Ijeoma Kola: 0:13

Welcome to the Cohort Sisters podcast, where we give voice to the stories, struggles and successes of Black women and non-binary scholars with doctoral degrees. I'm your host, dr Jamakola, and today we're joined by Dr Jimmeka Anderson, with a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Dr Anderson is a visionary educator specializing in critical digital media literacies among Black girls. She's the driving force behind the Black Girls Film Camp, an innovative initiative providing high school Black girls across the US with a transformative 16-week experience to pitch, develop and produce their own short films. The founder of I Am Not the Media Inc. Dr Anderson's impactful work extends beyond the camp. She's a project manager for the National Association of Media Literacy Education and a project fellow for the Cyber Citizenship Initiative with New America, with features in Wired Magazine, the New York Times and NPR. Dr Anderson's dedication has garnered awards like the Crowning Achiever Award from the Crown Jewel, north Carolina links.

Ijeoma Kola: 1:21

Welcome to the show, dr Anderson. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. We're excited to have you too. I want to know a little bit about you where you're from, where you currently live now and when you are not working and getting Black girls to develop and make their own films, what do you?

Jimmeka Anderson: 1:40

like to do? Oh okay, Well, the first part is very simple. I am from Charlotte, North Carolina, born and raised, and I am still at home in Charlotte, North Carolina. I love Charlotte, I'm a Charlotte girl, I've been to cities all over the United States and I just wouldn't change it for nothing. So I am a Charlotte girl and so what I'm doing outside of Black girls' film camp, you can typically find me writing poetry. I'm a poet at heart. I've been writing since I was maybe like six or seven years old. I fell in love with Maya Angelou when I was younger and then really fell in love with Nikki Giovanni and started doing spoken word in college and performing in front of an audience and publish three books now of poetry. So that's what I'm doing typically when I'm not doing Black girls' film camp, which still is a form of Black girl literacy.

Ijeoma Kola: 2:37

It absolutely is. So how did you become interested in film and urban education? I'm kind of curious how these two things like where did the love for film come from? And the love for teaching Black girls' film, but also the love of education, when were the roots of those?

Jimmeka Anderson: 2:58

Yeah. So I would say the love of film that has been there my whole life. I grew up as a child of Blockbuster in the 80s and 90s and so, like movies and cinema has always been embedded in me. Even with me and my friends, when we get up we're having a movie night. So I've always been a lover of movies and film. And then even I was a Barbie girl and I used to put them together in my own productions. Growing up I always had a love for that.

Jimmeka Anderson: 3:30

It wasn't until after I graduated with my bachelor's, my bachelor's in human development, family studies. I'm a first generation college student, didn't know what I was doing in college, I just knew I had to go and be the first. But once I got out I had been doing a lot of programming and working in the nonprofit space with youth, with teenagers, when I still technically wasn't too far off from being a big star and just saw a huge connection with youth through media, through music, through films, through movies. But then also was seeing how it was shaping the youth that I was serving at that time their lives, but also shaping my life, how it has shaped my life and was still shaping my life as well. So that's when I started doing media literacy. But at the time didn't know that that was the term, I just knew I was wanting to sit down and analyze lyrics and I'm packing and discuss like what is the hidden and unhidden messages in the song or what are the messaging from this commercial or this advertisement? Just really became obsessed with media construction and the messaging of media and so eventually turned it into an organization and learned that I was actually doing media literacy, built a lot of relationships with media literacy scholars and educators on a national level. A lot of them wanted to start doing research with the programming that I was doing, had no idea, once again, just had the bachelor's that I had achieved all there was to achieve. I was the first to go to college. But when I started seeing, oh okay, you can do research on this. Well, you all don't look like me and why do you want to research with the youth I'm serving that look like me, you know. And so that's when I got really intrigued to go back to school and majored in media education.

