Citation: Stern, Susannah. “Producing Sites, Exploring Identities: Youth Online Authorship." Youth, Identity, and Digital Media. Edited by David Buckingham. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008. 95–118. doi: 10.1162/dmal.9780262524834.095 Copyright: c  2008 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Published under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works Unported 3.0 license. Producing Sites, Exploring Identities: Youth Online Authorship Susannah Stern University of San Diego, Department of Communication Studies Millions of teens who grew up with a mouse in one hand and a remote control in the other now pour out their hearts, minds and angst in personal online diaries. And anyone with a connection—including would-be predators—can have a front-row view of this once-secretive teenage passion play. Welcome to teen America—on display at your nearest computer. 1 So ran the lead sentences in a USA Today article in late 2005. Highlighting findings from a study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, the story referenced the recent rise in online youth content creation. The study showed that more than half of online teens had shared some type of original content online, including poetry, artwork, music, witti- cisms, essays, and everyday musings. As more and more young people detailed their lives on the Internet, the news story explained, contemporary adults who grew up without the Internet were becoming increasingly perplexed about youth online expression and how to regard it. A curious mix of intrigue, disdain, and apprehension continues to characterize many adults’ sentiments about the creations young people place into the public eye on the Internet. Indeed, it is common to see journalists, educators, and parents oscillate between promoting youth Internet expression and denouncing it in practically the same breath. For example, it can be tempting for adults to dismiss teen blogs and personal home pages as the trivial and egocentric ruminations of self-indulgent, techno-frenzied kids. Yet, since stalkers and predators can harm youths who carelessly share their personal information, such outright dismissal often feels negligent. Then there is the question of creativity: many adults are impressed by the apparent ingenuity of young people’s online content. But, on second thought, they wonder, aren’t teens really just reproducing what the culture industries feed them? Inevitably, the train of thought arrives back at basic issues of time and value. That is, instead of wasting time playing around with online content creation, shouldn’t teens be focusing their Internet use on more “worthwhile” purposes, such as education and career training? At least part of the general bewilderment about youth online expression stems from the fact that public attention is disproportionately paid to what teens disclose and produce online, such as the words, text, images, and sounds that can be observed on the screen. Yet little consideration is typically given to understanding why young people express themselves in these ways or how their authorial experiences are meaningful to them. Even most scholarly critiques of youth online expression have been based on adults’ impressions and analyses of the websites and postings they observe. Adults look at the intimate thoughts youths