viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace
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.]
In figuring out why some highschools use facebook or myspace, we need to remember that up to a few years (maybe even less) ago, facebook was college only while myspace was anyone. Because of this, more highschoolers were on myspace. Even though facebook is now open to anyone with an e-mail address, the myspace 'seed' was already planted. Another interesting topic relating to this is why different regions or countries use different IM protocols. I grew up in the United States, where everyone used AOL instant messenger, but when I went to the University of Toronto for undergrad, it was an MSN school. However, my middle eastern friends depended on ICQ while Yahoo! was popular among Asian immigrants. Ben Spigel Graduate Student Department of Geography The Ohio State University On 6/24/07, danah boyd <aoir.z3z@danah.org> wrote:
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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Beyond nationality, preference for IM platforms is also related to when the user began using IM's. In other words, lots of old-timers still use ICQ for some, if not all, of their conversations because it was the platform of choice when they started using peer-to-peer. It's pretty simple human habit...use what you know and what you learned on is the best because it's what you learned to use first. LOL How many of us still prefer to listen to the music that was popular when we were in high school...no matter how many newer or different types of music we enjoy. 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 Ben Spigel <spigel.1@osu.edu>:
In figuring out why some highschools use facebook or myspace, we need to remember that up to a few years (maybe even less) ago, facebook was college only while myspace was anyone. Because of this, more highschoolers were on myspace. Even though facebook is now open to anyone with an e-mail address, the myspace 'seed' was already planted.
Another interesting topic relating to this is why different regions or countries use different IM protocols. I grew up in the United States, where everyone used AOL instant messenger, but when I went to the University of Toronto for undergrad, it was an MSN school. However, my middle eastern friends depended on ICQ while Yahoo! was popular among Asian immigrants.
Ben Spigel Graduate Student Department of Geography The Ohio State University
On 6/24/07, danah boyd <aoir.z3z@danah.org> wrote:
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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I should have mentioned that this is also a class issue since early adopters are usually upper middle to upper class. 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 Lois Ann Scheidt <lscheidt@indiana.edu>:
Beyond nationality, preference for IM platforms is also related to when the user began using IM's. In other words, lots of old-timers still use ICQ for some, if not all, of their conversations because it was the platform of choice when they started using peer-to-peer.
It's pretty simple human habit...use what you know and what you learned on is the best because it's what you learned to use first.
LOL How many of us still prefer to listen to the music that was popular when we were in high school...no matter how many newer or different types of music we enjoy.
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 Ben Spigel <spigel.1@osu.edu>:
In figuring out why some highschools use facebook or myspace, we need to remember that up to a few years (maybe even less) ago, facebook was college only while myspace was anyone. Because of this, more highschoolers were on myspace. Even though facebook is now open to anyone with an e-mail address, the myspace 'seed' was already planted.
Another interesting topic relating to this is why different regions or countries use different IM protocols. I grew up in the United States, where everyone used AOL instant messenger, but when I went to the University of Toronto for undergrad, it was an MSN school. However, my middle eastern friends depended on ICQ while Yahoo! was popular among Asian immigrants.
