the antecedents and context of violence. Youth violence is guided by social and cultural norms that are shifting with the rise of technology. Bullying, gang violence, and self-directed violence is increasingly found to occur in the online space influencing peer groups across contexts. Through focus groups with youth at risk for violence and victimization, this study finds three themes emerge as common precursors to violence: defense of self or others, disrespect of self or family occurring in traditional community-based interactions, and threats or disrespect occurring through social media platforms. Youth violence prevention programs should consider how using social cognitive intervention framework could build knowledge, attitudes, and skills needed for violence intervention and prevention informed by precursors to violence found in this analysis

Re-Visioning Violence: How Black Youth Advance Critical Understandings of Violence in Climates of Criminalization

While Black youth are often framed as the perpetrators of violence in the mainstream media and other sites, they are rarely consulted for their views on violence. This dissertation examines how Black youth and other young people of color have used hip hop music and community organizing to publicly articulate their analysis of violence and shape public discourses, ideologies and policies. The project is principally framed by Black feminist theory and Critical Race Theory, and uses discourse analysis, cultural criticism, and historical analysis as its primary methods of analysis. I examine hip hop lyrics and materials produced during community organizing campaigns, alongside a range of sources that reflect dominant frameworks on youth and violence such as television programs and sociological scholarship. This study argues firstly, that there is a discourse of "youth violence"; secondly, that this discourse is central to the criminalization of young people of color; and thirdly, that criminalization facilitates epistemic violence, harm and injury that results from the production of hegemonic knowledge. Finally, I draw on youths' perspectives and social change practices to theorize the concept of epistemic resistance, and show how youth have engaged in epistemic resistance in various ways. Youth have used hip hop music to redefine what counts as violence, who is involved in violence, and why violence among youth occurs; conducted participatory action research projects to influence and change the content of mainstream media; and developed and promoted the discourse of a "war on youth" in organizing campaigns that challenge punitive policy proposals introduced as solutions to "youth violence." This dissertation provides a re-theorized framing of and knowledge about the intellect and agency of marginalized youth. It also provides youth studies scholars with conceptual and methodological approaches for future scholarship on youth, violence, and safety. Lastly, this dissertation informs urban youth policy and grassroots organizing for transformative justice, a vision and practice of attaining safety and justice through personal and social transformation, rather than reliance on the criminal legal system

Television violence : the impact and influence on children and adolescents

This paper will look at the history of violent youth, and the unique development of youth violence in our country. The author will examine the unique characteristics that make media such a powerful communicative source. The author will show how living in a media culture affects the way youth behave, and will explore the extent to which media messages have power over their lives. Information on the significance of television violence on the behaviors of youth will be included

The Convergence Theory: Causal Affects of Media Violence Communicated to Our Youth

This paper observes present violent activities and how there appears to be a correlation communicated through media and societal influences that we, as natural observers, have noticed affecting our youths. Over 3000 studies have attempted to prove that television, music, film, Internet, even video games, and news is the single cause of violence. This paper does not confirm evidence that any of the mediums are responsible for the violence in our youth alone. Instead this paper expresses a theory that convergence of all the mentioned mediums along with other societal factors contribute to the violence. This paper explores the possibility that by convergence all forms of the media contribute to the violence in our society and especially our youth

Social Media and Real-World Consequences: Volume 1 - From Virtual to Violent: How Social Media Fuels Real-World Violence

Social media has become a part of everyday life. All types of real-world behavior are now showcased online -- including criminal behavior, bullying, threats and the glorification of violence. Increasingly, youth associated with antisocial peer groups -- such as neighborhood-based "crews" engaging in violent rivalries -- use social media as a tool to create criminal opportunities and amplify conflicts. Unfortunately, in many cases, this type of social media usage can lead to real-life violence or other serious ramifications, such as arrest. Volume 1 of the Crime Commission's series, "Social Media & Real-World Consequences," provides an overview of the ways youth are communicating on social media and the associated risks of these communications turning into real-world violence

The Convergence Theory: Causal Affects of Media Violence Communicated to Our Youth

This paper observes present violent activities and how there appears to be a correlation communicated through media and societal influences that we, as natural observers, have noticed affecting our youths. Over 3000 studies have attempted to prove that television, music, film, Internet, even video games, and news is the single cause of violence. This paper does not confirm evidence that any of the mediums are responsible for the violence in our youth alone. Instead this paper expresses a theory that convergence of all the mentioned mediums along with other societal factors contribute to the violence. This paper explores the possibility that by convergence all forms of the media contribute to the violence in our society and especially our youth

"We have to be alive in order to marry": Black LGBTT Youth and Geographies of Violence in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

This paper interrogates contradictions between (1) pro-LGBTT discourse through tourism, planning and LGBTT activism and (2) black LGBTT youth’s particular experiences with violence in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Despite many pro-LGBTT political gains (e.g. national anti-homophobia policies and legalized same-sex marriage), many black LGBTT youth still navigate a homophobic landscape segregated by race and class. A geographical and discursive divide emerges between spaces of gay tourism and social life—ensconced in affluent, white neighborhoods—and majority-black peripheral neighborhoods, which are both sites of gendered, anti-black violence targeting non-normative black youth. I am particularly interested in black LGBTT youth’s strategies to negotiate gendered, anti-black violence—even in places that claim to be inclusive and safe for them. Secondly, I examine where and how black LGBTT youth create sites of pleasure, kinship and support amidst this violence. Drawing on feminist, queer and black feminist engagements with human geography, I contend that black LGBTT youth in Rio de Janeiro consistently appropriate urban space in order to refashion themselves and create sites of potential through social media, performance, music and political demonstration. These ‘remappings’ explain how anti-black racism is central in ordering urban space, even when black people are not visibly present. Thus, cities’ promises of diversity and inclusion through ‘gay-friendly’ tourism and planning are often naïve in their conception and implementation, complicit with gendered, anti-black violence. Christen Smith (2016) terms this paradoxical spectacle as an “afro-paradise”, orchestrated by society and the state. NOTE: This paper serves as an exploration of relevant literature as well as an empirical analysis based on preliminary fieldwork for my MA/MS thesis. Fieldwork will continue in summer 2016 and winter 2017.Community and Regional PlanningLatin American Studie

Interest-driven sociopolitical youth engagement: Art and gun violence prevention

This exploratory case study examines the National Youth Art Movement Against Gun Violence intervention launched in Chicago in 2017 that used public art and new media creation to engage youth in activism for gun violence prevention. Five African American and Latino youth artists participated in the program; the study focuses on three of the participants’ experiences. The researcher’s goal was to determine whether the unique mix of media and education practices used to develop and deliver the intervention curriculum impacted participants’ art practice, understanding of gun violence, and/or self-concept. A theoretical thematic approach to coding was applied to the audio, video, and text-based data collected. The artwork developed by the youth was analyzed using visual methodologies of compositional interpretation and semiology. Findings reveal that, within this cohort of youth, activities that connected their intrinsic interests in art with work toward a cause strengthened their affinity toward sociopolitical engagement