Self reflexivity as a stratified phenomenon
In an article I will be submitting shortly I am looking at the use of profiles as self reflexive tools and asking why this form of use didn't appear to be something the MySpace users I talked to were interested in. I speculate that one possible reason why scholars studying personal home pages and weblogs over the years seem to find quite a bit of self-reflexive activity is because early adopters tend to be more educated and have a higher SES and that self reflexivity is itself something that those with higher education and SES (academics included) are both more comfortable doing and more inclined to do. I was wondering if there was any study or literature that might back the link up between self reflexivity and SES or education (or for that matter challenge it). It seems like something Bourdieu might have alluded to but I don't recall reading anything by him that bears on the subject. --- David Brake, Doctoral Student in Media and Communications, London School of Economics & Political Science <http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/media@lse/study/ mPhilPhDMediaAndCommunications.htm> Also see http://davidbrake.org/ (home page), http://blog.org/ (personal weblog) and http://get.to/lseblog (academic groupblog) Author of Dealing With E-Mail - <http://davidbrake.org/ dealingwithemail/> callto://DavidBrake (Skype.com's Instant Messenger and net phone) Please access the attached hyperlink for an important electronic communications disclaimer: http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/secretariat/legal/disclaimer.htm
David - I might be entirely off base in my reading of what you mean by self-reflexive , but... early users also encountered the internet as a "new" interface - therefore self-reflexity featured more visible on the sites - however social networking via orkut, facebook, myspace, youtube and so on is a part of a college student's social life. Does the average college student engage in self-reflexivity in public (regardless of whether or not they keep private journals) where their peers can observe them - over their daily social activities ? would that indeed be considered cool? If there is any form of self- reflexity (and I would argue that performatively there is indeed a thinking through in writing on SNS sites - but is that self- reflexivity?)- it might take other forms than what we are used to seeing in early webpages etc. Might help to shift the frame of examination to SNS as part of everyday life (as Lois Ann implied in an earlier post responding to class divisions etc). r On Jul 3, 2007, at 6:05 AM, David Brake wrote:
In an article I will be submitting shortly I am looking at the use of profiles as self reflexive tools and asking why this form of use didn't appear to be something the MySpace users I talked to were interested in.
Radhika Gajjala radhika@cyberdiva.org Radhika Gajjala Associate Professor and Graduate Coordinator School of Communication Studies 302 West Hall Bowling Green State University Bowling Green, OH 43402 http://personal.bgsu.edu/~radhik http://www.cyberdiva.org/blog
participants (2)
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David Brake -
Radhika Gajjala