June 2007 - Air-L - lists.aoir.org

Re: [Air-l] viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace
by Eszter Hargittai 02 Jul '07

02 Jul '07

Hi, It just occured to me that I had neglected to include an important piece of information in my post about our study. The data I reported on here were collected in February and March, 2007. Curiously, no one wrote to me for clarification even though this piece of info is important. (I just hope people read updates about various data sources critically and with care.) On a related note, I find the dynamics between the following two issues intriguing on this list. On occasion we see people expressing hostility/ambivalence/skepticism toward quantitative work. At the same time, there are quite a few messages asking for baseline information about the demographic breakdown of users of various services. I hope people realize that without the former, the latter's hard to achieve. And what may seem like a quick figure can take considerable resources (time, labor, money) to compile. Of course, thoughtful and constructive criticism of work is always welcomed, however, outright dismissal of entire methodological approaches does not seem helpful. And of course, the role of quan work is way more than to provide baseline figures, but it's a helpful component. Eszter http://www.eszter.com On 6/26/07, Eszter Hargittai wrote: > > Hi, > > I have some quantitative data to address the issues raised by danah thanks > to the MacArthur-funded project we're undertaking in my Web Use Project > group. (See below for details about the data set.) > > Based on a sample of 1,236 very diverse college students, there is a > statistically significant positive relationship between use of Facebook and > the parental education level of students (a standard proxy for > socio-economic status). We also find a statistically significant negative > relationship between parental education and use of MySpace. > > The data also suggest statistically significant differences in use by race > and ethnicity, but I'll have to report on specifics later since I just > cleaned the data set and am still working on some recodes. > > Although unfortunately I cannot be there, several students (Soo An, Dan > Li, Gina Walejko) from my research group will be at the C&T2007 meeting at > Michigan State this week presenting at the workshop on social software. > Although they won't be talking about this specific issue, they will be > discussing all sorts of findings from our study. > > Regarding the data set, just to clarify, this is in not a convenience > sample of college students. We administered a paper-pencil survey to > students in the one class at the University of Illinois, Chicago that is > required of all students thus posing no selection bias as to who was in the > sampling frame from the university. We have a 98% response rate of the 85 > course sections, and an 82% response rate of all students enrolled in the > class. I could go on and on about how the sample is diverse, but regarding > the above-mentioned variable of parental education, over a third of fathers > and almost half of mothers have a high school education or less, while about > 42% of fathers and 40% of mothers have a college or graduate degree. About > 77% of the sample reported using Facebook sometimes or often, while that > figure is 54% for MySpace. > > Also, as additional information, the focus of this study was not SNS use > per se, these questions make up a very small portion of the entire data set. > > More later as we make progress in analyzing the data. > > Eszter > > Eszter Hargittai > Assistant Professor > Departments of Communication Studies and Sociology > Northwestern University > > 2006-2007 Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, > Stanford > > http://www.eszter.com

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Re: [Air-l] viewing American class divisions through Facebook andMySpace
by Jason Wilson 02 Jul '07

