Education Week - October 10, 2018 - 10

'SKAM Austin' Highlights K-12 Media-Literacy Challenges
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

its mark, reflecting the modern high school experience in a way that actual high school students find
relatable and true. And SKAM's success is made possible by its unique uses of new technology to forge
deep emotional connections with fans-the same
strategy used by the 1930s radio drama "War of the
Worlds" and the television show "Big Brother" during
prior generations.
But the show also has a potential dark side.
Some experts worry the boundary-blurring new narrative format could further undermine teens' alreadyshaky ability to figure out what's true online.
And they're particularly troubled by Facebook's involvement. Despite being under fire for fueling the rise
of fake news, and despite promises to crack down on
fake accounts, the company is fighting hard to preserve
SKAM Austin's "realistic illusion," allowing fictitious Instagram personas and supporting contracts that forbid
the show's actors from promoting SKAM using their real
names.
The result is a modern-day hall of mirrors.

Art Imitating Life
Given the stakes, experts say, educators have no
choice but to follow their students in.
"By being so immersive and authentic, SKAM Austin is actually begging a much larger question," said
Amanda Lenhart, the deputy director of the Better Life

Callie Richmond for Education Week

"By being so immersive and authentic, SKAM Austin
is actually begging a much larger question:
Is there anything that teens can trust?"
AMANDA LENHART
Deputy Director of the Better Life Lab, New America

Lab at the think tank New America."Is there anything
that teens can trust?"
The real-life Bouldin High is David Crockett High
School, located at 5601 Manchaca Road in South Austin.
SKAM Productions, LLC paid the Austin Independent school district $4,000 per day to film at Crockett
last spring, according to a location release agreement
obtained via a public-records request.
District officials declined to grant Education Week access to the school, saying they don't want to be associated with the show.
So on a blistering August afternoon during the first
week of the new school year, a reporter watched from
the street as real Crockett students poured out of the
building. Phones in hand, they waited for rides and
hung out on the picnic tables in front of the school.
It looked very much like a typical scene from SKAM
Austin.
As the crowd thinned, 15-year-old Kayla Rios and a
friend fiddled with a guitar, killing time in the parking
lot of a nearby shopping center.
"I love that show," Rios said of SKAM Austin.
The Crockett sophomore said she remembered when
the show was being filmed at her school, and near her
grandma's house.
But when a scene from SKAM Austin first appeared
on her social media feed, Rios still questioned whether
she was watching life at an actual high school.
"I mean, of course, I knew, like, I go to that school, so
obviously it's not," she said. "But they make it seem really real."
The brainchild of screenwriter and producer Julie
Andem, SKAM (pronounced 'skom,' the Norwegian word
for "shame") debuted in Norway in 2015. Much of the
show's action consists of friends messaging each other's
phones and checking each other's social media accounts.
But SKAM's richness comes from its characters' struggles to navigate a world in which everyone has multiple
personas, shame spreads virally, and it's hard to figure

out who you really are.
In 2016, television producer Simon
Fuller (of 'American Idol' fame) purchased the show's English-language
rights. He then partnered with Andem
and Facebook Watch, the social media giant's new video
platform.
SKAM Austin debuted on April 24.
Over a black screen, a teen girl narrated the opening
line: "Sometimes, I wish I didn't have this need to perform all the time."
The show's plot loosely tracks the relationship of
Bouldin sophomores Megan and Marlon. The climax
comes when Megan's infidelity is exposed via an anonymous Instagram account dedicated to spreading rumors
about Bouldin students.
"Literally, the whole school is talking about you," Megan's nemesis taunts her.
Wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with a large red
'A,' the teen holes up in her room at home. Her parents, previously just disembodied voices arguing
off-screen, appear. They confront Megan about a call
from the school's principal. On top of getting into a
fight at school, she has failed to turn in a paper on the
Scarlett Letter.
Facebook downplayed the idea that viewers might
mistakenly think the show is real, citing its music cues,
scene cuts, and slow motion effects.
Despite her initial hesitation, Kayla Rios, the real-life
Crockett sophomore, agreed.
But does the show accurately reflect life at Crockett?
"Oh yeah," Rios said."You can relate to it really easily."
Such reactions are a clear win for Andem and Facebook, both of whom declined to be interviewed for this
story.
"Our goal is to create immersive experiences through
Facebook Watch which allow viewers to experience video
in a whole new way," a Facebook spokeswoman said in
a written response to questions. "Advancing a show's

10 | EDUCATION WEEK | October 10, 2018 | www.edweek.org

storyline through social posts, texts, and teaser drops
is not standard practice, and SKAM fans have really
responded well to it."

'Transmedia' Storytelling
Researchers call it "transmedia" storytelling. SKAM
Austin is probably the fullest, most successful example
of the approach in the United States to date.
But the underlying idea is hardly new.
There's a long history of new technologies being used
to make stories feel more authentic, intimate, and relatable, say researchers such as Crystal Abidin, a lecturer in digital media at Deakin University in Victoria,
Australia. There's also a long history of backlash to such
new narrative forms.
In 18th-century Europe, for example, popular novels such as "The Sorrows of Young Werther" sparked a
panic that "reading fever" might corrupt the minds and
morals of fans unable to withstand the immersive power
of fictionalized reality.
More recently, the YouTube series "lonelygirl15" presented itself as the video diary of a real teenage girl,
gaining millions of followers before being revealed as an
elaborate ruse.
In the current age, Abidin said, social media is often
used to make audiences feel like they are part of the action. Fans comment on their favorite actors' Instagram
accounts, reimagine their favorite shows on Tumblr,
and use Reddit to discuss the "Easter eggs" their favorite writers and directors hide in their work. For content
producers, it's free promotion.
So what makes SKAM Austin different, and why
should educators care?
Abidin and others say it's the way Facebook mirrors

IDENTITY CRISIS:
The characters in
'SKAM Austin,' above,
struggle to navigate a
world in which social
media makes truth and
identity difficult to pin
down. "You can relate
to it really easily,"
said Kayla Rios, a
sophomore at Austin's
Crockett High, top, the
school where SKAM
Austin is filmed.

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Education Week - October 10, 2018

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