Jimmeka Anderson: 5:12

And I did that at Appalachian State University and got my master's and then pursued my PhD. So just backing up, backing up a bit the work that I was doing with I'm not the media started growing tremendously with workshops where organizations, schools, boys and girls clubs, girls scouts, anyone with youth, were booking me to come and do workshops about media literacy with their youth. And so from that I learned that media literacy there's this component of analyzing that, there's still this component of creation. And so I started doing a lot of media creation work, with doing podcasting, with doing video, psa, short documentaries, and so there's this huge media creation piece, but also seeing the benefit of youth being a part of the process, feeling like they had a voice, being active, participate, participants in the narratives that were being constructed, I grew a fascination in that right and understanding that now, wow, this tool where we're unpacking that has been used historically to oppress can actually be used to liberate, because these kids now have the authority, agency and power to construct their own messages right.

Jimmeka Anderson: 6:30

And so I pursued my PhD and wanted to dive deeper in building out curriculum, learning how I can build out curriculum and target historically marginalized students through media literacy. And so that's how I landed in the Urban Education Program, because that program was geared towards helping me really dive in and unpack theory and understand the constructs that have created the power structures that we see in our lifetime, that have been embedded into the fabrication of our everyday lives and practices in ways in which we get engaged in the ideologies that we have, that we have no clue where they've come from, and so that program really helped prepare me to better serve historically marginalized students and leverage the connection between how media has been used as this ideological apparatus to continue to perpetuate systems of power and how we can utilize it to deconstruct it as well, and so I kind of take that approach in theory with how I teach media literacy now, and so that's how the two marry.

Ijeoma Kola: 7:35

Yeah, yes, well, thank you for explaining. It's a perfect marriage, a very beautiful marriage. I am curious, before we get into the nitty gritty of your doctoral journey. I want to know, because we often talk to people on the show who either have made a career pivot if they have worked before going to grad school, and then they'll kind of do something different after grad school. When you went into the doctoral program, it seems as if you had a clear idea that you were going to continue doing the same kind of work. You were just going to do it with more knowledge and with more expertise. So can you just talk a little bit about how you thought of at the beginning, before you even started the doctoral program, like how you thought about where it would change your, how it would change your career trajectory, if at all? Did you think about that at the time, or were you just really focused on Let me just get this the fear, the theoretical background, theoretical frameworks for how to continue doing the work?

Jimmeka Anderson: 8:31

Before I went into the PhD program, I had no idea what a theoretical framework was. Okay, I just knew I wanted to be the one that's doing the research and I wanted to enhance the work that I was doing, the curriculum that I was doing with the youth. And so once I got into the PhD program, I knew my focus was on media literacy and specifically working with historically marginalized students. Or or should I say critical media literacy, because media leaders and critical media literacy are two different frameworks. Right, you have a critical kind of theoretical lens applied to media literacy that looks at systems of power. But so I knew I was going into that in that that wrap. I knew I was going that way without knowing the terminology. We're having the vocabulary. You know what I mean To define what it was. And so when I got into the PhD program, I remember, like my first semester in my cohort I was hearing about other other colleagues in their like research and I was like, oh my gosh, that sounds amazing. And I remember, like you come in and you start getting pulled like in my face my work and my research. That impactful should I really be. Yeah, I need to be over here, because this day that they talking about that. They need some help. I need help research this. And I remember meeting with an advisor and she was like, do not, do not get pulled. You know, like, keep your vision ahead, like what your passion about staying in there, because that passion is gonna create longevity. It's very much needed, it's very much necessary. The work, the need, you just need to, you know, read and do the research to back up why this is such a value and why it's so necessary. And so when I started diving in and learning about the theoretical frameworks and seeing the ties and the connections you can't tell me there wasn't a case of why critical media literacy is needed. You know what I'm saying, yep, and where the gaps lie. And so, you know, I was in the beginning kind of sway, like whoa, maybe I should be over here doing this, or maybe I should do this.

Jimmeka Anderson: 10:50

And then, you know, a lot of students were doing a lot of research at the time and it was really being pushed with us like publish, publish, publish to make yourself. You know, if you're trying to go out for the, the professor track, and initially I was thinking I might, that might be a possibility, you know, based off of. You know, my advisor and I was kind of. You know, you get into the PhD program, they're trying to pull you in a little bit on that professor track and I'm like, okay, maybe I need to jump the train. Like, let's be honest, when you go into a PhD program, you're dealing with a lot of imposter syndrome. You're questioning a lot of things about you and what you should be doing, what you thought you knew, and so I kind of fell prey to kind of like allowing a little bit of that molding to happen, where it's like, well, maybe I should consider the professor track right. And so this is true story.