02 Jul '07

Hi Andy and all, Thanks for the question. First I'd reiterate what I'm trying to account for: a specific, well-heeled, well-educated demographic is making the switch to Facebook, while other people stay where they are, and others still continue to join MySpace. In addition, other specific groups are heading to other services entirely, e.g. American teens to Xanga. I would argue that "tipping points" and "usability" arguments can't entirely account for this, and class and the desire to congregate with "people like us" plays a part. I guess that I'd defer to Bourdieu for the most basic theoretical underpinnings of what I'm arguing here. In Distinction he remarks that "Objectively and subjectively aesthetic stances adopted in matters like cosmetics, clothing, or home decoration are opportunities to experience or asset one’s position in social space, as a rank to be upheld or a distance to be kept." One of the central arguments in the work is that "taste" and cultural preferences mediate class distinctions, that taste is one of the primary ways in which class distance and membership are asserted. This informs my belief that design, "usability" and the contexts of social networking are never neutral, and are always inflected by issues around class (among others). I guess that for me, the problematic assumption would be that social networking, and the selection of an SNS, could take place in a way that somehow evaded, or was innocent of all of this. Why would I think of this specifically in relation to MySpace vs. Facebook? Well, to amplify on an earlier example, I think that the ways in which the two services can be personalised appeal to different taste formations. The often-"gaudy" nature of MySpace personalisation, arising from users' ability to insert large amounts of HTML into their profiles to create background images etc. presents a contrast with the essentially "modular" personalisation available with Facebook profiles, where users select from a range of options which do not disturb the given, "clean" colour schemes and layouts of Facebook profiles. The Facebook interface strikes me as very "designerly" - it is reminiscent to me in its look and feel of an OSX application, with all that connotes in terms of "funky"/creative professions, the blurring of work and/in play, and discernment (think of the Mac vs. PC ad campaigns). The use of whitespace, drop-down menus and a very "Web 2.0" set of icons allow it to be read as uncluttered, fresh and efficient. Personalisation for many Facebook users takes place by way of deferring to the expert knowledges of application designers. By contrast, MySpace personalisations often seem inexpert, distracting, ungainly - in short amateur, even where the "pimping" is outsourced. Coincidentally, both Danah Boyd and I (me in my blog post on the 22nd) are drawn to the metaphor of/comparison with Swedish furniture stores and their emphasis on modularity and design in thinking about Facebook. There are visual rhetorics in Facebook's presentation that connote a restrained minimalism which is not avant-garde but rational and "tasteful". This observation chimes with the excitement of those marketing high-end consumer goods about getting access Facebook's "elite" user base. Facebook's aesthetic of personalisation appeals to a certain kind of networked, linked-in, design-aware, educated, "mature" (non-emo :-) ) subject, in part because of the "distancing" it offers from messy old MySpace, which begins, by contrast, to resemble the chaos of a teenager's bedroom wall. In this sense, I think we can talk about class in relation to the design interface. That's an example - as I said in yesterday's post, I think the modes of networking Facebook offers as well as the narratives associated with it's success are appealing to a certain kind of contemporary, class-inflected sensibility. If you wanted specific examples of MySpace profiles that bear out the contrast, I'd hesitate to give them on a list, but could send you some off-list if you like. Cheers Jason ____________________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo!7 Mail has just got even bigger and better with unlimited storage on all webmail accounts. http://au.docs.yahoo.com/mail/unlimitedstorage.html

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Re: [Air-l] viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace
by nativebuddha 02 Jul '07

02 Jul '07

Maybe this has already been said, but I find the framing by class problematic on a basic level--we are already focusing only on a certain "level" of class we we look at Facebook and MySpace users. On 6/29/07, Lois Ann Scheidt <lscheidt(a)indiana.edu> wrote: "Will the divide hold true now that Facebook allows access to anyone with an email address?" Yes, anyone with an e-mail can have access, but remember that only a certain "level" of class has an e-mail, and has/feels the desire to devote time to play via Facebook and MySpace. (Lois, pardon my lifting of your quote. I know that it was not pertinent for your discussion. It seemed like a good jumping off point for my thoughts.) I'm not statistically sure of this, but I would imagine that there are class distinctions (more inclusive, maybe) between cell phone users (more lower socio-economic groups included) and webpage users. This may seem like a trite over already explored discussion of class and the internet, but I think it still needs to frame the overall discussion of class. That's why Bourdieu's discussion of class and distinction might bear some fruit. Facebook and MySpace class differences are more like differences within a class grouping that already exist "above" other socio-economic distinctions. Again, maybe this is plain to see, but it is worhy of acknowledging if we want to untangle class on the internet. -robert

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viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace
by danah boyd 02 Jul '07

02 Jul '07

A week ago, folks were talking about class divisions around Facebook and MySpace use in teen culture. I was in the middle of writing an essay about that exact topic(and some folks have heard me speak to this issue over the last few months) so i didn't want to peep up until i had written what i could. I finally gave up and realized that I didn't have the proper words for talking about this issue so I wrote an essay with caveats. I offer it to you to tear to shreds in the hopes that maybe some good can come out of it. (I didn't include the full text here because it's long - i hope the link doesn't discourage folks from checking it out.) Feedback is *very* welcome. Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html [Barry - i disagree with your view that it's just local clustering dependent on a random local seed. I've seen this in too many schools in too many states in the United States to believe that this isn't about class. I can't speak to Canada or Britain or anywhere else. I also can't speak to adult usage. I'm talking solely about high school teen usage in the US. If you've got ideas for how to measure this quantitatively when demarcating class is difficult, i'm all ears.]

