Textbooks, Cell Phones, and Diapers: Being a Dad in Adolescent Fathers’ Own Words

Giorgia Riboni 1 *
More Detail
1 Università degli Studi di Torino, Torino, ITALY
* Corresponding Author
Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, Volume 12, Issue 3, Article No: e202221. https://doi.org/10.30935/ojcmt/12226
OPEN ACCESS   1317 Views   973 Downloads   Published online: 12 Jul 2022
Download Full Text (PDF)

ABSTRACT

This study sets out to investigate YouTube videos posted by adolescent fathers in order to identify the rhetorical and discursive strategies they utilize. More specifically, it aims to provide a description of how these young men represent themselves and construct their online identity with regard to their gender and to their age. This paper intends to shed light on the intersections between masculinity and age discourses, drawing on the premise that they are particularly strong when it comes to teenage parenthood. An ad hoc data set consisting of YouTube videos featuring teen dads has been built and analyzed through the approach of social media critical discourse studies, which combines theories and concepts belonging to the traditions of CDA and digital humanities. Preliminary results indicate that YouTube dads negotiate their identities as fathers, males, and teenagers by trying to reconcile the contradictions and expectations that characterize masculinity, fatherhood, and adolescence/adulthood discourses. Their identity work reveals a strategic alternation between the adoption of the teenage “self” and the adult “self”, which serves the purpose of coming across as “good fathers” in spite of being “kids having kids”.
Keywords: teenage parenthood, social media discourse studies, fatherhood discourse, teenage discourse

CITATION

Riboni, G. (2022). Textbooks, Cell Phones, and Diapers: Being a Dad in Adolescent Fathers’ Own Words. Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, 12(3), e202221. https://doi.org/10.30935/ojcmt/12226

REFERENCES

  • Ashbourne, L. M. (2006). Young fathers. In D. S., Lero, L. M. Ashbourne, & D. L. Whitehead (Eds.), Inventory of policies and policy areas influencing father involvement (pp.75-79). Father Involvement Research Alliance.
  • Bakthin, M. [1934/35] (1981). Discourse in the novel. In M. Holquist (Ed.), The dialogic imagination: Four essays. [Translated by C. Emerson, & M. Holquist] (pp. 259-422). University of Texas Press.
  • Bunting, L., & McAuley, C. (2004). Teenage pregnancy and parenthood: The role of fathers. Child and Family Social Work, 9(3), 295-303. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2206.2004.00335.x
  • Chouliaraki, L., & Fairclough, N. (1999). Discourse in late modernity. Rethinking critical discourse analysis. Edinburgh University Press.
  • Eck, B. (2014). Compromising positions: Unmarried men, heterosexuality, and two-phase masculinity. Men and Masculinities, 12, 147-172. https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X14533642
  • Fairclough, N., & Wodak, R. (1997). Critical discourse analysis. In T. van Dijk (Ed.), Discourse studies: A multidisciplinary introduction (pp. 258-284). SAGE.
  • Frewin, K., Tuffin, K., & Rouch, G. (2007). Managing identity: Adolescent fathers talk about the transition to parenthood. New Zealand Journal of Psychology, 36(3), 161-167.
  • Gergen, K. J. (1995). Construction, critique, and community. Harvard University Press.
  • Gergen, K. J., & Gergen, M. M. (1988). Narrative and the self as relationship. Social Psychological Studies of the Self: Perspectives and Programs, 2, 17-56. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60223-3
  • Halliday, M. A. K. (1985). An introduction to functional grammar. Edward Arnold Publishers.
  • Jaime, J. A., Robbins, L. K., & De Los Santos, L. (2016). The talk of unwed adolescent fathers of Mexican origin: A discourse analysis. Fathering, 13(3), 271-288.
  • Johansson, T., & Hammarén, N. (2014). “Imagine, just 16 years old and already a dad!” The construction of young fatherhood on the Internet. International Journal of Adolescence, 19(3), 366-381. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673843.2012.747972
  • KhosraviNik, M. (2014). Critical discourse analysis, power, and new media (digital) discourse. In Y. Jr. Kalyango, & M. W. Kopytowska (Eds.), Why discourse matters (pp. 287-306). Peter Lang.
  • KhosraviNik, M. (2017). Social media critical discourse studies (SM-CDS). In J. Flowerdew, & J. E. Richardson (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of critical discourse studies (pp. 582-596). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315739342-40
  • KhosraviNik, M. (2018). Social Media techno-discursive design, affective communication and contemporary politics. Fundan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 11(4), 427-442. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40647-018-0226-y
  • KhosraviNik, M., & Esposito, E. (2018). Online hate, digital discourse and critique: Exploring digitally-mediated discursive practices of gender-based hostility. Lodz Papers in Pragmatics. Special Issue on Narrating Hostility, Challenging Hostile Narratives, 14(1), 45-68. https://doi.org/10.1515/lpp-2018-0003
  • Kimmel, M. (2008). Guyland: The perilous world where boys become men. Harper Collins.
  • Kiselica, M. S. (2008). When boys become parents. Adolescent fatherhood in America. Rutgers University Press.
  • Kiselica, M. S., & Kiselica, A. M. (2014). The complicated worlds of adolescent fathers: Implications for clinical practice, public policy and research. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 15(3), 260-274. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037043
  • Martin, J., Hamilton, A. B. E., Osterman, M. J. K., Driscoll, A. K., & Mathews, T. J. (2017). Births: Final data for 2015. National Vital Statistics Reports, 66(1), 1. https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/43595
  • Neale, B., & Davies, L. (2015). Seeing young fathers in a different way. Families, Relationships and Societies, 4(2), 309-313. https://doi.org/10.1332/204674315X14352353233301
  • Roberts, Y. (2013, 11 August). Too young to be a dad? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/aug/11/young-dad-teenage-fathers
  • Scott, M. E., Steward-Streng, N. R., Manlove, J., & Moore, K. A. (2012). The characteristics and circumstances of teen fathers: At the birth of their first child and beyond. Child Trends: Research Brief, 19, 1-6.
  • Skeggs, B. (1999). Att bli respektabel [To be respectable]. Daidalos.
  • SmithBattle, L., Phengnum, W., Shagavah, A. W., & Okawa, S. (2019). Fathering on tenuous ground. A qualitative meta-synthesis on teen fathering. MCN, The American Journal of Maternal/Child Nursing, 44(4), 186-194. https://doi.org/10.1097/NMC.0000000000000536
  • Thorne, B. (1993). Gender play: Girls and boys in school. Rutgers University Press.
  • Tullos, A. (2019, 11 July). These are the youngest teen moms on YouTube. The List. https://www.thelist.com/158198/these-are-the-youngest-teen-moms-on-youtube/
  • Walzer, S. (1998). Thinking about the baby: Gender and transitions into parenthood. Temple University Press.
  • Weber, J. B. (2012). Becoming teen fathers: Stories of teen pregnancy, responsibility, and masculinity. Gender and Society, 26(6), 900-921. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243212459074
  • Weber, J. B. (2018). Being there (or not): Teen dads, gendered age, and negotiating the absent-father discourse. Men and Masculinities, 23(1), 42-64. https://doi.org./10.1177/1097184X17747082