Jimmeka Anderson: 11:42

I started going along that route and I was starting to do, I was starting to be involved with like opportunity hoarding, like, okay, I need to do this, I need to be my CV up, I need to be writing. And then I'm ran into the block with with the field that, the field that I'm in, with critical media literacy, a lot of the students that were publishing. They were able to pull like publicly accessible data and I'm like there's no publicly accessible data on critical media literacy. I have to angle this thing a different way to get like, you know, national report card, naic data or civil rights data, like how do I position this, to write about it? And I don't want to reach too far to make the connection of Critical media literacy. You know, I mean I literally started going down the route with, like tech inequity, like, okay, digital digital skills, the connection between technology access that I was like Now kind of down here so I can write you know what I mean, just have something to write about, because I felt like I had to publish, I had to build my CV. I'm not saying that it was a completely bad thing. It did help build me more as a scholar to have that experience and figure out some of the connections.

Jimmeka Anderson: 12:49

But I couldn't really dive deep on the critical media literacy side because, you know, critical media literacy it's not about quant, it's more about a qualitative kind of analysis, so to speak, with really working with kids and seeing how it's impacting them in ways that may not quantify and so and that's just usually how doing any kind of literacy based educational research works, usually like really Diving in to see the socio-cultural practices and how it's impacting them. And so I had to start realizing, like jimica, stand your own lane. What happened to me is with me, trying to Be with someone else, was trying to make me be. While I was in that phd program. I was like having An inner body reaction to it. It was like I don't like this, I don't want this. I was, I was eating crazy Like it was. I was stressed I had started.

Jimmeka Anderson: 13:46

When I told you I had took on so many opportunities. Gata, I mean, I was the graduate, uh, graduate student counselor a, e, r, a. I mean I'm just doing the most. And I was. I got some point. I was like I don't even enjoy this. I don't even like this. I enjoy doing my program, I enjoy creating experiences for youth, I enjoy working with youth, understanding youth.

Jimmeka Anderson: 14:12

And I remember even having a conversation with my mentor and I was like people are starting to look at me like this Expert and I don't like how it feels. And she told me. She said You're an expert in the work you're doing with youth. Just own that. No one knows your program, what comes out of your program, how youth are engaging, what you're learning from the youth in your program like you do, and just own that. And so I actually had to do like a full circle and come back around and say, hey, I don't wanna do professorship, I don't wanna do all of this extra stuff to build my CV. Let me just walk in my passion and my purpose and everything else started just organically flowing like speaking requests, invited speaking opportunities, invited collaborations, news opportunities. Let me just stay here, right, yeah yeah.

Jimmeka Anderson: 15:08

Because you operate in this path and so I had to kind of have a full circle kind of situation. And it was kind of scary because, you know, I had been doing so much work with my professor at the time and I was like I don't know, I wanna do professorship.

Ijeoma Kola: 15:23

Yes, yeah. So I feel like I relate a lot to the idea that you don't want to disappoint, especially if you're a first gen and if you find a mentor or an advisor who you actually like, which is rare. If you find one who you like, you know there is an element of well. I don't wanna disappoint you. I know that you see so much in me. You know they are enriching you, they are supporting you, they are increasing your confidence by telling you that you can do all these things.

Ijeoma Kola: 15:56

But it is also, as you mentioned like, really important to not necessarily go down the path just because someone says you should be a professor Because that's all they know. That's often what they know because that's their career and so everyone is gonna try to get you to their side of the table. But it's really frequent that people in doctoral programs heavily consider, as they should they shouldn't rule it out and academic career, because that's what their advisor has. So I'm glad that you were able to have come to use this moment and just kind of assess all of the different things you were doing and realize that you didn't have to be, as you mentioned, like hoarding opportunities and trying to step your CV to chase a dream that you actually didn't even want in the first place. So hopefully someone else is listening to that and can just take a moment, take a beat, to reassess and evaluate whether all that you're struggling to do or even, if you're not, charlene, everything that you're doing in grad school are you actually doing it because you want to be doing it or because you think that's what's expected of you for the next step. So thanks for sharing that.