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Re: [Air-l] social network migration
by Maciej Kos 01 Jul '07

01 Jul '07

Hello, I wonder if we would see a sort of a social network aggregator developed in the near future. A tool to integrate all our networks.. Today, we can aggregate all the news, blogs, etc. we need using an RSS reader. We can also aggregate all the content that we create on different platforms in one place - using jaiku.com, so that it is easier for others to follow everything we do online. Would that be possible to somehow integrate all our online social networks? Is there a need for it? M. On 6/20/07, elw(a)stderr.org <elw(a)stderr.org> wrote: > > > Now for the scholarly types, this community seems to be a bit more > > fragmented. I know many of these people who have accounts on myspace and > > even friendster, in addition to Facebook. I personally have an inactive > > friendster account that never ceases to amaze me when I get notices that > > someone actually was there. These are slowly dribbling off. > > there are at least a few people from aoir that i've found on: > > tribe > friendster > facebook > myspace > linkedin > ryze > orkut > [a site i've forgotten the name of...] > > and probably a significant number of other sites that i don't know about. > > I have friends from several different demographics on each of them. > > When folks try to compress a site into "teens go here" and "latinos mostly > go here", they generally miss out on the fact that these sites are HUGE - > so huge that there is a broad spectrum of behavior present on ALL of them. > Surface-level characterizations are great, yes, but there's a lot of > nuance in people's behaviors and networking patterns - that is easily > missed. > > --elijah > _______________________________________________ > The air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org mailing list > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > http://www.aoir.org/ > >

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Prof. Antonio Roversi
by Antonella Mascio 01 Jul '07

01 Jul '07

Dear all, I am sorry to tell you very sad news about an italian Professor who was one of the best and original italian researchers on Internet subjects: Antonio Roversi. He died last June 15th. Prof. Roversi worked for a long time in Bologna University (http://www2.scedu.unibo.it/roversi/) and was also one of the first italians to join aoir. Best regards antonella mascio

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Grad Panel Filled
by Ted M Coopman 29 Jun '07

29 Jun '07

All, Thanks to all the volunteers! We will have a great roundtable with representitives from Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, India, and the US with some in their final year(s) and a few just out. -TED Ted M. Coopman Department of Communication University of Washington

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Do volunteers run the internet?
by Peter Timusk 29 Jun '07

29 Jun '07

Has anyone researched internet governance as voluntary? I have one undergrad paper on this. I think I am original on this but would appreciate any findings by others. also are there any statistics on this? Peter Timusk, B.Math statistics (2002), B.A. legal studies (2006) Carleton University Systems Science Graduate student, University of Ottawa (2006-2007). just trying to stay linear. Read by hundreds of lurkers every week.

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CFP: CT2007 Workshop: Public Practices, Social Software: Examining social practices in networked publics
by danah boyd 29 Jun '07

29 Jun '07

DEADLINE: May 7, 2007 WORKSHOP: June 28, 2007 Workshop for 3rd Annual Communities and Technologies Conference Public Practices, Social Software: Examining social practices in networked publics Description: (abbreviated; full description on website) This full-day workshop proposes to bring together researchers interested in studying social software. We use this term loosely to include social network sites (e.g., Cyworld, MySpace, orkut, and Facebook), contemporary online dating services (e.g., Friendster, Spring Street Personals, Match.com) blogging services (e.g., LiveJournal, Xanga, Blogger), tagging tools (e.g. del.icio.us, Digg) and media sharing sites (e.g., YouTube, Flickr). Although the functionality of these sites differs greatly, there are some common features: a user-generated profile, visible linkages between users, public communication forums (such as message boards or comments), and persistent traces of user behavior. Although we intend to appeal to broad range of researchers, we expect that we will primarily draw the attention of those studying social network sites. At the same time, we recognize that there is a lot of crossover between social network sites and the broader realm of social software. We are hoping that cross-pollination would be helpful to both. While we are aware of and have access to dozens of researchers interested in social network sites, we are not certain of the number of researchers looking at other forms of social software. Activities: This workshop will have two parts. The first half will focus on presentations and the second half will involve small group breakouts. Those who apply to this workshop and are accepted will be given a presentation slot. In order to make this workshop more accessible to attendees of the conference, the presentation section will be open to observers. In the afternoon, only those who have been pre-selected will be allowed to participate. Those interested in being a part of the second half must apply to the workshop. Workshop Goals and Application Process: The goals of this workshop are to enable cross-fertilization among researchers studying related technologies. Participants will be exposed to new ideas, methodological approaches, and theories. We will try to complicate the ways in which people are engaging with different features. To submit an application: Please send the following to all three organizers (dmb [at] sims.berkeley.edu , nellison [at] msu.edu , scott.golder [at] hp.com) * A brief biography of approximately 150 words * A 400-500 word research statement addressing your research project, methods, findings, and future research questions and goals * 3 research questions about social software which you find especially provocative and engaging. These should be questions that you'd like to discuss with other researchers and practitioners. Workshop homepage: http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/~dmb/ct-sns/ Conference homepage: http://ebusiness.tc.msu.edu/cct2007/ Workshop Organizers: * danah boyd, University of California-Berkeley * Nicole Ellison, Michigan State University * Scott Golder, HP Labs Deadlines: * Workshop proposals: May 7, 2007 * Decisions on participants: May 21, 2007 * Workshop date: June 28, 2007

