While reviewing articles about youth and zine media, I came across the closing of an article that struck me as revolutionary. The author argues that self-published youth culture builds better environments. More the reason to include teen publications such as zines, podcasts, artwork, vodcasts, blogs, discussion boards, etcetera in the teen library.

Zines provide one way of interacting with youths as initiators and producers of their own social agendas…and representations. Particularly, the articulation of zines as a “place” for “disenfranchised kids” points to the type of ideal space young publishers envision for themselves. This is a space where neither mainstream media nor other institutions of power have the last word on youth and particularly on the value of young people’s engagement with media.

Instead zines attest to the importance of looking at youth-initiated media as realms of meaning and agency, particularly as they serve to illuminate young people’s own perceptions of what is wrong with their larger social environments. Of course, zines are not the only “place” young people have claimed as their own. Some complaints of the predominance of “white boyz” within zine circles suggest that it would not be adequate only to engage the youth publishers in the zine world. Other avenues for conversing with youths need to be explored. Within youth media culture, this may include youth-produced music such as hip-hop or punk, video poetry, and graffiti art.

As this article shows, the media as an environment for youths look tremendously different and richer when zine publishers’ own perceptions are center stage. Further engagement by youth musicians, artists, and other youths can only add much needed contours to the road map necessary for building better environments. — Julie Chu, Navigating the media environment: How youth claim a place through Zines. Fall 1997 v24 n2 p71(15)