Ijeoma Kola: 16:57

I wanna talk a little bit about the specific program that you were in. So you mentioned that you're a Charlotte girl through and through. I love that. Was there something specific about the UNC Charlotte program that was really compelling, that made it the best fit for you? Did you explore other programs? Did you end up, at the end of the day, being happy with that decision?

Jimmeka Anderson: 17:21

Yes, so one. The UNC Charlotte program I thought was going to be a perfect fit. Not what's going, it was a great fit for me, it was an amazing program, but what really lured me into it was one. The program was ran by Dr Chance Lewis, who is phenomenal and is very renowned in the field of urban education, and he spearheaded that program. Additionally, I thought it was very intriguing that that program was predominantly Black scholars in that program. So I was like, ooh, what would it be like to be in a program, a cohort of predominantly Black scholars, right? And so I thought that was going to be a culturally amazing experience as well. And so that's why I was like, ooh, I really want to do this.

Jimmeka Anderson: 18:17

Additionally, I have a daughter, so I'm a single mom. I didn't want to leave Charlotte. My support structures are here, in addition to me loving Charlotte, and most PhD programs are in person, and it's specifically the ones that I was looking at. They were in person programs, so it was just the best fit for me. And then also, with UNC Charlotte being an R2 institution, I knew it wasn't with me, kind of. I didn't have a strong research background like in my master's program, but I felt like it was a nice kind of transition from going from a master's program that was more heavy on practice versus research for it to ease me into research, and so, yeah, I thought it was a pretty good fit, yes.

Ijeoma Kola: 19:03

So what were some of the successes and some of the challenges that you experienced during your doctoral journey?

Jimmeka Anderson: 19:13

The successes and challenges.

Ijeoma Kola: 19:15

Yes, we'll give us like one high and one low.

Jimmeka Anderson: 19:20

Success. Of course the success is going to be finishing that dissertation in a decent while. So that was the high was getting that dissertation Locked out. I guess still got some colleagues still working on that dissertation. I'm like, whew, that was a success. I guess to get that dissertation done. So how?

Ijeoma Kola: 19:43

long did it take you From courses and then sorry.

Jimmeka Anderson: 19:47

I graduated in four years. So it was about a year and a half process because I took comps early, like I kind of sped through and ended up taking comps, and so I took comps actually in my second year, wow. And then I really started cleaning up my proposal. I defended my proposal in spring 2021, and I graduated in spring 2022. Wow, yeah, that was quick.

Jimmeka Anderson: 20:21

So another thing that helped me out with that was I could completely focus on that in the school arena. And I say in the school arena because I actually was built Black Girls Film Camp while I was pursuing my when I was doing my PhD, and I was in the second year doing Black Girls Film Camp while I was doing my dissertation, so I saved that. But I didn't have to do any GATA work because I received a dissertation year fellowship grant and so that paid for me to just focus completely on my writing when it came to school, and so all I had really was dissertation and I could just focus on that. And then I had Black Girls Film Camp going on at the same time, which was amazing that the cards landed that way, because otherwise I would have been doing working writing and, you know, managing and spearheading a national, non-proper occupation at the same time.

Ijeoma Kola: 21:23

Yeah, and so what were some of the challenges?

Jimmeka Anderson: 21:27

Challenges Well, I think I kind of spoke to this a second ago, I think challenges when you're a black woman and trying to find the right mentor, and so you're. You're trying to find other black women, phd scholars in the. In it for me in the university and I was lucky for that my last year in the PhD program, dr Anderson, who's like a mentor to me now and we're actually the same age, but she's was an overachiever and got her PhD, like before she was 30, but you know she came in. She has all this experience, have been teaching, been a professor for like six years already. You know what I mean and just you know. But we were on the same, in the same generation. We can relate and you know, speak to each other, eye to eye, you know, and really she could mentor me in a peer kind of mentor way and she came in my, my senior, what I don't know my fourth year, my fourth year, my fourth year, I think I'm in high school.

Ijeoma Kola: 22:40

I've never heard anyone referred to the doctoral years as like seniors. But what if you finish in four? Then yeah, you were a senior, I work with teens all the time.