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Re: [Air-l] viewing American class divisions through Facebook andMySpace
by Lois Ann Scheidt 29 Jun '07

29 Jun '07

Your construct of teens as congregating with "people like us" bothers me because it seems overly broad. Based on my experience talking to teens online, they move to online venues first through word-of-mouth from f2f friends and acquaintances. Once they are online, many younger teens only converse with people they know f2f...the media has done a good job in scary parents about the "dangers" online, who then scare their kids. Older teens may expand their circles into the circles of their friends, hence the popularity of second level friending. While a few, more experimental, teens may converse with random partners...many try this once or twice but don't continue the practice. A few will continue it often for less acceptable purposes - bullying, flaming, or "hooking up." Movement between online spaces may take place because of recommendations from f2f friends, or online only friends. Some adventurous types, or most 15-year old boys, will check out new spaces based on news coverage or random searches. But like most forays into the dark side, these are usually fishing expeditions rather then gateways to extensive use of new spaces. In other words, they may check out new spaces, they may even take up a temporary residence in such spaces, but total movement of their online "home" is tied to the location - or relocation - of primary f2f friends. So at it's simplest and most basic form, when teens enter an online space initially it is for "people known to me" who of course may be "people like me" but implies a different level of specificity. I must admit that I have found Bourdieu to be only partially applicable to adolescent spaces. In applying his theories I have to use a "small world" approach first. With teens their primary concerns are with the social hierarchy of their f2f world. Unlike adults, they are not as concerned that everyone they meet - or cross paths with - recognize their social standing. They are, however, very concerned that their social standing, stands out among their peers...their classmates and friends at their high school, in their neighborhood, and in their acquaintance pools. I believe this is because many of their social worlds are still very small towns where they see the same peers at school, socially, on teams, etc. Their social circles tend to have much more overlap then do the social circles of many adults. In all my work I use adolescent development theory as my true underpinning because I have found even without consciously using it we still end up proving that it works, i.e. the average 15-year-old boy is more adventurous than and less tied to social conventions then the average 15-year-old girl. However this may change during various developmental periods with the adventurousness see-sawing between the sexes. Without an understanding of adolescent development theory, I have seen researchers attribute characteristics to online interactions that rather then being unusual or motivated by their use of online spaces are normal teen developmental stages that if we were to follow that young person 24/7 we would see enacted with their f2f friends, their teachers, and their parents. To tie adolescent development into the MySpace/Facebook discussion. I have found that at an experimental stage teens move to what is "new". So for most of my adolescent research population (10-19) Facebook was not a factor since prior to the launch of their high school section in Sept. 2005, the only college and university email address holders had access to Facebook. So from it's inception, in 2003, MySpace has allowed access to non-academic teens. That gave MySpace a critical two-year jump on Facebook with those not yet in college or university, in truth the "two-year" jump is misleading since not all U.S. institutions of higher education were allowed access to Facebook from the beginning. So is it surprising that their is an economic and ethnic divide between the sites...it shouldn't be if you have even a passing acquaintance with statistic on college/university attendance based on family of origin economic status and ethnicity. Will the divide hold true now that Facebook allows access to anyone with an email address? Give it another year of so and we shall see. Lois Ann Scheidt Doctoral Student - School of Library and Information Science, Indiana University, Bloomington IN USA Adjunct Instructor - School of Informatics, IUPUI, Indianapolis IN USA and IUPUC, Columbus IN USA Webpage: http://www.loisscheidt.com Blog: http://www.professional-lurker.com Quoting