Do you know why the caged bird sings? Unfortunately, I missed the opportunity to find out due to a book challenge experience early in my supposedly impressionable years. Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings appeared on my ninth-grade summer required reading list when parents began questioning the book’s contents. I remember the bandwagon of young teenagers in my rural South Carolina town who joined in these cries, intending to get out of reading one of the books on the list. Sadly, I was one of those teenagers who, with conservative and protective parents, quickly jumped on board. However, as the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20, and now, as a school librarian, I am embarrassed by my behavior, and some thirty years later, battles like these still exist.
Unlike my childhood experience, today’s youth and communities have the added advantage of social media to fight for their cause. The purpose of my dissertation was to critically analyze how online discourse on Facebook, particularly from the right-wing advocacy group Moms for Liberty, shapes political polarization around educational issues in public PK-12 schools, and to use these insights to inform approaches to teaching media literacy.
I spent a year examining the Moms for Liberty public Facebook page during 2021, its founding year, using a keyword search of “book bans” to identify relevant posts. After completing my coding process, I identified the top three most frequently assigned codes: digital amplification, social media identity reinforcement, and parental rights activism. These overarching categories evolved into the major themes of ideology, identity, and digital power.
Ideology, Identity, and Digital Power
The first significant theme I uncovered is how Facebook posts and comments highlight ideological differences. Our ideologies quietly influence how we perceive and react to the world. It shapes our thoughts and actions without needing solid proof or deeper understanding. Ideological education-related divides often center on conservative values, such as Christian nationalism and parental rights, and are against progressive goals like equity and systemic change.
The second central theme I identified is how social media shapes online activism and identity formation. Users continue to build community through shared experiences, and these exchanges reveal how individual concerns develop into organized activism
when individuals connect and unite through social media. The data show how Facebook provides a platform for individual parents to transform into organized activists, developing a shared identity and common cause.
My final key theme focuses on digital power, examining how social media’s technical features and user behaviors shape educational debates. Facebook’s digital architecture amplifies conflict, and the platform’s structure creates echo chambers. The platform’s reaction buttons and threaded comments act as tools to signal ideological alignment rather than to encourage discussion on opposing viewpoints. My analysis revealed that Facebook’s design actively influences the unfolding of digital debates. The combination of technical features and user behaviors works together to intensify polarization rather than promote meaningful debates.
What This Looks Like On My Own Shelves
I have had several interactions with students that were the direct result of federal legislation H.R.5, the Parents Bill of Rights Act (United States Congress, 2023), and North Carolina’s S.B. 49 (Galey et al., 2023). Most recently, a fifth-grade student was searching my shelves for The Diary of Anne Frank, which I do not carry because it is not included in the collections of any other elementary school libraries in our district. Only one middle school has a novel of the title. She looked at me with big eyes and said, “Did you know I was in the bookstore, and they had that book on the banned bookshelf? Why?!” I explained to her that some parents are concerned about their children reading about potentially sensitive topics. I remained neutral in the discussion despite my personal views.
What Media Literacy Education Needs to Do Next
Students need more than basic digital citizenship skills. They need to learn how to think critically about what they see on social media. This means helping them understand the strategies people use to persuade others online, such as the fear-based language and religious references I found in my research. Students also need to recognize how features like likes and shares can make certain messages spread faster and appear more important than others.
Enhancing media literacy programs will help users in these polarized environments by teaching critical thinking skills for evaluating sources and understanding rhetoric and rhetorical strategies. Digital citizenship programs should be integrated with standards to help students through exposure and participation in constructive dialogue.
My research reveals how affective polarization in online spaces has altered our educational discourse, constructing a reality where ideological divisions overshadow meaningful dialogue. Media literacy skills are a fundamental part of the curriculum and a means of social competency necessary for participating in meaningful discourse both on and offline.
This piece reflects only a portion of a much larger dissertation study, and I continue to work through the fuller implications of these three themes for media literacy education. What began as a personal experience with a book challenge has developed into a pervasive issue with implications for education and social justice.
Galey, P., et al. (2023). Senate Bill 49 / SL 2023-106 (2023-2024 session) – North Carolina General Assembly. https://www.ncleg.gov/BillLookup/2023/S49
Loflin, M. (2025). The critical state of literacy: A study of social media’s influence on educational discourse [Doctoral dissertation, Appalachian State University].
Moms for Liberty. (2021). Home [Facebook page]. Facebook. Retrieved December 15, 2024, from https://www.facebook.com/Moms4Liberty/
United States Congress. (2023). H.R.5 – Parents Bill of Rights Act, 118th Congress (2023-2024). Library of Congress.
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