Youth-Driven Social Media: A Strategy for Youth Engagement Online

Background: Teen dating violence is a national epidemic. The 2009 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that one out of every ten high school students in the United States experiences physical abuse at the hands of their partner. Violent teen relationships are linked to substance abuse, eating disorders, risky sexual behavior, suicide, and increased likelihood of being in an abusive adult relationship. In addition, only 50% of teens claim to know the warning signs of an unhealthy relationship. Furthermore, research suggests that young people take social cues from media influences which often depict unhealthy relationship norms.

Program background:  The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation launched a national initiative to prevent teen dating violence. This theoretically informed evidence based teen dating violence prevention initiative is aimed at moving peer norms towards healthy relationships. Start Strong Atlanta is one of the eleven Start Strong: Building Health Teen Relationships initiative sites. In order to achieve meaningful changes in teen behavior, teens need a safe space within which they can explore norms surrounding relationships. Research suggests that online and mobile communication is an integral part of teen life and a focal point of their social engagement. With over 73% of teens in the United States active on social networking websites, online technologies present opportunities to reach a broad teen audience. Thus, Start Strong Atlanta developed a social networking website, called www.KeepItStrongATL.org, to provide teens with space to voice their own norms about relationships and challenge harmful ones. Teens best know the stresses and pressures their peers are experiencing, how they use technology, and what messaging resonates within their communities. Therefore, www.KeepItStrongATL.org needed to be developed by teens themselves to produce culturally competent and content that best reflects teen community realities. 

Evaluation Methods and Results: The proposed paper details a process evaluation examining the effectiveness of teen involvement in the development and implementation of www.KeepItStrongATL.org. Teens between 15 and 18 years of age from Atlanta teen communities outlined the website design and populated the site with content. To identify an effective approach in creating a teen-driven website, we developed three tiers of teen involvement. Tiers were established based on previous research examining youth activity involvement. The proposed paper describes the complexities of assessing teen involvement along with analyses surrounding the development and implementation of www.KeepItStrongATL.org, including: 1) the rationale and theoretical underpinnings of the website; 2) a description of our three-tiered approach to teen involvement; and 3) preliminary findings on teen involvement with www.KeepItStrongATL.org following implementation.

Conclusions: Our efforts generated recommendations on: 1) how to develop and implement a teen-driven social marketing website to prevent teen dating violence; and 2) strategies for overcoming challenges posed by development of a teen-driven website.

Implications for research and/or practice: The proposed paper lends support to research suggesting teens are well-positioned to inform and lead efforts to prevent teen dating violence. Furthermore, it suggests that leading anti-violence and pro-healthy relationship initiatives can turn teens into effective advocates who are credible messengers for their peers and younger teens.