Jimmeka Anderson: 22:50

So I'm like, my senior year I mentor came out of nowhere you know like, and she was a new professor that was brought in. And I kind of joke and say that she was brought in. For me even that sounds a little bit like I think you were meant.

Jimmeka Anderson: 23:13

You were meant to get here for me in my last year into the program she ended up becoming coming on as my co-chair. But for those three years it's like you really want to find like this. I know for me I really wanted to find this black woman PhD who could speak to me, and I have been searching for that, and then Dr A came on the scene or her last name is Anderson too, but I call her Dr.

Jimmeka Anderson: 23:37

A. She came on the scene first-gen college student, all the things, and I was like, wow, this is really a really good match, and so I had struggled with that for the first three years.

Ijeoma Kola: 23:51

That was a challenge okay, okay, yeah, but I love how I think you should just keep on saying that she came just for you.

Ijeoma Kola: 23:57

She was sent just for you and it's really cool that she. It sounds as if she served as both a peer mentor and like a faculty mentor, and I haven't heard of anyone else being able to have that experience. But you get the best of both worlds you get the camaraderie of someone who is around your same age, but also the authority of a faculty member being on your side. So that's awesome.

Ijeoma Kola: 24:24

That sounds like it was she actually it really sounds like she came just for you and I love that you were able to find that kind of mentorship before you completed your program. Thank you, I am too, so now I wanna talk about your work. So you just wrapped up the 2023 cohort of Black Girls Film Camp a couple of months ago and you guys do an all expense paid like weekend retreat in LA. So you take girls to LA about how many girls are they? What do y'all do in LA and how, like, how is this funded? It's just, it's so. It's so inexpensive to me to fly a bunch of girls over to LA. We'll love to know some of the highlights of what happens during the retreat and how it contributes to the development artistic development of the Black Girls who participate in the camp.

Jimmeka Anderson: 25:17

Yes, so the Black Girls Film Camp is a annual initiative. It's a 16 week program where girls from across the nation pitch a story concept, a story idea that centers a Black girl and the story needs to focus on an issue that impacts Black girls in the United States. Right, and so they pitch this story idea. We interview these girls. We probably get like over three to 400, it's ranged over the last year, two years, from three to 400 applications of interest and we have to narrow it down because we only take 10 each year. So we take 10 girls between the ages of 13 and 18. And what we do is, once they get selected, we help them through education, through training, to develop their short films. We then produce those films and distribute those films. And to support them with developing those films, we contract out Black women creatives to serve as a professional editor and creative coach for each girl. So each girl gets her own editor and creative coach and we call it their production team, their Black Girls Film Camp production team. So there's this Black woman that's helping to support the vision and all of her imagination and what's in her mind with this story and making her story come to life. Additionally, we provide them with technology.

Jimmeka Anderson: 26:45

We have a lot of sponsors. We have a lot of sponsors. We tend to do a lot of this stuff without the sponsors. So they get free technology. So Sony cameras, they get lighting kits, they get boom mics. Beats by Dre has been a sponsor. They get multiple pairs of Beats by Dre headphones. They get free software Final Draft is a sponsor which is the industry standard screenwriting software. So they actually get free software to learn how to build out their script utilizing industry standard software. They get Adobe Premiere for editing, and so they get all of this stuff for free. And then we also have advisors that help serve as industry experts that supervise the production teams and also kind of create this pipeline to serve as like a coach for the professional women, and it's also a resource for them and maybe where they're trying to get into their career because our advisors are successful in the industry. So, for instance, our post-production advisor she won an Academy Award for editing everything, everything everywhere all at once. Is that the name of it? Yes, yes.

Jimmeka Anderson: 27:56

I think that's the name of it yeah.

Jimmeka Anderson: 27:59

Yes, an Academy Award. You know, like these women, he's really done the thing in the industry. And so they serve as advisors during the 16 weeks to oversee the production process of all the girls in their production teams. So in the middle of the camp, because we go through pre-production, then we go to production. And when we go to production we then do the LA retreat where we fly each girl and a parent because we wanna make sure the parent is involved and invested. So we fly each girl and a parent and her production team, which is her editor and her coach. So it's about 40 people were flying to LA. And when they come to LA we partner with USC Annan Verge's Critical Media Project. It's a professor out there, alison Troupe, who I've been working with in the national media literacy community and she was in love with what I was doing the first year with Black Girls Home Camp and she was like I really wanna support this, like let's figure this out, and I'm like, well, the world is opening up post COVID. I think we wanna do an in-person retreat as a part of our production, like leading into the production process, and she was like I'm on board. So this is an annual retreat this year.