Ben Spigel Graduate Student Department of Geography The Ohio State University
On 6/24/07, danah boyd <aoir.z3z@danah.org> wrote:
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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Today, I was pointed to the Quantcast data on FB users by someone arguing against the perception/claim that FB is "quite white." http://www.quantcast.com/facebook.com I did a quick comparison with the MySpace data: http://www.quantcast.com/myspace.com When you compare the FB and MySpace demographics on Quantcast, the notion that there is a class difference between FB and Myspace users is supported (though obviously there are plenty of people from most classes on each site): Quantcast presents the data as bar charts that compare the demographics of a site's users to the internet population in general. The FB bars get bigger (i.e. greater representation on FB compared to the overall internet population) the higher the household income, while the MySpace bars get smaller. The MySpace levels are much closer to one another across income levels, while there is a big disparity in FB users at different income levels. FB users are also evidently more likely to be more educated than MySpacers (not surprising given its college origins). The non-white part is less clear. Overall, it does look like FB is more white, but African-Americans seem to be better represented on FB than on MySpace. FB has proportionally more African Americans than MySpace. On the other hand, FB has comparatively far fewer hispanics or "others" than does MySpace. Asians's comparative presence about the same on both sites. I would be interested in hearing what people know about Quantcast data -- where does it come from? how reliable is it? etc. Ironically, the day before danah posted her essay, a friend in London wrote on another space I frequent "What I want to know is where are the non white people on FB......infact FB is pretty boring [...] MySpazz is chaotic and a mess.... i like it, FB is way too bland." In more local news, the AoIR facebook group topped 200 members today, which I guess is about 15% of the list subscribers (though there are a few in the FB group who aren't here). Nancy
What really surprised me when reading your (really interesting and inspiring) article, was the framing of class in the terms "good" and "bad" kids. Does the popular, white girl actually see herself as good and the emo girl as bad? In Germany (where I live), class would be framed more through distancing and maybe specific (derogatory) terms which address class or race issues I think. It seems to me that the (moral?) distinction between good and bad might be reflected in labeling the groups hegemonic and subaltern. When dealing with class, it seems one always has to choose a side and figure out who is gaining from all of this and who is loosing. Reading your worries about both groups though, it seems hard to argue that any of these teenage groups is truly on the winning side. What about Bourdieu? I always found him helpful to deal with class in specific contexts and in trying to figure out small scale social structures and naming the different functionalities of these structures. Of course, translating Bourdieu`s reliance on the body into virtual terms could be a challenge - but might be a fun one (and has probably been done before). Just a note - from what I see and hear, your notion that class divisions are represented online holds true for Germany. Although I am not sure how MySpace fits into the picture, we have two German networks which can be class-identified, one overtly (StudiVZ for the university students), and the other less overtly (Kwick for the pupils of the shortest branch of our - very stratifying - three-way school system). Btw - Kwick has a very clean and precast design and is not reminiscent of junky myspace. Oh and another thing - analyzing the myspace thread commenting on the article for social positioning, habitus and distinction could be a fun task. Regards, Johanna Johanna Roering Sfb War Experience University of Tuebingen
upps not myspace thread but metafilter thread ..... On 6/26/07, joana ro <joanaro@googlemail.com> wrote:
What really surprised me when reading your (really interesting and inspiring) article, was the framing of class in the terms "good" and "bad" kids. Does the popular, white girl actually see herself as good and the emo girl as bad? In Germany (where I live), class would be framed more through distancing and maybe specific (derogatory) terms which address class or race issues I think.
It seems to me that the (moral?) distinction between good and bad might be reflected in labeling the groups hegemonic and subaltern. When dealing with class, it seems one always has to choose a side and figure out who is gaining from all of this and who is loosing. Reading your worries about both groups though, it seems hard to argue that any of these teenage groups is truly on the winning side.
What about Bourdieu? I always found him helpful to deal with class in specific contexts and in trying to figure out small scale social structures and naming the different functionalities of these structures. Of course, translating Bourdieu`s reliance on the body into virtual terms could be a challenge - but might be a fun one (and has probably been done before).
Just a note - from what I see and hear, your notion that class divisions are represented online holds true for Germany. Although I am not sure how MySpace fits into the picture, we have two German networks which can be class-identified, one overtly (StudiVZ for the university students), and the other less overtly (Kwick for the pupils of the shortest branch of our - very stratifying - three-way school system). Btw - Kwick has a very clean and precast design and is not reminiscent of junky myspace.
Oh and another thing - analyzing the myspace thread commenting on the article for social positioning, habitus and distinction could be a fun task.
Regards, Johanna
Johanna Roering Sfb War Experience University of Tuebingen
Through all this thread, I'm really surprised at the notions of class that are being bandied about. With the exception of the reference to the lumpenproletariat, I see a real dearth of class theory. Yes, class is about relationship to the means of production (Marx). But it is also about relationship to the ability to control the work of others (Olin Wright). And it is also about the unspoken behaviors that reveal one's social capital (Bourdieu). I believe what this essay is really about is the intersection of the material manifestation of class (habitus perhaps) and how that is transformed in the virtual space. It is also about the "appropriate" behavior of the respective "fronts" of Myspace and Facebook. I would apply Goffman's dramaturgical approach to understanding why certain groups gravitate to either place -- the "scripts" of each are distinct and have a certain "digital habitus" that comply to respective classes (in Olin Wright's sense of the term). I think this is a process of unriddling and not so much describing the "typical" FB or Myspace profile. This is why a qual study is the right approach IMO. Though much of the news hits on this is about "study says FB is richer" etc etc, which I find so annoying because Danah's research does not establish that. If I were to put on my "brand account planner" hat for a moment, I would say the "brand molecule" of FB is much more attractive to White, educated, members of the managerial class (or at least their children) because its front has scripts that embrace hegemonic scripts. In the words of Bourdieu, the users of Myspace "refuse what they were refused" when they diss on FB.
