ADOLESCENT ROOM CULTURE - STUDYING MEDIA IN THE CONTEXT OF EVERYDAY LIFE

For the past several years, the authors have been investigating adoles cent room culture in order to learn more about the relationship betwee n teens and the media. The bedroom, they have found, is an important h aven for most teenagers, a private, personal space often decorated to reflect teens' emerging sense of themselves and where they fit in the larger culture. Teens listen to music, read magazines, watch televisio n, do homework, and consider the events of the day in their rooms. The y appropriate and transform media messages and images to help them mak e sense of their lives. By looking closely at how teens draw from the media as they construct their identities and personal worlds, the auth ors have come to see adolescent media use as a dialectical process pla yed out through everyday practices. Their Adolescents' Media Practice Model highlights the connections between adolescents' identities and m edia selection, interaction, and application.