Social media takes spotlight in series

To tweet or not to tweet?

That’s one pressing question for the editors at Scarlet magazine, the Cosmopolitan stand-in at the heart of the new series “The Bold Type.”

When the subject of an upcoming profile — a Muslim lesbian photographer — is detained in the Middle East for having a vibrator in her luggage, Kat (Aisha Dee), the magazine’s impulsive social-media director, announces to her colleagues: “We are going to tweet that a woman is being held against her will simply for wanting to own her own sexuality — FreeAdena — unless somebody has something better.”

That mix of realworld issues with a dollop of social-media savvy is baked into the show’s DNA.

“The Bold Type,” premiering Tuesday night on Freeform, might push plot points about Islamophobia and immigration nd carry a tag line of “Smash the Patriarchy,” but the three smart, young women at the center of the show also stalk ex-boyfriends and indulge in steamy office romances.

For Freeform, the Walt Disney Co. cable network known as ABC Family before its makeover last year, “The Bold Type” is its most ambitious attempt to attract millennial viewers.

A scripted series based on Cosmopolitan had long been a dream for Joanna Coles, who was editor-in-chief of the magazine before becoming chief content officer of parent company Hearst Magazines.

Coles, an executive producer of the series, has supplied the writers with plenty of stories.

Freeform is airing the 10-episode series weekly instead of all at once, but the network sees breakthrough potential in the series’ engagement with social issues and the digital mirror it holds up for a younger audience.