Week 12: 3.3 Talk to me! Chatting/ Texting/ Twittering at each other

Posted in By Yvette 0 comments

Reading:
E.J Westlake (2008). Friend me if you Facebook: Generation Y and performative surveillance. The Drama Review 52 (4), 21-40
Fun Article about Facebook and how people perform themselves through digital media.


Summary:

  • Facebook: Facebook develops technologies that facilitate the spread of information through social networks allowing people to share information online the same way they do in the real world
  • Facebook was founded as a way to enhance face-to-face contact on university campuses, it has virtual and physical life unique on the internet
  • Argument: the predominantly Generation Y Facebook community uses Facebook to define the boundaries of normative behavior through unique performance of an online self
  • Facebook has become one of the fastest growing - and some will admit most addictive - pastimes in U.S.
  • MySpace is designed for global connectivity, has many features that allows for greater online creativity; Facebook is designed to allow for real-life social connections
  • The performance of self on Facebook always has the potential of carrying over into 'real life' and vice versa
  • Facebook take the concept of the personal web page and the blog further, enhancing the personal profile with tools for users to comment upon or even alter the content of fellow users' pages
  • Many sociologists worry that the increased internet use by Generation Y will result in their lacking the socialization needed to function in society
  • Facebook and MySpace made headlines in 2005 and 2006 for two reasons: 
    • they had raised issues about internet predators
    • they had caused concern about the availability of information for state surveillance
  • Users have jokingly referred to Facebook as 'Stalkerbook'
  • Facebook is a forum for the policing and establishing of normative behavior, more than the imagined forum of deviant exhibitionism
  • To some degree, the people of Generation Y trust technology, believing they can direct their performance to their chosen audience
  • GenerationY's political participant will continue to grow but political involvement seems muted when it comes to public protest
  • The people of Generation Y are choosing social cohesion over privacy challenges outmoded notions of individual freedom versus state intrusion
  • To some degree, both 'private' and 'public' are revealed as social constructs that shift and change over time
  • While Facebook operates as a forum for establishing social norms, the continual reinvention of Facebook by independent developers and users creates an opening through which Generation Y can push the boundaries of their online performance of self.


Watch: TED talk - Evan Williams on Twitter
In the year leading up to this talk, the web tool Twitter exploded in size (up 10x during 2008 alone). Co-founder Evan Williams reveals that many of the ideas driving that growth came from unexpected uses invented by the users themselves. Evan Williams is the co-founder of Twitter, the addictive messaging service that connects the world 140 characters at a time.