14 thoughts on “Week 12 – New Media Collectivities (T2)”
Vienna
I feel like Thompson’s cumulation of the twitter feed to gain a 6th sense deals with the acquaintance more so than actual friends. This distinction should be made because the 6th sense with friends should not have to be supplemented with a tool and should be able to survive on human-human interaction. For celebrities to keep in touch with fans and for the news, i think this is an awesome tool for that 6th sense property.
Rheingold’s story about his child having a tick and finding a solution online through the WELL, no longer relates so strongly because as the Net garners more users from all walks of life and not simply the elites or the higher classes the information found online in my opinion, has gotten to the point where I don’t entirely trust it which results in me trying all the different methods out for myself with negates the actual ‘help’.
The other day I was on the sgnewbrides forum as I was trying to figure out how to get rid of household pests, and the methods they were discussing ranged from using tea bags and lemon grass all around the house, using double sided tape on the floor etc, but not a single one of them said these methods had actually worked, they kept saying the pests came back. I couldn’t help but wonder where the real advice could be found.
Diyana
Clive Thompson’s social proprioception is a refreshing way to look and understand Twitter. Perhaps it is a social glue that holds relationships together, by reading the cumulative tweets and perceive roughly how one’s life is as for now. Then chancing upon the person in real life, perhaps the follower-friend has a few conversational prompts to begin or avoid topics that may upset the other.
This is all sweet and great; our relationships being mediated by Twitter. However, I can’t help but feel as though this is superficial. Boyd would agree that whatever I tweet may be an act of impression management. So I’ll take tweets with a grain of salt.
Also, this cumulative tweets to be read like watered-down, bite-sized chapters of a person’s life. I feel this wastes a lot of time, and as Adorno & Horkheimer would say, a “distraction”. Reading rubbish, cryptic tweets just to understand a gist of my friend’s life feels like a futile effort for me. I would rather take my friend on a one-on-one dinner, where we could spill all our worries and anger over the dinner table. I feel this is more meaningful and sincere, than just a casual “oh man, I saw your tweet. I hope you’re feeling better”.
However, perhaps this is how friendships work now. This proprioceptive sense, of having a sense of each other’s state of mind and emotions, and keeping in touch on Twitter may be important to friends who are in various continents or just very busy. This is within reason. But if a friend who stays in Singapore, pretty free, and wants me to be on Twitter so we could engage in a playful dialogue occasionally in the Twittersphere, then no thank you.
Kerri Heng Yi Ping
danah boyd –– Why Youth Heart Social Network Sites
This is the most relatable reading to me, seeing as I’m constantly hooked on Facebook and looking at my news feeds and updates from friends. Although Facebook, like MySpace (which is outdated now as Facebook takes charge of the social network), is a mediated public with an “invisible audience”, the likelihood of others seeing/sharing what happens to us depends on our “status in public” and the “juiciness of the story”. Not everything gets shared online, only the more interesting, newsworthy, popular or controversial things are spread online. Despite being feeling like Kings and Queens of empowerment on social media, not all of us can become the next Xiaxue 🙂
boyd talks about the MySpace example of how a guy was denied a place in university after the panel going through his application found undesirable content on his Myspace account. This brings us to the highly debatable ethics of Googling/or Facebooking employees before hiring them. Is it okay for companies to safeguard themselves from potentially ‘harmful’ employees with a quick online search? Or is it an invasion of privacy? But what’s so private when the stuff was posted online for all to see anyway? Is it one’s fault if one does not know how to protect one’s ‘image’ online? Is it one’s fault if one does not know how to utilise online functions (blocking, restricting access, privatising accounts) to hide one’s online pages?
Profiles, friends, comments: It is interesting how we lead our lives with actual friends in the public sphere of MySpace and Facebook (and Twitter, Instagram, etc). These people may be our real-life family, friends and acquaintances, but instead of meeting them in physical ‘offline’ spaces, we converse with them on our MySpace or Facebook walls. My older relatives never understood why we (youngsters) saw the need to post mundane things (“I just had a good shit this afternoon”, etc), online for all to see. They’d warn us of the dangers of the Internet, and of falling prey to online predators. Maybe it’s a good time to step back and question why we’re communicating in this strange way today, but first, let me see what my friend just had for supper on Instagram.
boyd talks about Networked publics and how they are very different from traditional forms of publics (libraries, cafes, bars, etc). Four properties that separate unmediated publics from networked publics:
Persistence –– Everything online is “recorded” and archived, everything online doesn’t really die, unless it’s deleted from all Search engines and databases (which is a very difficult and costly thing to do).
Searchability –– We can find our “digital bodies” online with a few simple clicks online. Now, we’re taught how to make search more efficient online, by using certain search terms (AND, OR, NOT) and by determining our keywords. Although these search tools and skills are meant for wholesome research, they can also easily be exploited by potential cyber criminals. If you don’t want anyone to know something about you, never put it online.
Replicability –– The ability to replicate, copy and reproduce online content is fascinating and uncontrollable. On a networked public, because what we say persists online, it’s very easy for others to take a screenshot of our ‘acts’ or ‘words’ online and repost them. This is often detrimental to people who get flamed online –– for instance, the Anton Casey case where he insulted the people in Singapore by referring to them as “poor people” on Facebook. The screenshots of his words circulated on social media way after he deleted his Facebook account, and the screenshots made it to traditional newspapers too. Online content on social media is thus replicable and never goes away (it’s persistent).
Invisible audiences –– It is “virtually impossible to ascertain all those who might run across our expressions in networked publics”. We may, for instance, think that only a small group of our ‘added’ friends on Facebook are looking at our Facebook profile, but we never know if our profile has been seen on Google search, shared by online advertisers, sold to marketers and spread on others’ social networking sites.
“Profile creation” on MySpace, via its security hole, enabling users to modify the look-and-feel of their profile pages, brings back fond memories of the days when I used to copy and paste HTML codes for my blog pages. It was so fun; I simply had to Google for ‘cool’ HTML codes and copy + paste them into my Blog’s HTML code window. I knew next to nothing about creating pages, I merely copied them (and was awed by friends who knew how to use Dreamweaver to create blog skins, as they were called). This reminds me that although we have the agency to shape/construct our own identities and web pages, sometimes we don’t really create them, instead we ‘borrow’ them from others who are willing to share.
Writing Identity and Community into being harks back to Goffman’s Presentation of Self and increased democracy. Being able to define and perform our identities online, having the agency to do so, gives us digital natives a lot more power to shape and negotiate our identities and form our communities. There are also rules to follow on social media, like the “Top 8” friend lists on MySpace which can make or break real life friendships.
Being able to perceive of an “imagined audience” also reminds me of Cooley’s looking-glass self, where we see ourselves in a mirror and wonder how others will see us. Our Facebook profiles are a clear example of a looking-glass self, where we imagine how we would look like to people who scan our profiles –– will we look glamourous, silly’ or cool’? We learn about impression management in the virtual context, and shape our online profiles according to who we want to be perceived by other people online.
Howard Rheingold –– The Heart of The Well
Rheingold talks about the virtual community in its early stages in the 1980s, and he refers to it as a “sanctified, magical, protective virtual space”. He presents an idealistic, fantastical version of the World Wide Web, which used to be accessed by those with the cultural and financial capital to use it. His version of the virtual community is full of warmth, help and support; full of ‘real’ people who just need to get out there and rant in a “third place” –– where there are always people to lend a listening ear. As discussed during tutorial, these people online in the 1980s were White, middle/upper class and educated professionals. This truly contrasts the virtual community as we know it today, where predators, perverts, marketers and advertisers abound. The virtual community today is also filled with hatred, racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, among others. Of course, that’s not to say that there are no more warm & supportive online communities, only that we need to know how to suss out various online groups and decide which ones we wish to join.
It is quite progressive for the people of Rheingold’s 1980s The Well to find “written (online) communication more authentic than the face-to-face kind”. He was able to connect with like-minded people online and form real-life friendships with them. Today, forum boards, blogs, social media and instant messaging online (including anonymous instant messaging) aren’t exactly the kind of place where we want to really connect with complete strangers. More often than not, cyber-awareness education campaigns have taught us that a myriad of dangers lurk online –– how people can be easily deceived online (identity theft, sexual harassment, online scams, etc). Perhaps in Rheingold’s time, the Internet was a safer place to connect, where the ‘crooks’ haven’t exploited Cyberspace yet (or maybe they were poorer and had no means to access the privileged Internet).
Rheingold discusses how people online meet via shared interest, and not because they share a physical community. The Well sounds like a textual forum to me, filled with many topics/discussion boards, where people (White, Upper-Middle class) gather to discuss issues. It is true that virtual communities can bring together people from all over the world. Take Second Life, for instance, in which we can have avatars that live whole social/economic/cultural lives online. We can even meet friends and potential sweethearts on Second Life (which reminds me of the “second chances” that the Internet provides its users). The Internet, in this sense, can clearly be a “third place” where people meet for “conviviality”, instead of living or working.
He asserts that “we cannot see one another in cyberspace” and thus appearances does not matter online. However, this is not true today in the age of social media profiles, where we do get judged by how ‘ugly’ or ‘pretty’ we looking in our profile pictures and online photo albums.
It is interesting and relevant to note that virtual communities change how people socialise. Rheingold says that we get to know people first, then get to meet them physically. But what if they were pretending or performing false identities online all this while? What if, when we actually meet these people ‘offline’, we discover that they are not what they purport themselves to be online? Again, the dangers of identity deception have not appeared in Rheingold’s 1980s virtual community. (I was thinking of cybercrime, stalkers, pedophiles, etc).
Rheingold talks about the actual “barn raising” or fund-raising on the Well, which was very heartwarming to read. It is touching to see these online people come together in real life to support (financially/emotionally) their fellow “well-lites”.