Jason Wilson <jason_a_wilson(a)yahoo.com.au>: > Hi Andy and all, > > Thanks for the question. > > First I'd reiterate what I'm trying to account for: a specific, > well-heeled, well-educated demographic is making the switch to > Facebook, while other people stay where they are, and others still > continue to join MySpace. In addition, other specific groups are > heading to other services entirely, e.g. American teens to Xanga. I > would argue that "tipping points" and "usability" arguments can't > entirely account for this, and class and the desire to congregate > with "people like us" plays a part. > > I guess that I'd defer to Bourdieu for the most basic theoretical > underpinnings of what I'm arguing here. In Distinction he remarks > that "Objectively and subjectively aesthetic stances adopted in > matters like cosmetics, clothing, or home decoration are > opportunities to experience or asset one?s position in social space, > as a rank to be upheld or a distance to be kept." One of the central > arguments in the work is that "taste" and cultural preferences > mediate class distinctions, that taste is one of the primary ways in > which class distance and membership are asserted. This informs my > belief that design, "usability" and the contexts of social networking > are never neutral, and are always inflected by issues around class > (among others). I guess that for me, the problematic assumption would > be that social networking, and the selection of an SNS, could take > place in a way that somehow evaded, or was innocent of all of this. > > Why would I think of this specifically in relation to MySpace vs. > Facebook? Well, to amplify on an earlier example, I think that the > ways in which the two services can be personalised appeal to > different taste formations. The often-"gaudy" nature of MySpace > personalisation, arising from users' ability to insert large amounts > of HTML into their profiles to create background images etc. presents > a contrast with the essentially "modular" personalisation available > with Facebook profiles, where users select from a range of options > which do not disturb the given, "clean" colour schemes and layouts of > Facebook profiles. The Facebook interface strikes me as very > "designerly" - it is reminiscent to me in its look and feel of an OSX > application, with all that connotes in terms of "funky"/creative > professions, the blurring of work and/in play, and discernment (think > of the Mac vs. PC ad campaigns). The use of whitespace, drop-down > menus and a very "Web 2.0" set of icons allow it to be > read as uncluttered, fresh and efficient. Personalisation for many > Facebook users takes place by way of deferring to the expert > knowledges of application designers. By contrast, MySpace > personalisations often seem inexpert, distracting, ungainly - in > short amateur, even where the "pimping" is outsourced. > Coincidentally, both Danah Boyd and I (me in my blog post on the > 22nd) are drawn to the metaphor of/comparison with Swedish furniture > stores and their emphasis on modularity and design in thinking about > Facebook. There are visual rhetorics in Facebook's presentation that > connote a restrained minimalism which is not avant-garde but rational > and "tasteful". This observation chimes with the excitement of those > marketing high-end consumer goods about getting access Facebook's > "elite" user base. Facebook's aesthetic of personalisation appeals to > a certain kind of networked, linked-in, design-aware, educated, > "mature" (non-emo :-) ) subject, in part because of the "distancing" > it offers from messy old MySpace, which begins, by contrast, to > resemble the chaos of a teenager's bedroom wall. In this sense, I > think we can talk about class in relation to the design interface. > > That's an example - as I said in yesterday's post, I think the modes > of networking Facebook offers as well as the narratives associated > with it's success are appealing to a certain kind of contemporary, > class-inflected sensibility. If you wanted specific examples of > MySpace profiles that bear out the contrast, I'd hesitate to give > them on a list, but could send you some off-list if you like. > > Cheers > Jason > > > > > > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo!7 Mail has just got even bigger and better with unlimited storage on all > webmail > accounts. > http://au.docs.yahoo.com/mail/unlimitedstorage.html > > > _______________________________________________ > The air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org mailing list > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > http://www.aoir.org/

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