Throwing in my two cents: I've been following this discussion with great interest. I'm in the process of researching friendship on MySpace, loooking at who is on MySpace, what types of friendships exist and how they function. Part of my thesis was going to be dedicated to a Bourdieuisian analysis of social capital and how different types of capital function on MySpace and how they are connected to ideas on friendship. Alas my research doesn't allow room for this anymore but I think a Bourdieuisian approach would be very effective in analysing who uses MySpace and Facebook and how. I'm finding in my research (though quite limited) that in Sydney Australia at least, Facebook is predominately among university students and young professionals whereas MySpace is still dominated by highschool students. Most older people are leaving MySpace for Facebook just for it's simpler interface- a quick glance in my opinion would say that it's not so much a class thing in Sydney as an age thing. Regards, Rhiannon On 6/26/07, joana ro <joanaro@googlemail.com> wrote:
What really surprised me when reading your (really interesting and inspiring) article, was the framing of class in the terms "good" and "bad" kids. Does the popular, white girl actually see herself as good and the emo girl as bad? In Germany (where I live), class would be framed more through distancing and maybe specific (derogatory) terms which address class or race issues I think.
It seems to me that the (moral?) distinction between good and bad might be reflected in labeling the groups hegemonic and subaltern. When dealing with class, it seems one always has to choose a side and figure out who is gaining from all of this and who is loosing. Reading your worries about both groups though, it seems hard to argue that any of these teenage groups is truly on the winning side.
What about Bourdieu? I always found him helpful to deal with class in specific contexts and in trying to figure out small scale social structures and naming the different functionalities of these structures. Of course, translating Bourdieu`s reliance on the body into virtual terms could be a challenge - but might be a fun one (and has probably been done before).
Just a note - from what I see and hear, your notion that class divisions are represented online holds true for Germany. Although I am not sure how MySpace fits into the picture, we have two German networks which can be class-identified, one overtly (StudiVZ for the university students), and the other less overtly (Kwick for the pupils of the shortest branch of our - very stratifying - three-way school system). Btw - Kwick has a very clean and precast design and is not reminiscent of junky myspace.
Oh and another thing - analyzing the myspace thread commenting on the article for social positioning, habitus and distinction could be a fun task.
Regards, Johanna
Johanna Roering Sfb War Experience University of Tuebingen _______________________________________________ The air-l@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
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Hi Danah, Félicitations. Even Le Monde cites you: http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-651865,36-928363@51-928862,0.html The Fondation Internet Nouvelle Génération (FING) in Paris interviewed Hélène Delaunay-Téterel about the social distinction in French blogs (which seems to be different from the US American one) : http://www.ent-leblog.net/upfing06/2006/06/interview_upfin_2.html Cheers Frank Thomas danah boyd wrote:
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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-- .......................................... Dr. Frank Thomas FTR Internet Research 93110 Rosny-sous-Bois France
I read your piece now Danah Boyd. I reflected on my own teen years. I agree as a union activist that my friends as university educated activists(your friends working in cafes) are not working class even though we claim to be on ideological and income grounds. Like Stalin's student volunteers I think. I also study youth movement stuff, as a former youth underground twenty something leader, but in computer studies focus on computer security these days with a fair amount of sociology of science and tech. I wonder as a boomer what would have happened had I had kids twenty years ago in my late twenties but I guess I was just that alternative. Interesting piece thanks it was good to reflect on 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. On 24-Jun-07, at 8:02 PM, danah boyd wrote:
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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participants (9)
-
Ben Spigel -
danah boyd -
Frank Thomas -
joana ro -
Lois Ann Scheidt -
Nancy Baym -
Peter Timusk -
rhiannon sawyer -
Sam Ladner