Jimmeka Anderson: 29:08

This past year was our second year going. We're now cleaning out the third year, but it happens midway when the girls transition. For pre-production of production, we have partnerships for the girls to take trips. So we went to Array Creative Campus, which is Ava DuVernay's creative campus, where they do a lot of the production work for a lot of the projects that they work on. The girls got to meet Ava DuVernay and we also partnered with Walt Disney Studios where they got to tour their studio a lot and they created like a customized experience and allow the girls to have lunch with their executives. So they get to do all of that. They also have courses with USC professors and they get to be with their production teams in person to work on their films in person, because everyone is nationally everywhere.

Jimmeka Anderson: 29:56

So, our sessions are virtual. So after that's done, they do the post-production process. They have a film and we debut and have a premiere in no other place but Charlotte, North Carolina, and so the films are debuted and then they go on a festival circuit and so we have partnerships with festivals like Mill Valley Film Festival, Bentonville. This past year we were at Essence Film Festival and the girls get to attend the festivals and speak on panels and talk about their stories that they created in this program, but also just about the experiences of black girls in the United States. So yeah, that's kind of the camp in a nutshell.

Ijeoma Kola: 30:36

Yes, it's such a cool work Stuff that I wish I mean I'm not even like that interested in. I can't like lie and say that I'm like a movie person or a film person but, I, still wish it existed when I was a teenager.

Jimmeka Anderson: 30:49

I know I was a teenager too.

Ijeoma Kola: 30:51

Yeah, but that's what we do, you know. We create the things that we wish we had, and that's how we make the world better. I know that it's still. It's huge and has grown exponentially, but since you just said it's the second year, have you observed? Do you feel like there are girls who've done the film camp, who are you know going to be? Have you identified the next generation of filmmakers? Do you already know who they are?

Jimmeka Anderson: 31:20

Yeah, so it's the second year for us doing the LA Retreat. It's the third year. We just finished our third year with the camp, so we're now going into the fourth year, and so me and my co-founder, we were talking about that and was like whoa, four years, that's like senior year, right, like that. Like whoa, we're gonna get a camp from fresh from this year, right? And so a lot of the girls are being impacted tremendously from being in this space. We also have an alumni program, so the girls, even once they finish with the camp, there's still a lot of great opportunities for them to stay involved. We have meetups on the regular. We have a IG chat and then we just found out they have their own little text chat that they do where they don't want us to see stuff, and we also have created opportunities for them to serve as alumni coaches to help the next cohort that comes in.

Jimmeka Anderson: 32:17

But these girls have utilized their films to get into film schools, such as NYU Tish, where Spike Lee is at, and then you got your USC, the tool of cinematic arts, which is sometimes they dispute whether which one is the top film school, right. And then we have other girls that have continued to put their films in film festivals and win awards on their film individually. So, even though we have these partnerships, the hostess gratings, the girls can still submit their films into film festivals for awards and accolades. And I want to say just even this cohort that just came out, out of 10 of the girls, six of them have already started receiving awards and selections into film festivals and some of them have received more than one, like three, four film festival selections, and they first watched their films each noon and it's end of August. So, yes, they definitely want to go and pursue film. These are the future filmmakers of tomorrow.

Ijeoma Kola: 33:22

I love it. I'm so excited. I like need to like see which films I can watch and how I can screen them. It's really exciting.

Ijeoma Kola: 33:30

So there's a lot of oh yes, we will drop the website in the show notes and that's what I will be doing with my weekend for sure. There's a lot of conversation right now about youth's exposure to media, youth's consumption of media, typically focused around social media, but I'd love if you can speak a little bit to how media literacy can play a role in addressing broader societal issues such as representation, identity and equity, particularly for youth, and also how it can be kind of like a protective barrier against some of the more like negative and insidious elements and aspects of the media that we consume.

