Millennials Talking Media

"Inconceivable!"; "Long hair don't care"; "You shall not pass!"; "I'll be back." The way we read these lines-whether or not you picture Gandalf standing at the edge of a cliff and hear the deep monotone of the Terminator-makes it clear that media consumption affects our everyday lives, language, and how we identify as part of a group.

Millennials Talking Media examines how U.S. millennial friends embed both old media (books, songs, movies, and TV shows) and new media (YouTube videos, videogames, and internet memes) in their everyday talk for particular interactional purposes. Sylvia Sierra presents multiple case studies featuring the recorded talk of millennial friends to demonstrate how and why these speakers make media references and use them to handle awkward moments and other interactional dilemmas. Sierra's analysis shows how such references contribute to epistemic management and frame shifts in conversation, which ultimately work together to construct a shared sense of millennial identity. Additionally, this book explores the stereotypes embedded in the media that these friends cite and examines their effects in everyday social life.

This book shows how the boundaries between screens, online and offline life, language, and identity are porous for millennials. Building on everyday conversation among family and friends and contemporary work in media studies, Sierra weaves together the most current linguistic theories regarding knowledge, framing, and identity to create a book that will be of interest to scholars and students of sociolinguistics, communication, rhetoric, conversation analysis, and media studies-and to boomers, millennials, and Gen Z alike.