Reading about Blair, who committed “intellectual suicide” by “scribbling” all his WELL comments and eventually committed suicide in real life, makes me think about the “selfie saga” guy who almost committed suicide because he couldn’t snap that perfect selfie. (He snaps 200 selfies a day and he skipped school and lost his friends as a result.) Addiction to cyberspace is a relatively new phenomena (it could have started with the high-profile Blair case) and its effects can be very real. Now, there are Facebook addicts who consider their lives on Facebook to be their real lives, and they just spend all their time on Facebook. It’s a bit unhealthy to be unclear about the boundaries between virtual life and real life, and perhaps, as new media technologies advance, the line between virtual life and real life will be even more blurred, as we get sucked into the constant flow of the virtual world.
Clive Thompson –– How Twitter creates a social sixth sense
Thompson talks about how Twitter creates a form of “social propriception” in us. While individual Tweets may seem tribal, there is value in Twitter’s cumulative effect.
We gain a sense of telepathic awareness of people who are important to us, or of the daily news that we follow. For instance, when following the Punggol-East by-election coverage last year, I relied on Twitter for fast updates and a quick summary of everything that was going on. I followed the major news sites in Singapore (ST, TNP, CNA, TODAY, XinMSN and the official Twitter accounts of political candidates) and get to-the-second updates from them as they tweeted. All my updates appeared on one screen on my mobile phone, and I just had to scroll down to gain a “social proprioception”, complete with Twitpics, of what was happening on the ground, during the heat of the by-election.
Twitter gives us a shared understanding of the networked communities that we engage in, and allows us a more intimate understanding of what goes on around us (our friends, our community, our country, etc). In some ways, the speed at which our daily ramblings are posted on Twitter really makes us feel as if we were right there with our friends, going through what they are going through. (Again, this concept of Twitter would really scare my older relatives, who see the immediacy of Twitter as a scary, sinister entity).
Of course, Twitter may not represent ALL there is to know about someone. We can’t gain this “social proprioception” of a Twitter friend who isn’t active on Twitter, for instance. When that happens, we may have to make the effort to contact them and get in touch the old-fashioned way. On a last note, people may also perform their identities on Twitter, and post Tweets in such a way as to manage a certain impression. So we don’t really have to believe EVERYTHING on Twitter. This sixth sense may just be a sense of others’ performed identities, after all.
Inthaxai Maxly
In this week, the reading documents concern with the reality of youth being in nowadays. The youth participations on the social networks have increased in the amount of users and more important thing is concerning about the social life in term of the role of teenagers.
Through reading response on this week, Boy’s article did express the role networked publics and a few questions on the first interaction page asked about the gold of the implications for youth identities and explored themselves on how youth engaged through social network sites such as important questions, why do teenagers flock to these site? What are they express on them? How do these sites fit into their lives? And so on. Boyd addressed the question by the beginning of key features of social network sites that social network sites are providing teens with a space to work out identity and status, make sense of cultural cues, and negotiate public life. I do argue with Boyd expression of the social network sites that are ‘’a type of networked public with the four properties and are not typically present in face-to-face public life’’.
For the interaction to the individual users in the social network sites, I think mostly the public sites are not really reliable with the showing information on the site that why some of users pretended to be more interested by the creation of the performance on the sites.
In my case of using facebook site online network, I did the real thing on my site and it called ‘timeline’, which showed my activities and my expressions I did by using this facebook site, I have used real information on the creation of profile but I also did it as private on the privacy that just only me and my friends on the site have known. In my opinion, only information on the site is not enough for the ensuring that you know that person but knowing in reality is extremely powerful than other ways to getting knowing the personality. Hence, social network site is just the way that people suppose to be not really in the reality.
Audrey
How One Finds His Place in Society
Rheingold, boyd and Thompson paint different narratives of how one finds his place in society through the Internet. Both Rheingold and boyd address how the Internet is the alternative space that some cannot find in society – the former discusses the Internet as a third space for adults, and the latter analyses how teens use social networking sites like MySpace to negotiate parent-child power-relations and being at the bottom of society’s age-hierarchy. Thompson explains the phenomenon of social proprioception and how we understand our social world through social networks.
Rheingold’s poignant articulation of his deep connections to his fellow WELL members makes a clear point that the Internet can help nurture intimate ties that the modern society has stunted.
From personal experience, Rheingold writes about interest-based communities formed over social networks, and in this case, it is a parenting forum where parents share their child-rearing joys and toils.
As a parent himself, Rheingold professes that what he gathers from his online community is “an immense sense of security”, and claims to know something “strong and intimate” for a couple he has never met in person.
Rheingold argues that this is nothing to be surprised about, and the basis of his argument is this – the Internet, a medium for such social-networks, gives us the intimacy we crave for, in response to the deficit of ‘real’ relationships in modern societies backed by advanced capitalism.
Thus, he suggests that our intrinsic need has always been there and can only now be fulfilled.
Furthermore, the nature of such groups being interest-based, almost immediately renders the forging of close ties between people in that community. It short-circuits the getting-to-know you process and connects people on the same level. This level, he feels, democratizes the Internet space. In the case of the WELL, everyone on that site is a parent, with at least some concern or trouble with their kids, looking for solace, help, or company from other parents. Whether they are someone of high position in the workplace or a lowly subordinate, they share a common denominator, and feel like they are connected by this same journey.
Because of this, Rheingold alludes to Oldenburg’s notion of the third space. In modern societies, first and second spaces are considered spaces where people live and work, accordingly. The third space refers to the place where people gather for leisure and get to communicate deeply with one another.
The Internet, thus says Rheingold, is modern society’s third space.
It is also interesting to note that Rheingold appreciates the ‘unnaturalness’ of writing, the very notion Plato deems as a barrier to ‘true’ communication. Instead, Rheingold says it is precisely how we get to pause, think and craft our words that make our interaction more meaningful.
“Some people–many people–don’t do well in spontaneous spoken interaction, but turn out to have valuable contributions to make in a conversation in which they have time to think about what to say.”
Yet, he also notes the permanence of words online, similar to boyd’s rhetoric of the virtual architectures of communication.
boyd discusses the use of MySpace in American teenagers’ lives, and is keenly aware of the social construction of young people’s role in society. Teenagers, she says, is a perceived phase of life, socially constructed after World War II. Because of this segregation between “teens” and adults, power-relations can be formed, in which adults dictate how teens should live their lives and behave. For example, she says, the media sells teens sex, but society tells them to abstain from it.
It is due to this lack of space for teens in society to fully express themselves, that turns them to the Internet space.
boyd notices how person-to-person interaction is made public online. They take “social interactions between friends into the public sphere for others to witness.” This holds extremely true till today. Many times, we see friends gushing about how much they miss each other on Facebook posts or comments, and then asking when they should meet-up.
It almost seems as though we would all have forgotten about our friends if they did not post a selfie of themselves that morning – and that picture of them had reminded us of our immense longing for them.
This kind of public communication, could well be part of an individual’s impression management. Perhaps, one is subconsciously displaying a close relationship between himself and his friends. boyd talks about how teens express their identities by personalizing their MySpace accounts. Now, we have Facebook cover and profile photo. For example, my cover and profile photo must always match.
Teens learn acceptable behaviours through the three stages of impression management – performance, feedback and adjustment. That’s what makes our identity so malleable – the ability to adjust, almost like a series of trial and error experiments.
She brings up the architectural constraints of virtual communication again, saying that misinterpretations are bound to happen because there is a lack of physical presence online. And there are many ‘rules’ to ensure misinterpretations don’t occur too often.
The other day, I posted a photo of my dad and myself on Facebook.
About an hour later, Dad stands at my doorway, grinning, “Hey I really like the photo of us!”
“Uh huh.”
“Can I press Like on our photo?”
“Sure.”
A flicker of realization flashes across Dad’s face. “But very funny right, to Like your own photo?”
It greatly amused me how my parents are slowly picking up the unspoken rules of social media. While it may be second nature to us – rule no. 1: never Like your own status or photo, rule no. 2: always Like a post you are tagged in, etc. parents seem to be grappling with this entirely different architecture of communication.
But Dad is learning fast.
Impressed, I laugh, wondering if this was how he felt when I displayed an unusually keen sense of the world as a kid.
“If you didn’t post it, I guess you could still Like it. Even if you’re in the photo,” I reply.
Dad decides not to ask anymore though he frowns in slight confusion.
Thompson analyses communication via Twitter and it’s impacts. He uses the metaphor of social proprioception: which is the sense of where your (missing) limbs are.
The nature of tweeting is micro-blogging – posting a status of not more than 140 characters. For example:
“Ate chicken rice for breakfast”
“ROFL #mymum’soutfit”
Such are lines say very little, yet in cumulative effect, can tell a lot about the person tweeting. This almost gives us a cue of what to expect from our friends in real-life – whether they’re having a bad day or not.
Iman
Rheingold
“Because we cannot see one another in cyberspace, gender, age, national origin, and physical appearance are not apparent unless a person wants to make such characteristics public. People whose physical handicaps make it difficult to form new friendships find that virtual communities treat them as they always wanted to be treated–as thinkers and transmitters of ideas and feeling beings, not carnal vessels with a certain appearance and way of walking and talking (or not walking and not talking).” In real life, people are discriminated against by their physical appearances and this bias prevents them from showing who they are. Online spaces delete this first impression gathered from how one looks and hence allows for more intimacy. For example, members of the LGBTQ community may be discriminated against in real life where in schools, they face bullying and are sometimes pushed to the extent of suicide. However, the virtual world becomes a sanctuary for them where they can connect with other LGBTQ members and allies.