Jimmeka Anderson: 34:13

Absolutely. I mean education in general is a remedy to a lot of the issues that a lot of people are subject and prey to many of the challenges that we experience in our society, because lack thereof, like lack of education on certain topics, issues Media literacy education equips students to engage with media in a more active, participatory way, for them to become more critical and conscious to the content that they're engaging with, the messaging, the language, all of those things and really be able to unpack it in a way where they're not just inactive consumers, where, when you're an inactive consumer or a lazy consumer media, you're just watching it right and you're not even paying attention to how the messaging is shaping you Media and messaging is you consume it just like you consume food. That's why we call we always say like, what is your media diet, because sometimes you don't realize your consuming content, your consuming messaging in your mental. It's impacting your mental health. But if you're an active consumer media you're constantly asking critical questions as you're engaging or you're thinking critically while you're consuming. So you're asking yourself like who's represented, who's not represented? Why am I not represented? What is this saying? What is this trying to sell me? Even if it's not an advertisement. How is this group being represented and how might this impact their perception on this cultural group? Or how is it impacting me and my perception? Also, it's making you think and engage in a more politically conscious way, because you start looking at systems of power and how they're being perpetuated in it. So you're looking at race, sex, sexual orientation, you're looking at gender. You're looking at all of that and you're seeing how gender roles are being perpetuated. You're seeing how the construct of relationships and what that should look like For me growing up.

Jimmeka Anderson: 36:27

I grew up in the 90s in hip hop and for some reason I thought I wanted me a Tupac. But you know what I mean, because that was idolized. And then I'm dating these Tupacs and I'm unhappy and I'm like what's happening? Why am I not getting what I want? Why am I not getting 20s R&B love? You know what I mean, what I'm attracted to the Tupac.

Jimmeka Anderson: 36:48

I'm attracted to Tupac, but then you gotta start unpacking that a little bit more, so you really start becoming more critical and understanding like, wow, this person is being reflected as something to be held of value. There's the value expectancy theory as a concept that makes us create value with some of the imagery we see. But then, at the same time, what is that messaging saying to me as a young lady, and to the man, which is telling him, like you should have many women and you should have this persona? And so we're getting two different messaging with the same media. And it's that when you become this active consumer, you start asking these questions, right, and so you become more resilient to it.

Jimmeka Anderson: 37:34

And then, when it comes to social media and representations, a lot of young girls are being exposed to content to show them, to desire them, to want to be thin. You're seeing hashtag body goals, you're seeing hashtag relationship goals and all of that is doing is creating this social competitiveness in this space and causing a lot of the challenges with social media and mental health, with depression and social media, anxiety and all of these things that now are new constructs, so to speak. That has impacted our mental health in ways before we even had social media. That is like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa we're learning, like all the dopamine that's being released as we're engaging in content online and how that's impacting our brains. And so what media literacy does is allows us to sit down with students and really help them have those conversations, let them know that they have agency and authority.

Jimmeka Anderson: 38:32

In these spaces, especially in social media, you have agency and authority to shut something off. You have the ability to just ask yourself how does this make me feel? This is a simple conversation that we rarely ask ourselves. Sometimes, when you think of it and it's really sad, just how does this make me feel? And once you realize, whoa, I don't like how it feels, knowing that you have the agency and authority to change it. Media is a construct, meaning it can be changed. It has been created, it can be recreated, and so that's what media literacy education does is it teaches students that.

Ijeoma Kola: 39:06

Yes, I know that we're short on time. I have one last question. We ask all of our guests this question what is one piece of advice, one final piece of advice that you have for perspective or current black women and non-binary doctoral students?

Jimmeka Anderson: 39:25

Don't let anyone change who you are. Be true to yourself, stay true to yourself and know that the path that brought you there is the right path and you can stay on that path. And if you do stay on that path, you will be successful. That's it.

Ijeoma Kola: 39:46

So Mike dropped moment right there. Thank you so much, dr Anderson, for joining us on the Cohort SysS podcast. We're excited to share your work and everything you're doing with Black girls and media literacy with the rest of the community. Thank you.

Jimmeka Anderson: 39:59

Thank you so much. Have a great day everyone.