Social media in the margins: a script analysis of Facebook, Instagram and TikTok as per appropriated by institutionalized teenagers in Brazil

This paper explores the application of Madeleine Akrich’s script framework to understand the interactions between teenagers living in institutional care in Brazil and social media platforms—specifically Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Building on Akrich’s semiotic analysis, the study investigates how these platforms inscribe specific expectations and behaviors in their design, prescribing certain uses while leaving room for user interpretation and resistance. Through ethnographic fieldwork and qualitative interviews conducted with 61 teenagers across 14 shelters in Brazil, the research employs script analysis to examine how these teenagers navigate the complex sociotechnical scripts embedded in these platforms. The findings reveal how they resist, reinterpret, and domesticate these prescriptions, using social media to craft personal narratives while negotiating the uncertainties of their institutionalized lives. By examining the teenagers' interactions with social media, this paper contributes to a broader understanding of user agency, platform design, and the role of technology in marginalized contexts.