Boyd
The notion of the network public is particularly interesting because it is a new phenomena that occurs only with the presence of the Internet. For example, in a pre-Internet time, the only way to spread news was via physical presence, word of mouth, or printed news. However with the Internet, anyone can spread news and events within seconds to millions of people.
Thompson
The point that Thompson brought up pertaining to social media being a way to sense the presence of other people and a substitute for the absence of physical conversations is a refreshing view on what it means to be social. Normally, people would just think social media is just a way for us to connect and keep in touch when physical interactions are not possible. However, I think that people tend to forget that social media is a supplement to interaction and not a replacement. For example, when friends update their Twitter account with snippets of their everyday life, we tend to think that we are updated as well however a lot of the times we don’t respond to their tweets but simply read through them and this gives us the feeling of being involved in their lives although the social aspect where there is a reciprocation of interaction is absent.
Stanley Wong
This week’s readings talks about the notion of community, and how mediated technologies implicate this and how we experience it.
Rheingold compares the Internet to the Third place. For him, the internet fulfils a social function that cannot be fulfilled by the home and the workplace, due to our obligation to fulfil social roles associated with these two places. The internet as a third place allows us to express our opinions and interact with each other freely, creating a sense of affection with each other, which we can easily access anytime. He used the WELL as an example, where people come together to share ideas and help each other with problems that their children might have. For Rheingold, there are two dimensions associated with community online: sustained discussion and emotions. In addition, the formation of social bonds are more easily forged when people interact with common topics in mind, as compared to the physical realm, where people do not know each other and need to feel out the likes/dislikes of the other party.
As with her other works, boyd talks about impression management in social media; this time in relation to teenagers. She examines the various reasons why youths love social media. As with Rheingold, she argues that the internet is a space away from the structured ness of real life, and away from a space where parents can control them.
At the same time, she is also sensitive to context collapse. While writing ourselves into being, we also have to be cognizant about the definition of the situation, and how our identity will be seen by others. This is complicated by the architecture of social media, which she classifies it as a networked public. This is distinct from a “normal” public, in that our profiles can be easily searched, we are “performing” for an imagined audience, and that our data is archived. In creating an online self to fit in with the rest of the community, we may sometimes forget about the presence of others that may be viewing our profiles. This is exemplified by an example she gave, where there is a disjuncture between a job applicant’s presentation of self in real life and online. One way to get around this is using privacy controls, which reveals particular aspects of our self to others that we want to reveal. This ensures consistent performance and reduces friction.
Lastly, Thompson talks about proprioception. Certain forms of media technologies, like Twitter, have made aware of the activities of others. He argued that the power of such forms of media comes in the form of cumulative tweets; on its own, individual tweets do not inform us much about another person’s activities, but when taken together, we are able to form a cognitive map of the person and his/her daily activities. Even if we have not met the person in a while, we are still able to be aware of his life, and position ourselves in relation to him/her and interact with them accordingly.
Dionne See
The virtual community will expand continuously. In the past when Internet was more about words, the virtual community revolved around words of advices, suggestions from people who could in fact access to the Internet. Anonymity was not a concern because people who posted on discussion boards probably had prestigious backgrounds. However, Internet progressed and anonymity became a much debated topic when more people has access to Internet, even the lower classes (of course not all). But like what was discussed during class, it is fascinating how people now no longer fancy the idea of anonymity (why usage of blogs are on the decline). It is like going back to the past when discussion boards were the “in” thing. I think the fact this virtual community can expand is because of the emotional feeling one feels when he/she turns to the Internet. If the people of the community are anonymous. The “assurance” from Internet might not be felt as strongly. This is similar to how Thompson classifies how truth is experiential whereby you have to do it with someone. Strangers might not be as appealing thus anonymity is not much preferred now.
It is true that it is now faster to make friends because one has the choice to decide what group of communities he/she wants to join according to his/her interests. This choice would allow him/her to engage with like-minded individuals and this community’s bonds are forged better because of the common interests. However, I think Thompson painted a really pretty picture of the Internet. If you have the choice to decide who you want to mix with, at the same time you have the choice to “go against” people whom you think are not similar to you. Social exclusion will be able to occur at a larger scale especially when Internet allows for connectedness. Anti-groups can be forged easier as well. This is also probably why profiles are more manipulated now as mentioned by Boyd to maintain the “coolness” one wants to establish for people online to see. The virtual communities one belong to will also be socially ranked, somehow. We do come across like groups probably on Facebook and go like “whaaaaat?”
Lastly, the idea of proprioception is fascinating because it is so relatable, I do find myself guilty for telling someone his/her life story even though I have not met him/her in a long-while. Guess I need not feel guilty for thinking I over-stalked now because haha it forges better bonds and relations amongst people. But then again, what I thought was lacking in the discussion is the fact that people actually do choose what to post online – often we wouldn’t post our deepest secrets there within that 140 words count. Therefore, again, what’s posted on Twitter might be an attempt to actually maintain the “coolness” maybe? I think these “forged bonds” are still different from the bonds forged from constant contact.
Sasha Kaur Dhillon
This week’s readings presented an interesting discussion on the social implications for interactions on the virtual realm. This was particularly noticeable in the recurring theme of all three readings – the demarcation between “society” and “community”. Community is seen to be a pre-modern concept whereas society is deemed to be modern in which communal bonds are centered on a centralized authority.
One might therefore question what exactly is shifting in both spheres of social relations. The answer to this is the relationship between people. People tend to be more engaged in discussing and displaying their emotions online, and this fosters greater communal bonds via intimacy. Thus, a community is forged because we require having things to discuss with others and to feel for others. This was seen in the WELL community, particularly when the members were garnered to raise funds for their leukemia ridden member.
However, society does not allow for such things to happen. Modern society confers greater anonymity which requires less investment and thus leads to weaker communal bonds.
Dana Boyd on the other hand, focuses more on the notion of a “networked public”. This differs from the prior public forms because people write themselves into meanings. This differs from traditional societies where communities create themselves. This gives rise to the four distinct features of a networked public as follows:
1) Persistence – this is founded upon the fact that storage is a prime facet of the network public and that everything you ever say will remain as it is, in the internet – almost like a permanent tattoo.
2) Searchability – this is with relation to the aforementioned point as it is easy to find whatever someone says just by typing “Enter” into the damned search engine.
3) Replicability – this is the fact that our information can easily be taken out of context and produced into another context with immense ease. For instance, the exact same thing can be reproduced through retweeting, reblogging and sharing via public platforms such as Facebook.
4) Invisible Audience – personally, I find this aspect to be the most interesting yet most dangerous of all the tenets of the virtual context. This is because unlike the physical world, you do not know how many people or which people have access to your data on the virtual context. The audience is thus as Boyd calls it “asynchrous”.
Lastly, Thompson’s reading basically emphasizes one main point – that of proprioception. He likens this to physical aspects of feeling or knowing where your limbs are. However, in the virtual context this translates into a cumulative sense of someone’s moves and actions in their daily lives. It also makes you have constant contact with media – and thus people you know are also connected to you constantly via platforms such as Twitter. This is akin to a wire-frame outline which contextualizes these interactions. Basically, Thompson wishes to convey that relations on the virtual space are sensorial and that they become a part of you unconsciously. The internet becomes embodied with you ( like a limb) and more so you become habituated with media so much that you are part of the process of shifting technological changes – so much so that you don’t even realize this yourself. These changes also result in shifts in the manner in which we conduct our daily relations. For instance, Thompson suggests that if you know a colleague is in a bad mood due to her expletives used on her Twitter feed – you would not ask her for help in your new work assignment. However, if you heard your friend has become attached to a new found addiction of shopping online this might bring you closer in terms of understanding her shifting likes and thus being able to converse on similar wavelengths with her. It is about understanding and constructing yourself and your relations with others so much, that it feels almost natural.
Clarinda Ong
With the advent of computer-based communication, a new form of human social interaction is formed; Rheingold called it “virtual communities” whereby various groups of people are linked together via their interactions within the computer networks. This rise of “virtual communities” where many-to-many communication occurs has renegotiated the notion of place, and the traditional meaning attached to community of the past. An interesting point was introduced in tutorial, where there is a question of who were the participants of online activities and discussions at the point of work. In the 1980s, only people with the access to technology (internet) were those of high statuses (such as governmental ranks/ professionals/ rich) who generally received adequate education qualifications. Affairs of government and business were being discussed; people would contribute to the exchange of ideas and information to facilitate the decision-making processes. Hence, they are able to contribute to the online discussions where crucial information was needed to solve problems. This is also supported by Danah Boyd (P7), where she states that “when referring to locations, public is used to signal places that are accessible to anyone (or at least anyone belonging to a privileged category like adults)”. This is another division of ‘privileged’ and ‘non-privileged’ to access of internet.
When talking about community, I will think about Ferdinand Tonnies, who theorized the concept of community. According to him, there are 2 types of community – Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. In a Gemeinschaft community, social ties belonged to the personal social interactions, roles and beliefs on basis of familiarity, sentimentality and emotional ties while in a Gesellschaft community, people work on calculated rationality, own self-interest and formal values and beliefs. This is often translated into “society”. Rheingold defines virtual communities as the existence of Gemeinschaft culture in a Gesellschaft world, where “social aggregations emerged from the internet when enough people carry on those public discussions long enough, with sufficient human emotions attached to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace”. People actually turn to the Gemainschaft community online for social bonding and feeling of closeness to others due to the deficit they faced in the Gesellschaft reality of emotional detachment. Therefore, the concept of the ‘third place’ arises – people seek comfort from the Internet for recreation and reestablishment of the third sphere of conviviality.
