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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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Submission for list--->Vernacular Creativity/Cultural Citizenship
by Hilary W 02 Jul '07

02 Jul '07

My message: Hello! Anyone study Vernacular Creativity and/or Cultural Citizenship? I need to find some texts and haven't studied in this area before, and alas, currently I am in-between Universities and do not have library access to academic journals! (The horror, the horror) I am just about to get stuck into my PhD - on yet an entirely different topic, and other than that, working in the wonders of the IT world (NB, you may have noticed a recent Irish ad. campaign). Mind is everywhere currently! However, the reason I am so interested in vernacular creativity and cultural citizenship is due to the phenomenon of Frank Warren's "Postsecret" (found here if you are not yet aware->http://postsecret.blogspot.com/) I'm looking at the transformation of the Postcard to the "Postsecret". The Postcard being a rather mundane and now outdated method of communication and cultural creativity, which in my mind, has undergone with the help of Warren's idea, a transformation to the "Postsecret" - individually created, produced and published. Any thoughts or comments? This is the second paper which I plan to present at AOIR, and with help and advice, hopefully something which many others will find interesting. -H THANKYOU! -- Hilary Wheaton BA (Hons) UWA/Curtin/iiNet -http://proceedbydebate.blogspot.com/ -http://hilarywheaton.blogspot.com/

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Re: [Air-l] social network migration
by Alex Goldman 01 Jul '07

01 Jul '07

The aggregators now in existence not only don't really work that well, but in many ways miss the point entirely. It seems to me that the steps involved in building the next generation of social networking tools are threefold: 1) finding fun ways to get users interested in generating lots of information that reflect valid/reliable social concepts and is stored using standardized data conventions 2) develop methods for users to protect, deploy, and control access to the information they generate in creative ways 3) leverage the power this immense data set to encourage the building of web applications that utilize this data in complex, ethical, and somewhat transparent ways. I've been writing an essay<http://www.alexevasion.com/node/146>precisely on this topic and have posted it to the part of my blog where where I grapple with similar ideas related to my identity game project, "The Educated Guess" <http://www.alexevasion.com/node/137>. -- ALEX GOLDMAN <http://www.couchsurfing.com/alexevasion> www.alexevasion.com <http://www.darkestdays.org>

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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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