You probably communicate with your friends using media references all the time. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But why do we include media references, when we could just talk? Turns out it has a lot to do with identity, building social relationships, and communication — all the stuff that language normally does.

We’re having a media-heavy discussion with Dr Sylvia Sierra about her book Millennials Talking Media: Creating Intertextual Identities in Everyday Conversation.