In Danah Boyd’s article, she analyzes the reasons why teens use social networking to enhance their social experiences and identities. ‘Networked public’ = spaces and audiences that are bound together through technological advances. Social networks are mediated public spaces as being separate from unmediated spaces. The idea of mediated spaces has 4 attributed characteristics namely, persistence, searchability, replicability and invisible audiences. Boyd also explains how teens tap on social networks to enable them to form/ play with identities (both) online and offline. People may question whether social networks can be a direct substitution for traditional types of communication (such as text, images, audio and video). I believe that social networks should not be a replacement for face-to-face interactions, but it should be used as a platform for enhancement of relationships with others. We, as users, should take note on how we use it as a tool for cultivation of relations & experimentation of our identities.
Due to the logic of anonymity, social networks allow people to try out different facets of their identities (sometimes, even different/ completely opposite of their real self). I have come across a video online, which described a girl (Jessica) who decided to develop a different persona online. It is very apt to use this example as I’ve realized that social conditions actually drive people to look at social networks for ‘escape’. Jessica wanted to escape from her reality as she was being bullied and always seen as ‘having no friends’ – and she didn’t like that. She identify herself more with her new persona through Myspace which she names herself ‘Autumn Edows’ and became popular. The time spent online increased significantly as she felt more comfortable with her online persona, and hence, this aggravated the issue of distancing of herself and her family members. It is crucial to note that there should be a balance of time spent online and offline in order to have healthy relationships with one’s friends, family and acquaintances. No one should fall to the extreme of being ‘stuck’ in the virtual realm.
Clive Thompson explains the concept of ‘proprioception’ – it is the first time I’ve come across this word and find it super amazing! Social proprioception is “giving a group of people a sense of itself, making possible weird, fascinating feats of coordination”. In simpler terms, it meant that people are aware of what is happening around them/ others without the need to be physically there. Being an avid user of Twitter and Instagram, I can relate to the concepts Thompson is driving at. As a University student, I do not have ample time to have the luxury of interacting with all of my friends outside of school. There are times where I am in a dilemma of choosing to stay in school to study or going out for café-hoppings (trend nowadays) with my friends. We have less opportunities of interacting face-to-face and updating about each other’s lives regularly. In order to not feel so detached and alienated from my friends’ lives, I look to Twitter updates for small snippets of my friends’ everyday lives. It is useful and direct to get to know about what they are doing on a daily basis. Instagram is another form of Twitter, with its visual updates of how one is doing.
Cheryl Chern
This week’s reading centers on how the new media and technologies have changed the networks and communities that are present today.
Rheingold talks about a virtual community that allows for people to talk about a shared interest. These many-to-many communicative situations that exist in the virtual community challenge the traditional understanding of the social bond that exists in society. He mentions Oldenburg’s idea of “third places” where in these space, conversation is the primary activity and the major vehicle for the display of human personality and individuality. These virtual communities have also changed the way we find friends – we can go directly to the place where our favorite subjects are being discussed, then get acquainted with people who share our passion or who use words in a way we find attractive.
Boyd distinguishes the networked publics from other kinds of publics where in the former, there is the ability to write ourselves and our communities into being. For Boyd, there is a need to distinguish networked publics from mediated and unmediated publics because of the fundamental differences that affect social interaction. The networked publics can be distinguished by four properties: Persistence, Searchability, Replicability and Invisible Audiences. In social networking sites, users are allowed to construct their own profiles that would best express themselves. While people have more control online where they can control the availability of their personal information, there is a higher risk of misinterpretation.
Thompson’s article centers on the idea of social proprioception that has created a new way of communality. Such collectivity is media-derived, where we are able to get a sense of the person’s mood or feeling through something so trivial like Twitter messages.
Sakino Tan
My generation grew up when technology was becoming more and more ubiquitous in our lives. Therefore, I still remember the notion of some traditional ways of life that did not involve technology. However, the younger generations grow up using technology all their lives and are exposed to it on a constant basis.
Up till now, I do not own a twitter account and I refuse to own one as I do not believe in the use for it. This is just a personal opinion and I have no offense to those who use it. However, I do not wish for others to know about my every single move or activity that I engage in on a daily basis. Firstly, it makes me feel unsafe that such information about me may be traced. It also creates a greater reason for others to have different impressions about me. It is not that I am ashamed of myself but I prefer the personal touch of having an actual conversation instead glancing at my tweets or statuses. I feel that it removes the emotional element out of our lives. In a way, this makes me more human when I know someone is genuinely asking about me instead of knowing me through technology.
Despite this, I do agree with Rheingold that virtual communities do play a role for different people. In some scenarios when you cannot find people of similar interests, these virtual communities provide a larger avenue for the individual to seek solace. Humans are social beings and we need to constantly be communicating, no matter what the purpose. Therefore, I feel that sometimes within your current social circle, you may not find the support you actually need or the people close to you may not understand what you may be going through or they simply don’t have the time to understand what you are going through. These virtual communities allow for people with shared interests to come together. It allows individuals to find the connection and emotional support they cannot find from their surroundings.
I feel that these virtual communities in this case are beneficial, when the stories or experiences of others may inspire or help you get through tough times. There are many uncertainties in our lives some of which may be hard to control but when we find others who have a shared experience, it makes the individual feel less alone and may give them greater strength to fight on. In virtual communities where we cannot see who the people behind the screens are, it does make us more neutrals as we do not judge or discriminate the other person. It allows people to connect on a different level.
Sherilyn Tan
Rheingold argued that virtual communities, wherein people are linked by their participation in cyber networks. They are as real as those of the physical realm, in every sense. They similarly are a source of support, aid, information and knowledge, at anytime of the day, despite being separated by geographical boundaries and locations. In times of desperate need, members can provide solace and emotional support on a deeper level that goes beyond that of the physical computer screen and keyboard. The feelings and bonds between the members of the virtual community are authentic and cannot be “switched off” as the boundaries between the physical and virtual realm are blurred. Real world accomplishments can be achieved as a result of online interactions and communities as well, especially when networks expand and reach beyond the limited individual’s connections. Unlike in the physical world whereby people meet and interact with each other oftentimes through accidents of proximity, members of the virtual communities choose to band together based on their common interests and goals, as the “topic is the address”. Users can make contact, while maintaining a distance as well. The author posited that the cyber world is as a neutral third place, which functions as an informal public space. Third places often remain accessible anytime, including the off hours of other spheres of life. Conversation is the key activity here and it is a markedly different sphere, in contrast to peoples’ other lived life spheres, where their roles and obligations may take precedence. People are also treated the way they want to be, without being judged by their physicality. As with other mediums, there is always the possibility of dishonesty, and this is not unique to computer or network-mediated media.
boyd examines how youth develop their identity and gain status via social networking sites, namely through MySpace, which is attributed as being the civil society of teenage culture since teenagers mostly know the site and can all have an opinion about it, whether they choose to participate actively or otherwise. boyd calls these SNS, “networked publics”, whereby youth form their identity through profile creation and write themselves and their community into being. boyd argues that there are multiple publics, which are situated in different social contexts and SNS are networked publics, as spaces and audience are inextricably bound together by computer networks. Like what Rheingold mentioned, network publics like any other mediums, result in a mediated environment. There are four architectural features of mediated network publics that distinguish them from unmediated ones: persistence, searchability, replicability and an invisible audience. Since MySpace allows for the flexibility of being connected to bands and their music and hence enable users to acquire cultural capital and the ability to express one’s preferences and tastes. It is a two-way relationship between music bands and their fans since bands welcome the exposure as well.
Profile creation on SNS is viewed as an initiation rite wherein users are able to personalize them, and are socialized into the SNS in the process of learning technological and social codes that are required for users to glam up their profiles. boyd also discussed how impression management is carried out in cyberspace, users write themselves into being, since bodies which are sites of identity performance and impressions are non-visible in the online realm. Information and insights users choose to share on SNSes, allow for users’ control over what they want to convey about themselves. Offline social hierarchies may also exist in the online world and teenagers may seek validation from their online friends and relations, though sometimes, it results in complications of social relations especially when the declared and articulated online relations as signalled by the “Top Friends” feature, are not mutual and reciprocal. Hence, even online, identity formation is in constant flux and users constantly conceptualize an imagined audience they assume, matters. boyd also pointed out that teenager users may try to limit accessibility to their profiles, to certain audiences. People who have power and authority over them offline, may not be as welcomed to view their profiles, that they may deem as a sacred and private space, outside the reach of control that they face in the physical realm. Overall, youth should not be “protected” from the public life that exists in cyberspace. Instead, youth should be allowed the exposure that will prepare them for future adult life.
Ernie Effendi
This week’s topic is on new media collectivities, and I feel it’s really apt to the youth community today.
Typically, people will think of facebook, twitter and even instagram. However, I would like to use the example of blogs. It used to be xanga or livejournal, not it’s moving on to tumblr. All these sites are not exactly social media platforms (where there is some form of social interaction) but more of an online personal diary. Yet, I think it’s interesting how that itself can build communities.
I am an avid user of livejournal, posting entries every other day. And all these are on the basis of anonymity, where I don’t disclose my location, school name and even name. Yet, regardless of the anonymity, I have forged a few friendships with other livejournal users that share the same interest, though I have yet to know their names up till this day. We simply read entries on each others lives; feelings, emotions, thoughts, plans, etc. Through just that, it feels as if a sort of emotional bond has been created.
It can be argued that we don’t know each other (if we bumped into each other, we probably won’t even notice), but yet we feel a sense of closeness and belonging all from just reading each other’s entries and commenting, offering a (virtual) hug or shoulder to cry on. A collective (or community) is formed from just these entries about out own lives and thoughts.
It proves that technology and media has definitely changed social definitions of relationship or even socialization. Void of real-life meetings or knowledge of a proper personal details (name and age), socialization still happens and these individuals (myself included) actually feel as if there lies a form of friendship.
I haven’t really moved further than exchanges occasional messages and comments on entries with the other users. But I do have friends who have gone out further, exchanging contacts and met them in person all the way in Australia or California and even India.
