Hagood, Margaret C. “New Media and Online Literacies: No Age Left Behind.” Reading Research Quarterly (Summer 2003): 387-391.

Margaret Hagood’s “New Media and Online Literacies” asserts that in order to understand the full benefit of literacy acquisition through new medias researchers must use a close examination of the texts they study in order to comprehend the use of new medias by various ages. Investigating the questions of who is affected by new media literacies, how these new medias affect both the researched and the researcher in conjunction with the methods of conceptualizing medias and crossing fields of medias for research, Hagood demonstrates that a focused age group in new media research will not demonstrate the true benefit of media literacies in today’s society. With her focus on methods of research, Hagood addresses fellow researchers delving into the world of new medias in their studies. Her purpose with this article is to demonstrate that a narrow focus on age groups interacting with new medias will not do justice to the extent to which these medias aid in increasing literacy broader than the traditional reading and writing literacy.

Particularly useful to my study is the idea of active audiencing she describes in her study. This concept posits that the audience member is not a passive receiver of messages and advertising, but an active participant in the conversation taking place in and around these messages (388).