AbstractsWomens Studies

Using affect theory and feminist content analysis, this thesis situates the social media disclosures of BC teenager Amanda Todd within a larger genre of youth trauma videos on YouTube. Amanda's story has been deployed by the Canadian government and various non-profits to justify interventions that focus on protecting youth from the newest iteration of "stranger danger" on the Internet. Videos in the My Secrets genre, which can be read as a visual autobiography, overwhelmingly focus on violence young people have experienced in their homes and neighbourhoods at the hands of family and friends. Re-contextualizing Amanda's story within this genre allows for new readings of her story that challenge dominant discourses about cyberbullying and the sources of danger for youth in the age of new media and Web 2.0.