Hence, this idea of a new media collective is really interesting because it defies all the basic social norms of a proper community/collective that exist in the real world.
I feel like Thompson’s cumulation of the twitter feed to gain a 6th sense deals with the acquaintance more so than actual friends. This distinction should be made because the 6th sense with friends should not have to be supplemented with a tool and should be able to survive on human-human interaction. For celebrities to keep in touch with fans and for the news, i think this is an awesome tool for that 6th sense property.
Rheingold’s story about his child having a tick and finding a solution online through the WELL, no longer relates so strongly because as the Net garners more users from all walks of life and not simply the elites or the higher classes the information found online in my opinion, has gotten to the point where I don’t entirely trust it which results in me trying all the different methods out for myself with negates the actual ‘help’.
The other day I was on the sgnewbrides forum as I was trying to figure out how to get rid of household pests, and the methods they were discussing ranged from using tea bags and lemon grass all around the house, using double sided tape on the floor etc, but not a single one of them said these methods had actually worked, they kept saying the pests came back. I couldn’t help but wonder where the real advice could be found.
Clive Thompson’s social proprioception is a refreshing way to look and understand Twitter. Perhaps it is a social glue that holds relationships together, by reading the cumulative tweets and perceive roughly how one’s life is as for now. Then chancing upon the person in real life, perhaps the follower-friend has a few conversational prompts to begin or avoid topics that may upset the other.
This is all sweet and great; our relationships being mediated by Twitter. However, I can’t help but feel as though this is superficial. Boyd would agree that whatever I tweet may be an act of impression management. So I’ll take tweets with a grain of salt.
Also, this cumulative tweets to be read like watered-down, bite-sized chapters of a person’s life. I feel this wastes a lot of time, and as Adorno & Horkheimer would say, a “distraction”. Reading rubbish, cryptic tweets just to understand a gist of my friend’s life feels like a futile effort for me. I would rather take my friend on a one-on-one dinner, where we could spill all our worries and anger over the dinner table. I feel this is more meaningful and sincere, than just a casual “oh man, I saw your tweet. I hope you’re feeling better”.
However, perhaps this is how friendships work now. This proprioceptive sense, of having a sense of each other’s state of mind and emotions, and keeping in touch on Twitter may be important to friends who are in various continents or just very busy. This is within reason. But if a friend who stays in Singapore, pretty free, and wants me to be on Twitter so we could engage in a playful dialogue occasionally in the Twittersphere, then no thank you.
danah boyd –– Why Youth Heart Social Network Sites
This is the most relatable reading to me, seeing as I’m constantly hooked on Facebook and looking at my news feeds and updates from friends. Although Facebook, like MySpace (which is outdated now as Facebook takes charge of the social network), is a mediated public with an “invisible audience”, the likelihood of others seeing/sharing what happens to us depends on our “status in public” and the “juiciness of the story”. Not everything gets shared online, only the more interesting, newsworthy, popular or controversial things are spread online. Despite being feeling like Kings and Queens of empowerment on social media, not all of us can become the next Xiaxue 🙂
boyd talks about the MySpace example of how a guy was denied a place in university after the panel going through his application found undesirable content on his Myspace account. This brings us to the highly debatable ethics of Googling/or Facebooking employees before hiring them. Is it okay for companies to safeguard themselves from potentially ‘harmful’ employees with a quick online search? Or is it an invasion of privacy? But what’s so private when the stuff was posted online for all to see anyway? Is it one’s fault if one does not know how to protect one’s ‘image’ online? Is it one’s fault if one does not know how to utilise online functions (blocking, restricting access, privatising accounts) to hide one’s online pages?
Profiles, friends, comments: It is interesting how we lead our lives with actual friends in the public sphere of MySpace and Facebook (and Twitter, Instagram, etc). These people may be our real-life family, friends and acquaintances, but instead of meeting them in physical ‘offline’ spaces, we converse with them on our MySpace or Facebook walls. My older relatives never understood why we (youngsters) saw the need to post mundane things (“I just had a good shit this afternoon”, etc), online for all to see. They’d warn us of the dangers of the Internet, and of falling prey to online predators. Maybe it’s a good time to step back and question why we’re communicating in this strange way today, but first, let me see what my friend just had for supper on Instagram.
boyd talks about Networked publics and how they are very different from traditional forms of publics (libraries, cafes, bars, etc). Four properties that separate unmediated publics from networked publics:
Persistence –– Everything online is “recorded” and archived, everything online doesn’t really die, unless it’s deleted from all Search engines and databases (which is a very difficult and costly thing to do).
Searchability –– We can find our “digital bodies” online with a few simple clicks online. Now, we’re taught how to make search more efficient online, by using certain search terms (AND, OR, NOT) and by determining our keywords. Although these search tools and skills are meant for wholesome research, they can also easily be exploited by potential cyber criminals. If you don’t want anyone to know something about you, never put it online.
Replicability –– The ability to replicate, copy and reproduce online content is fascinating and uncontrollable. On a networked public, because what we say persists online, it’s very easy for others to take a screenshot of our ‘acts’ or ‘words’ online and repost them. This is often detrimental to people who get flamed online –– for instance, the Anton Casey case where he insulted the people in Singapore by referring to them as “poor people” on Facebook. The screenshots of his words circulated on social media way after he deleted his Facebook account, and the screenshots made it to traditional newspapers too. Online content on social media is thus replicable and never goes away (it’s persistent).
Invisible audiences –– It is “virtually impossible to ascertain all those who might run across our expressions in networked publics”. We may, for instance, think that only a small group of our ‘added’ friends on Facebook are looking at our Facebook profile, but we never know if our profile has been seen on Google search, shared by online advertisers, sold to marketers and spread on others’ social networking sites.
“Profile creation” on MySpace, via its security hole, enabling users to modify the look-and-feel of their profile pages, brings back fond memories of the days when I used to copy and paste HTML codes for my blog pages. It was so fun; I simply had to Google for ‘cool’ HTML codes and copy + paste them into my Blog’s HTML code window. I knew next to nothing about creating pages, I merely copied them (and was awed by friends who knew how to use Dreamweaver to create blog skins, as they were called). This reminds me that although we have the agency to shape/construct our own identities and web pages, sometimes we don’t really create them, instead we ‘borrow’ them from others who are willing to share.
Writing Identity and Community into being harks back to Goffman’s Presentation of Self and increased democracy. Being able to define and perform our identities online, having the agency to do so, gives us digital natives a lot more power to shape and negotiate our identities and form our communities. There are also rules to follow on social media, like the “Top 8” friend lists on MySpace which can make or break real life friendships.
Being able to perceive of an “imagined audience” also reminds me of Cooley’s looking-glass self, where we see ourselves in a mirror and wonder how others will see us. Our Facebook profiles are a clear example of a looking-glass self, where we imagine how we would look like to people who scan our profiles –– will we look glamourous, silly’ or cool’? We learn about impression management in the virtual context, and shape our online profiles according to who we want to be perceived by other people online.
Howard Rheingold –– The Heart of The Well
Rheingold talks about the virtual community in its early stages in the 1980s, and he refers to it as a “sanctified, magical, protective virtual space”. He presents an idealistic, fantastical version of the World Wide Web, which used to be accessed by those with the cultural and financial capital to use it. His version of the virtual community is full of warmth, help and support; full of ‘real’ people who just need to get out there and rant in a “third place” –– where there are always people to lend a listening ear. As discussed during tutorial, these people online in the 1980s were White, middle/upper class and educated professionals. This truly contrasts the virtual community as we know it today, where predators, perverts, marketers and advertisers abound. The virtual community today is also filled with hatred, racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, among others. Of course, that’s not to say that there are no more warm & supportive online communities, only that we need to know how to suss out various online groups and decide which ones we wish to join.
It is quite progressive for the people of Rheingold’s 1980s The Well to find “written (online) communication more authentic than the face-to-face kind”. He was able to connect with like-minded people online and form real-life friendships with them. Today, forum boards, blogs, social media and instant messaging online (including anonymous instant messaging) aren’t exactly the kind of place where we want to really connect with complete strangers. More often than not, cyber-awareness education campaigns have taught us that a myriad of dangers lurk online –– how people can be easily deceived online (identity theft, sexual harassment, online scams, etc). Perhaps in Rheingold’s time, the Internet was a safer place to connect, where the ‘crooks’ haven’t exploited Cyberspace yet (or maybe they were poorer and had no means to access the privileged Internet).
Rheingold discusses how people online meet via shared interest, and not because they share a physical community. The Well sounds like a textual forum to me, filled with many topics/discussion boards, where people (White, Upper-Middle class) gather to discuss issues. It is true that virtual communities can bring together people from all over the world. Take Second Life, for instance, in which we can have avatars that live whole social/economic/cultural lives online. We can even meet friends and potential sweethearts on Second Life (which reminds me of the “second chances” that the Internet provides its users). The Internet, in this sense, can clearly be a “third place” where people meet for “conviviality”, instead of living or working.
He asserts that “we cannot see one another in cyberspace” and thus appearances does not matter online. However, this is not true today in the age of social media profiles, where we do get judged by how ‘ugly’ or ‘pretty’ we looking in our profile pictures and online photo albums.
It is interesting and relevant to note that virtual communities change how people socialise. Rheingold says that we get to know people first, then get to meet them physically. But what if they were pretending or performing false identities online all this while? What if, when we actually meet these people ‘offline’, we discover that they are not what they purport themselves to be online? Again, the dangers of identity deception have not appeared in Rheingold’s 1980s virtual community. (I was thinking of cybercrime, stalkers, pedophiles, etc).
Rheingold talks about the actual “barn raising” or fund-raising on the Well, which was very heartwarming to read. It is touching to see these online people come together in real life to support (financially/emotionally) their fellow “well-lites”.
