The new (Black) civics: How popular media cultivates connected learning, and civic engagement among Black college students

Through interviews with 28 college students majoring in journalism, this study examines how African American youth and young adults uniquely develop civic mindsets and cultivate critical media literacy skills. Related to their desire to create counternarratives of racist representations of Blackness in popular media, imagine possibilities for their daily life, and promote pride in their local communities, findings in this study suggest African American youths use popular media to form unique pathways to connected learning (CL) capabilities, civic engagement, and positive individual trajectories. Three themes emerged from our interviews on media engagement: 1) learning through discourse on racial injustice in news media; 2) learning of Black-oriented community obligation via civic media; and, 3) participating in/observing political activism through social media. This article concludes by arguing that more consideration must be given to the racialized social learning practices that grow around digital devices and tools that shape how they are used and understood by African American youth.