‘If you’re not on MySpace, you don’t exist.’ Social Networks, Media and Identity Extracts from ‘Why Youth <3 Social Network Sites’ by Danah Boyd
2. “MySpace should be recognized as my space, a space for teenagers to be teenagers”
3. “In choosing Friends, teens write their community into being, which is precisely why this feature is so loved and despised.”
4. “Teens often fabricate key identifying information like name, age and location to protect themselves. While parents’ groups often encourage this deception to protect teens from strangers, any teens actually engage in this practice to protect themselves from the watchful eye of parents.”
5. “Identity can be seen as a social process that is fluid and contingent on the situation.”
6. “Because Friends are displayed on the individual’s profile, they provide meaningful information about that person; in other words, “You are who you know.” For better or worse, people judge others based on their associations: group identities form around and are reinforced by the collective tastes and attitudes of those who identify with the group.”
7. “teens are modeling identity through social network profiles so that they can write themselves into being.”
8. “by allowing youths to hang out amongst their friends and classmates, social network sites are providing teens with a space to work out identity and status.”
9. “Many [young people] began participating in social networks because of the available social voyeurism and the opportunity to craft a personal representation in an increasingly popular online community.”
10. “In everyday interactions, the body serves as a critical site of identity performance. In conveying who we are to other people, we use our bodies to project information about ourselves. This is done through movement, clothes, speech, and facial expressions. What we put forward is our best effort at what we want to say about who we are.”
11. “A MySpace profile can be seen as a form of digital body where individuals must write themselves into being. “
12. “‘If you’re not on MySpace, you don’t exist.’ – Skyler, 18, to her mother.”
1. “Online access provides a whole new social realm for youth”
Can you find… 1. Postmodern concept of identity as fluid/ ever-changing/ unfixed/ constructed 2. Facebook is about constructing your identity (more than it is about expressing identity) 3. Social network users create a “narrative of the self” (Paul Ricouer/ Anthony Giddens) 4. Trying on identities (a postmodern idea. Similar to Henry Jenkins’ “textual poaching” or Maffesoli) 5. Identity does not exist in who we are; it exists in how we behave
Key points o Social networks = A space for youths to explore and express identity o Identity is crafted/ constructed o Youth identity is expressed through consumerism and social relations o Participation in social networks = an active construction of your own identity
Statements about social networking/ use of social media sites, and Identity Which of these do you agree with?
1. Our online activities (avatars and social networks) see us defining our identities in a Maffesolian way
2. Our online activities show how we take a pick’n’mix approach to our identity
3. Our online activities reflect the individualisation of our identity: grand narratives of class, race, religion, gender are secondary to the individual identity.
4. Our online activity reflects how audiences are increasingly active in constructing their own sense of identity
5. Our online activities are an example of how we mediate our own identity. (In this sentence, ‘mediate’ means express/ construct identity through the media)
6. Our online activities show how we construct media texts that express our own sense of identity
7. Our changing online identities show that identity is fluid and ever-changing
8. Our online expressions of our identity show that new media technologies are empowering audiences to shape their own sense of identity.
9. Our online identities/ social network profiles show that we express our identity through media texts, consumerism, and social collectivity (friends).