Reading about Blair, who committed “intellectual suicide” by “scribbling” all his WELL comments and eventually committed suicide in real life, makes me think about the “selfie saga” guy who almost committed suicide because he couldn’t snap that perfect selfie. (He snaps 200 selfies a day and he skipped school and lost his friends as a result.) Addiction to cyberspace is a relatively new phenomena (it could have started with the high-profile Blair case) and its effects can be very real. Now, there are Facebook addicts who consider their lives on Facebook to be their real lives, and they just spend all their time on Facebook. It’s a bit unhealthy to be unclear about the boundaries between virtual life and real life, and perhaps, as new media technologies advance, the line between virtual life and real life will be even more blurred, as we get sucked into the constant flow of the virtual world.
Clive Thompson –– How Twitter creates a social sixth sense
Thompson talks about how Twitter creates a form of “social propriception” in us. While individual Tweets may seem tribal, there is value in Twitter’s cumulative effect.
We gain a sense of telepathic awareness of people who are important to us, or of the daily news that we follow. For instance, when following the Punggol-East by-election coverage last year, I relied on Twitter for fast updates and a quick summary of everything that was going on. I followed the major news sites in Singapore (ST, TNP, CNA, TODAY, XinMSN and the official Twitter accounts of political candidates) and get to-the-second updates from them as they tweeted. All my updates appeared on one screen on my mobile phone, and I just had to scroll down to gain a “social proprioception”, complete with Twitpics, of what was happening on the ground, during the heat of the by-election.
Twitter gives us a shared understanding of the networked communities that we engage in, and allows us a more intimate understanding of what goes on around us (our friends, our community, our country, etc). In some ways, the speed at which our daily ramblings are posted on Twitter really makes us feel as if we were right there with our friends, going through what they are going through. (Again, this concept of Twitter would really scare my older relatives, who see the immediacy of Twitter as a scary, sinister entity).
Of course, Twitter may not represent ALL there is to know about someone. We can’t gain this “social proprioception” of a Twitter friend who isn’t active on Twitter, for instance. When that happens, we may have to make the effort to contact them and get in touch the old-fashioned way. On a last note, people may also perform their identities on Twitter, and post Tweets in such a way as to manage a certain impression. So we don’t really have to believe EVERYTHING on Twitter. This sixth sense may just be a sense of others’ performed identities, after all.
In this week, the reading documents concern with the reality of youth being in nowadays. The youth participations on the social networks have increased in the amount of users and more important thing is concerning about the social life in term of the role of teenagers.
Through reading response on this week, Boy’s article did express the role networked publics and a few questions on the first interaction page asked about the gold of the implications for youth identities and explored themselves on how youth engaged through social network sites such as important questions, why do teenagers flock to these site? What are they express on them? How do these sites fit into their lives? And so on. Boyd addressed the question by the beginning of key features of social network sites that social network sites are providing teens with a space to work out identity and status, make sense of cultural cues, and negotiate public life. I do argue with Boyd expression of the social network sites that are ‘’a type of networked public with the four properties and are not typically present in face-to-face public life’’.
For the interaction to the individual users in the social network sites, I think mostly the public sites are not really reliable with the showing information on the site that why some of users pretended to be more interested by the creation of the performance on the sites.
In my case of using facebook site online network, I did the real thing on my site and it called ‘timeline’, which showed my activities and my expressions I did by using this facebook site, I have used real information on the creation of profile but I also did it as private on the privacy that just only me and my friends on the site have known. In my opinion, only information on the site is not enough for the ensuring that you know that person but knowing in reality is extremely powerful than other ways to getting knowing the personality. Hence, social network site is just the way that people suppose to be not really in the reality.
How One Finds His Place in Society
Rheingold, boyd and Thompson paint different narratives of how one finds his place in society through the Internet. Both Rheingold and boyd address how the Internet is the alternative space that some cannot find in society – the former discusses the Internet as a third space for adults, and the latter analyses how teens use social networking sites like MySpace to negotiate parent-child power-relations and being at the bottom of society’s age-hierarchy. Thompson explains the phenomenon of social proprioception and how we understand our social world through social networks.
Rheingold’s poignant articulation of his deep connections to his fellow WELL members makes a clear point that the Internet can help nurture intimate ties that the modern society has stunted.
From personal experience, Rheingold writes about interest-based communities formed over social networks, and in this case, it is a parenting forum where parents share their child-rearing joys and toils.
As a parent himself, Rheingold professes that what he gathers from his online community is “an immense sense of security”, and claims to know something “strong and intimate” for a couple he has never met in person.
Rheingold argues that this is nothing to be surprised about, and the basis of his argument is this – the Internet, a medium for such social-networks, gives us the intimacy we crave for, in response to the deficit of ‘real’ relationships in modern societies backed by advanced capitalism.
Thus, he suggests that our intrinsic need has always been there and can only now be fulfilled.
Furthermore, the nature of such groups being interest-based, almost immediately renders the forging of close ties between people in that community. It short-circuits the getting-to-know you process and connects people on the same level. This level, he feels, democratizes the Internet space. In the case of the WELL, everyone on that site is a parent, with at least some concern or trouble with their kids, looking for solace, help, or company from other parents. Whether they are someone of high position in the workplace or a lowly subordinate, they share a common denominator, and feel like they are connected by this same journey.
Because of this, Rheingold alludes to Oldenburg’s notion of the third space. In modern societies, first and second spaces are considered spaces where people live and work, accordingly. The third space refers to the place where people gather for leisure and get to communicate deeply with one another.
The Internet, thus says Rheingold, is modern society’s third space.
It is also interesting to note that Rheingold appreciates the ‘unnaturalness’ of writing, the very notion Plato deems as a barrier to ‘true’ communication. Instead, Rheingold says it is precisely how we get to pause, think and craft our words that make our interaction more meaningful.
“Some people–many people–don’t do well in spontaneous spoken interaction, but turn out to have valuable contributions to make in a conversation in which they have time to think about what to say.”
Yet, he also notes the permanence of words online, similar to boyd’s rhetoric of the virtual architectures of communication.
boyd discusses the use of MySpace in American teenagers’ lives, and is keenly aware of the social construction of young people’s role in society. Teenagers, she says, is a perceived phase of life, socially constructed after World War II. Because of this segregation between “teens” and adults, power-relations can be formed, in which adults dictate how teens should live their lives and behave. For example, she says, the media sells teens sex, but society tells them to abstain from it.
It is due to this lack of space for teens in society to fully express themselves, that turns them to the Internet space.
boyd notices how person-to-person interaction is made public online. They take “social interactions between friends into the public sphere for others to witness.” This holds extremely true till today. Many times, we see friends gushing about how much they miss each other on Facebook posts or comments, and then asking when they should meet-up.
It almost seems as though we would all have forgotten about our friends if they did not post a selfie of themselves that morning – and that picture of them had reminded us of our immense longing for them.
This kind of public communication, could well be part of an individual’s impression management. Perhaps, one is subconsciously displaying a close relationship between himself and his friends. boyd talks about how teens express their identities by personalizing their MySpace accounts. Now, we have Facebook cover and profile photo. For example, my cover and profile photo must always match.
Teens learn acceptable behaviours through the three stages of impression management – performance, feedback and adjustment. That’s what makes our identity so malleable – the ability to adjust, almost like a series of trial and error experiments.
She brings up the architectural constraints of virtual communication again, saying that misinterpretations are bound to happen because there is a lack of physical presence online. And there are many ‘rules’ to ensure misinterpretations don’t occur too often.
The other day, I posted a photo of my dad and myself on Facebook.
About an hour later, Dad stands at my doorway, grinning, “Hey I really like the photo of us!”
“Uh huh.”
“Can I press Like on our photo?”
“Sure.”
A flicker of realization flashes across Dad’s face. “But very funny right, to Like your own photo?”
It greatly amused me how my parents are slowly picking up the unspoken rules of social media. While it may be second nature to us – rule no. 1: never Like your own status or photo, rule no. 2: always Like a post you are tagged in, etc. parents seem to be grappling with this entirely different architecture of communication.
But Dad is learning fast.
Impressed, I laugh, wondering if this was how he felt when I displayed an unusually keen sense of the world as a kid.
“If you didn’t post it, I guess you could still Like it. Even if you’re in the photo,” I reply.
Dad decides not to ask anymore though he frowns in slight confusion.
Thompson analyses communication via Twitter and it’s impacts. He uses the metaphor of social proprioception: which is the sense of where your (missing) limbs are.
The nature of tweeting is micro-blogging – posting a status of not more than 140 characters. For example:
“Ate chicken rice for breakfast”
“ROFL #mymum’soutfit”
Such are lines say very little, yet in cumulative effect, can tell a lot about the person tweeting. This almost gives us a cue of what to expect from our friends in real-life – whether they’re having a bad day or not.
Rheingold
“Because we cannot see one another in cyberspace, gender, age, national origin, and physical appearance are not apparent unless a person wants to make such characteristics public. People whose physical handicaps make it difficult to form new friendships find that virtual communities treat them as they always wanted to be treated–as thinkers and transmitters of ideas and feeling beings, not carnal vessels with a certain appearance and way of walking and talking (or not walking and not talking).” In real life, people are discriminated against by their physical appearances and this bias prevents them from showing who they are. Online spaces delete this first impression gathered from how one looks and hence allows for more intimacy. For example, members of the LGBTQ community may be discriminated against in real life where in schools, they face bullying and are sometimes pushed to the extent of suicide. However, the virtual world becomes a sanctuary for them where they can connect with other LGBTQ members and allies.
Boyd
The notion of the network public is particularly interesting because it is a new phenomena that occurs only with the presence of the Internet. For example, in a pre-Internet time, the only way to spread news was via physical presence, word of mouth, or printed news. However with the Internet, anyone can spread news and events within seconds to millions of people.
Thompson
The point that Thompson brought up pertaining to social media being a way to sense the presence of other people and a substitute for the absence of physical conversations is a refreshing view on what it means to be social. Normally, people would just think social media is just a way for us to connect and keep in touch when physical interactions are not possible. However, I think that people tend to forget that social media is a supplement to interaction and not a replacement. For example, when friends update their Twitter account with snippets of their everyday life, we tend to think that we are updated as well however a lot of the times we don’t respond to their tweets but simply read through them and this gives us the feeling of being involved in their lives although the social aspect where there is a reciprocation of interaction is absent.
This week’s readings talks about the notion of community, and how mediated technologies implicate this and how we experience it.
Rheingold compares the Internet to the Third place. For him, the internet fulfils a social function that cannot be fulfilled by the home and the workplace, due to our obligation to fulfil social roles associated with these two places. The internet as a third place allows us to express our opinions and interact with each other freely, creating a sense of affection with each other, which we can easily access anytime. He used the WELL as an example, where people come together to share ideas and help each other with problems that their children might have. For Rheingold, there are two dimensions associated with community online: sustained discussion and emotions. In addition, the formation of social bonds are more easily forged when people interact with common topics in mind, as compared to the physical realm, where people do not know each other and need to feel out the likes/dislikes of the other party.
As with her other works, boyd talks about impression management in social media; this time in relation to teenagers. She examines the various reasons why youths love social media. As with Rheingold, she argues that the internet is a space away from the structured ness of real life, and away from a space where parents can control them.
At the same time, she is also sensitive to context collapse. While writing ourselves into being, we also have to be cognizant about the definition of the situation, and how our identity will be seen by others. This is complicated by the architecture of social media, which she classifies it as a networked public. This is distinct from a “normal” public, in that our profiles can be easily searched, we are “performing” for an imagined audience, and that our data is archived. In creating an online self to fit in with the rest of the community, we may sometimes forget about the presence of others that may be viewing our profiles. This is exemplified by an example she gave, where there is a disjuncture between a job applicant’s presentation of self in real life and online. One way to get around this is using privacy controls, which reveals particular aspects of our self to others that we want to reveal. This ensures consistent performance and reduces friction.
Lastly, Thompson talks about proprioception. Certain forms of media technologies, like Twitter, have made aware of the activities of others. He argued that the power of such forms of media comes in the form of cumulative tweets; on its own, individual tweets do not inform us much about another person’s activities, but when taken together, we are able to form a cognitive map of the person and his/her daily activities. Even if we have not met the person in a while, we are still able to be aware of his life, and position ourselves in relation to him/her and interact with them accordingly.
The virtual community will expand continuously. In the past when Internet was more about words, the virtual community revolved around words of advices, suggestions from people who could in fact access to the Internet. Anonymity was not a concern because people who posted on discussion boards probably had prestigious backgrounds. However, Internet progressed and anonymity became a much debated topic when more people has access to Internet, even the lower classes (of course not all). But like what was discussed during class, it is fascinating how people now no longer fancy the idea of anonymity (why usage of blogs are on the decline). It is like going back to the past when discussion boards were the “in” thing. I think the fact this virtual community can expand is because of the emotional feeling one feels when he/she turns to the Internet. If the people of the community are anonymous. The “assurance” from Internet might not be felt as strongly. This is similar to how Thompson classifies how truth is experiential whereby you have to do it with someone. Strangers might not be as appealing thus anonymity is not much preferred now.
It is true that it is now faster to make friends because one has the choice to decide what group of communities he/she wants to join according to his/her interests. This choice would allow him/her to engage with like-minded individuals and this community’s bonds are forged better because of the common interests. However, I think Thompson painted a really pretty picture of the Internet. If you have the choice to decide who you want to mix with, at the same time you have the choice to “go against” people whom you think are not similar to you. Social exclusion will be able to occur at a larger scale especially when Internet allows for connectedness. Anti-groups can be forged easier as well. This is also probably why profiles are more manipulated now as mentioned by Boyd to maintain the “coolness” one wants to establish for people online to see. The virtual communities one belong to will also be socially ranked, somehow. We do come across like groups probably on Facebook and go like “whaaaaat?”
Lastly, the idea of proprioception is fascinating because it is so relatable, I do find myself guilty for telling someone his/her life story even though I have not met him/her in a long-while. Guess I need not feel guilty for thinking I over-stalked now because haha it forges better bonds and relations amongst people. But then again, what I thought was lacking in the discussion is the fact that people actually do choose what to post online – often we wouldn’t post our deepest secrets there within that 140 words count. Therefore, again, what’s posted on Twitter might be an attempt to actually maintain the “coolness” maybe? I think these “forged bonds” are still different from the bonds forged from constant contact.
This week’s readings presented an interesting discussion on the social implications for interactions on the virtual realm. This was particularly noticeable in the recurring theme of all three readings – the demarcation between “society” and “community”. Community is seen to be a pre-modern concept whereas society is deemed to be modern in which communal bonds are centered on a centralized authority.
One might therefore question what exactly is shifting in both spheres of social relations. The answer to this is the relationship between people. People tend to be more engaged in discussing and displaying their emotions online, and this fosters greater communal bonds via intimacy. Thus, a community is forged because we require having things to discuss with others and to feel for others. This was seen in the WELL community, particularly when the members were garnered to raise funds for their leukemia ridden member.
However, society does not allow for such things to happen. Modern society confers greater anonymity which requires less investment and thus leads to weaker communal bonds.
Dana Boyd on the other hand, focuses more on the notion of a “networked public”. This differs from the prior public forms because people write themselves into meanings. This differs from traditional societies where communities create themselves. This gives rise to the four distinct features of a networked public as follows:
1) Persistence – this is founded upon the fact that storage is a prime facet of the network public and that everything you ever say will remain as it is, in the internet – almost like a permanent tattoo.
2) Searchability – this is with relation to the aforementioned point as it is easy to find whatever someone says just by typing “Enter” into the damned search engine.
3) Replicability – this is the fact that our information can easily be taken out of context and produced into another context with immense ease. For instance, the exact same thing can be reproduced through retweeting, reblogging and sharing via public platforms such as Facebook.
4) Invisible Audience – personally, I find this aspect to be the most interesting yet most dangerous of all the tenets of the virtual context. This is because unlike the physical world, you do not know how many people or which people have access to your data on the virtual context. The audience is thus as Boyd calls it “asynchrous”.
Lastly, Thompson’s reading basically emphasizes one main point – that of proprioception. He likens this to physical aspects of feeling or knowing where your limbs are. However, in the virtual context this translates into a cumulative sense of someone’s moves and actions in their daily lives. It also makes you have constant contact with media – and thus people you know are also connected to you constantly via platforms such as Twitter. This is akin to a wire-frame outline which contextualizes these interactions. Basically, Thompson wishes to convey that relations on the virtual space are sensorial and that they become a part of you unconsciously. The internet becomes embodied with you ( like a limb) and more so you become habituated with media so much that you are part of the process of shifting technological changes – so much so that you don’t even realize this yourself. These changes also result in shifts in the manner in which we conduct our daily relations. For instance, Thompson suggests that if you know a colleague is in a bad mood due to her expletives used on her Twitter feed – you would not ask her for help in your new work assignment. However, if you heard your friend has become attached to a new found addiction of shopping online this might bring you closer in terms of understanding her shifting likes and thus being able to converse on similar wavelengths with her. It is about understanding and constructing yourself and your relations with others so much, that it feels almost natural.
With the advent of computer-based communication, a new form of human social interaction is formed; Rheingold called it “virtual communities” whereby various groups of people are linked together via their interactions within the computer networks. This rise of “virtual communities” where many-to-many communication occurs has renegotiated the notion of place, and the traditional meaning attached to community of the past. An interesting point was introduced in tutorial, where there is a question of who were the participants of online activities and discussions at the point of work. In the 1980s, only people with the access to technology (internet) were those of high statuses (such as governmental ranks/ professionals/ rich) who generally received adequate education qualifications. Affairs of government and business were being discussed; people would contribute to the exchange of ideas and information to facilitate the decision-making processes. Hence, they are able to contribute to the online discussions where crucial information was needed to solve problems. This is also supported by Danah Boyd (P7), where she states that “when referring to locations, public is used to signal places that are accessible to anyone (or at least anyone belonging to a privileged category like adults)”. This is another division of ‘privileged’ and ‘non-privileged’ to access of internet.
When talking about community, I will think about Ferdinand Tonnies, who theorized the concept of community. According to him, there are 2 types of community – Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. In a Gemeinschaft community, social ties belonged to the personal social interactions, roles and beliefs on basis of familiarity, sentimentality and emotional ties while in a Gesellschaft community, people work on calculated rationality, own self-interest and formal values and beliefs. This is often translated into “society”. Rheingold defines virtual communities as the existence of Gemeinschaft culture in a Gesellschaft world, where “social aggregations emerged from the internet when enough people carry on those public discussions long enough, with sufficient human emotions attached to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace”. People actually turn to the Gemainschaft community online for social bonding and feeling of closeness to others due to the deficit they faced in the Gesellschaft reality of emotional detachment. Therefore, the concept of the ‘third place’ arises – people seek comfort from the Internet for recreation and reestablishment of the third sphere of conviviality.
In Danah Boyd’s article, she analyzes the reasons why teens use social networking to enhance their social experiences and identities. ‘Networked public’ = spaces and audiences that are bound together through technological advances. Social networks are mediated public spaces as being separate from unmediated spaces. The idea of mediated spaces has 4 attributed characteristics namely, persistence, searchability, replicability and invisible audiences. Boyd also explains how teens tap on social networks to enable them to form/ play with identities (both) online and offline. People may question whether social networks can be a direct substitution for traditional types of communication (such as text, images, audio and video). I believe that social networks should not be a replacement for face-to-face interactions, but it should be used as a platform for enhancement of relationships with others. We, as users, should take note on how we use it as a tool for cultivation of relations & experimentation of our identities.
Due to the logic of anonymity, social networks allow people to try out different facets of their identities (sometimes, even different/ completely opposite of their real self). I have come across a video online, which described a girl (Jessica) who decided to develop a different persona online. It is very apt to use this example as I’ve realized that social conditions actually drive people to look at social networks for ‘escape’. Jessica wanted to escape from her reality as she was being bullied and always seen as ‘having no friends’ – and she didn’t like that. She identify herself more with her new persona through Myspace which she names herself ‘Autumn Edows’ and became popular. The time spent online increased significantly as she felt more comfortable with her online persona, and hence, this aggravated the issue of distancing of herself and her family members. It is crucial to note that there should be a balance of time spent online and offline in order to have healthy relationships with one’s friends, family and acquaintances. No one should fall to the extreme of being ‘stuck’ in the virtual realm.
The Secret Online Life oof Autumn Edows (video link): http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ht_h3dQU8wA
Clive Thompson explains the concept of ‘proprioception’ – it is the first time I’ve come across this word and find it super amazing! Social proprioception is “giving a group of people a sense of itself, making possible weird, fascinating feats of coordination”. In simpler terms, it meant that people are aware of what is happening around them/ others without the need to be physically there. Being an avid user of Twitter and Instagram, I can relate to the concepts Thompson is driving at. As a University student, I do not have ample time to have the luxury of interacting with all of my friends outside of school. There are times where I am in a dilemma of choosing to stay in school to study or going out for café-hoppings (trend nowadays) with my friends. We have less opportunities of interacting face-to-face and updating about each other’s lives regularly. In order to not feel so detached and alienated from my friends’ lives, I look to Twitter updates for small snippets of my friends’ everyday lives. It is useful and direct to get to know about what they are doing on a daily basis. Instagram is another form of Twitter, with its visual updates of how one is doing.
This week’s reading centers on how the new media and technologies have changed the networks and communities that are present today.
Rheingold talks about a virtual community that allows for people to talk about a shared interest. These many-to-many communicative situations that exist in the virtual community challenge the traditional understanding of the social bond that exists in society. He mentions Oldenburg’s idea of “third places” where in these space, conversation is the primary activity and the major vehicle for the display of human personality and individuality. These virtual communities have also changed the way we find friends – we can go directly to the place where our favorite subjects are being discussed, then get acquainted with people who share our passion or who use words in a way we find attractive.
Boyd distinguishes the networked publics from other kinds of publics where in the former, there is the ability to write ourselves and our communities into being. For Boyd, there is a need to distinguish networked publics from mediated and unmediated publics because of the fundamental differences that affect social interaction. The networked publics can be distinguished by four properties: Persistence, Searchability, Replicability and Invisible Audiences. In social networking sites, users are allowed to construct their own profiles that would best express themselves. While people have more control online where they can control the availability of their personal information, there is a higher risk of misinterpretation.
Thompson’s article centers on the idea of social proprioception that has created a new way of communality. Such collectivity is media-derived, where we are able to get a sense of the person’s mood or feeling through something so trivial like Twitter messages.
My generation grew up when technology was becoming more and more ubiquitous in our lives. Therefore, I still remember the notion of some traditional ways of life that did not involve technology. However, the younger generations grow up using technology all their lives and are exposed to it on a constant basis.
Up till now, I do not own a twitter account and I refuse to own one as I do not believe in the use for it. This is just a personal opinion and I have no offense to those who use it. However, I do not wish for others to know about my every single move or activity that I engage in on a daily basis. Firstly, it makes me feel unsafe that such information about me may be traced. It also creates a greater reason for others to have different impressions about me. It is not that I am ashamed of myself but I prefer the personal touch of having an actual conversation instead glancing at my tweets or statuses. I feel that it removes the emotional element out of our lives. In a way, this makes me more human when I know someone is genuinely asking about me instead of knowing me through technology.
Despite this, I do agree with Rheingold that virtual communities do play a role for different people. In some scenarios when you cannot find people of similar interests, these virtual communities provide a larger avenue for the individual to seek solace. Humans are social beings and we need to constantly be communicating, no matter what the purpose. Therefore, I feel that sometimes within your current social circle, you may not find the support you actually need or the people close to you may not understand what you may be going through or they simply don’t have the time to understand what you are going through. These virtual communities allow for people with shared interests to come together. It allows individuals to find the connection and emotional support they cannot find from their surroundings.
I feel that these virtual communities in this case are beneficial, when the stories or experiences of others may inspire or help you get through tough times. There are many uncertainties in our lives some of which may be hard to control but when we find others who have a shared experience, it makes the individual feel less alone and may give them greater strength to fight on. In virtual communities where we cannot see who the people behind the screens are, it does make us more neutrals as we do not judge or discriminate the other person. It allows people to connect on a different level.
Rheingold argued that virtual communities, wherein people are linked by their participation in cyber networks. They are as real as those of the physical realm, in every sense. They similarly are a source of support, aid, information and knowledge, at anytime of the day, despite being separated by geographical boundaries and locations. In times of desperate need, members can provide solace and emotional support on a deeper level that goes beyond that of the physical computer screen and keyboard. The feelings and bonds between the members of the virtual community are authentic and cannot be “switched off” as the boundaries between the physical and virtual realm are blurred. Real world accomplishments can be achieved as a result of online interactions and communities as well, especially when networks expand and reach beyond the limited individual’s connections. Unlike in the physical world whereby people meet and interact with each other oftentimes through accidents of proximity, members of the virtual communities choose to band together based on their common interests and goals, as the “topic is the address”. Users can make contact, while maintaining a distance as well. The author posited that the cyber world is as a neutral third place, which functions as an informal public space. Third places often remain accessible anytime, including the off hours of other spheres of life. Conversation is the key activity here and it is a markedly different sphere, in contrast to peoples’ other lived life spheres, where their roles and obligations may take precedence. People are also treated the way they want to be, without being judged by their physicality. As with other mediums, there is always the possibility of dishonesty, and this is not unique to computer or network-mediated media.
boyd examines how youth develop their identity and gain status via social networking sites, namely through MySpace, which is attributed as being the civil society of teenage culture since teenagers mostly know the site and can all have an opinion about it, whether they choose to participate actively or otherwise. boyd calls these SNS, “networked publics”, whereby youth form their identity through profile creation and write themselves and their community into being. boyd argues that there are multiple publics, which are situated in different social contexts and SNS are networked publics, as spaces and audience are inextricably bound together by computer networks. Like what Rheingold mentioned, network publics like any other mediums, result in a mediated environment. There are four architectural features of mediated network publics that distinguish them from unmediated ones: persistence, searchability, replicability and an invisible audience. Since MySpace allows for the flexibility of being connected to bands and their music and hence enable users to acquire cultural capital and the ability to express one’s preferences and tastes. It is a two-way relationship between music bands and their fans since bands welcome the exposure as well.
Profile creation on SNS is viewed as an initiation rite wherein users are able to personalize them, and are socialized into the SNS in the process of learning technological and social codes that are required for users to glam up their profiles. boyd also discussed how impression management is carried out in cyberspace, users write themselves into being, since bodies which are sites of identity performance and impressions are non-visible in the online realm. Information and insights users choose to share on SNSes, allow for users’ control over what they want to convey about themselves. Offline social hierarchies may also exist in the online world and teenagers may seek validation from their online friends and relations, though sometimes, it results in complications of social relations especially when the declared and articulated online relations as signalled by the “Top Friends” feature, are not mutual and reciprocal. Hence, even online, identity formation is in constant flux and users constantly conceptualize an imagined audience they assume, matters. boyd also pointed out that teenager users may try to limit accessibility to their profiles, to certain audiences. People who have power and authority over them offline, may not be as welcomed to view their profiles, that they may deem as a sacred and private space, outside the reach of control that they face in the physical realm. Overall, youth should not be “protected” from the public life that exists in cyberspace. Instead, youth should be allowed the exposure that will prepare them for future adult life.
This week’s topic is on new media collectivities, and I feel it’s really apt to the youth community today.
Typically, people will think of facebook, twitter and even instagram. However, I would like to use the example of blogs. It used to be xanga or livejournal, not it’s moving on to tumblr. All these sites are not exactly social media platforms (where there is some form of social interaction) but more of an online personal diary. Yet, I think it’s interesting how that itself can build communities.
I am an avid user of livejournal, posting entries every other day. And all these are on the basis of anonymity, where I don’t disclose my location, school name and even name. Yet, regardless of the anonymity, I have forged a few friendships with other livejournal users that share the same interest, though I have yet to know their names up till this day. We simply read entries on each others lives; feelings, emotions, thoughts, plans, etc. Through just that, it feels as if a sort of emotional bond has been created.
It can be argued that we don’t know each other (if we bumped into each other, we probably won’t even notice), but yet we feel a sense of closeness and belonging all from just reading each other’s entries and commenting, offering a (virtual) hug or shoulder to cry on. A collective (or community) is formed from just these entries about out own lives and thoughts.
It proves that technology and media has definitely changed social definitions of relationship or even socialization. Void of real-life meetings or knowledge of a proper personal details (name and age), socialization still happens and these individuals (myself included) actually feel as if there lies a form of friendship.
I haven’t really moved further than exchanges occasional messages and comments on entries with the other users. But I do have friends who have gone out further, exchanging contacts and met them in person all the way in Australia or California and even India.
Hence, this idea of a new media collective is really interesting because it defies all the basic social norms of a proper community/collective that exist in the real world.