Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Commentary and Criticism

2008; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 8; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14680770801980612

1471-5902

Usha Zacharias, Jane Arthurs, Catherine Driscoll, Becky Walker, Melissa Gregg, Nicole S. Cohen, Leslie Regan Shade, Yuping Mao, Rüstem Ertuğ Altınay, Sarah Gorman,

Media Studies and Communication

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgements Thanks to my online friends, past and present, across numerous platforms and many profiles. Thanks Charlie, Doug, Femme, Lola, Meiji Mo, Mel, Nina, Rat, Ruth, Steve, and Ted! Thanks to the Bad Subjects list, LBO-talk, Livejournal and Facebook. Thanks also to Melissa Gregg in her more authoritative persona with which I am co-authoring a book on presence, intimacy and community in online culture (See, for example, Driscoll & Gregg 2008). Notes 1. Some of my informants told me that they do not write the details concerning their sexual desires/preferences or write them correctly, because they do not want these to be known by their friends. In fact, one of the users states in his profile that after becoming a member, he found out that his cousin and his dentist are also members of the same website. Many users like him avoid the possibility of being recognized by not uploading a face picture on their profile. 2. Anderson (2002 Anderson, Eric. 2002. Openly gay athletes: contesting hegemonic masculinity in a homophobic environment. Gender and Society, 16(6): 860–877. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) discusses a similar concern among openly gay athletes. 1. Media Action (formerly MediaWatch) promotes gender equity through media analysis and action. Cohen and Shade are board members. See Media Action (n.d.) Media Action. (n.d.), [Online] Available at: http://www.media-action-media.com (21 March, 2008). [Google Scholar]. 2. As Lenhart, Madden, Rankin McGill, and Smith (2007 Lenhart, Amanda, Madden, Marym, Rankkin Mcgill, Alexandra and Smith, Aaron. 2007. Teens and Social Media, Pew Internet & American Life Project. [Online] Available at: http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/230/report_display.asp (21 February, 2008) [Google Scholar]) document, US teens use of the internet for content creation (uploading videos, remixing content, blog and SNS participation) increased 57 percent in the last three years, with 55 percent of teens aged 12 to 17 posting profiles on an SNS and 47 percent posting digital photos. Young women dominate the teen blogosphere; 35 percent of young teens blog versus 20 percent for young men. See Boyd & Elliot 2007. 3. Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe's (2007 Ellison, Nicole, Steinfield, Charles and Lampe, Cliff A. C. 2007. The benefits of Facebook "friends": exploring the relationship between college students' use of online social networks and social capital. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(3) [Online] Available at: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue4/ellison.html [Google Scholar]) research maintains that Facebook is used more to maintain existing offline relationships and to solidify offline connections than to meet new people. Boyd's (2006 Boyd, Danahm. 2006. Friends, friendsters, and top 8: writing community into being on social network sites. First Monday, 11(12) [Online] Available at: http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_12/boyd/index.html[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 2008 Boyd, Danah M. 2008. "Why youth (heart) social network sites: the role of networked publics in teenage social life". In Youth, Identity, and Digital Media, Edited by: Buckingham, David. 119–142. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. [Google Scholar]) ethnographic research on the identity formation of US youth using SNS points to the importance of these spaces for the formation and maintenance of "networked publics," youth socialization, and the creation and sustainability of fluid identity formations. 1. Bruns and Jacobs Bruns, Axel and Jacobs, J., eds. 2006. Uses of Blogs, New York: Peter Lang. [Google Scholar] summarise some of these in their Uses of Blogs (2006), but see also Pulver's (2004 Pulver, Jeff (2004) '2004: looking forward to a great year ahead!', [Online] Available at: http://pulverblog.pulver.com/archives/000361.html (20 January, 2008) [Google Scholar]) prediction and McGann's (2004 Mcgann, Rob (2004) 'Blog readership surged 58 percent in 2004', [Online] Available at: http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page = 3453431 (http://www.clickz.com/showpage.html?page=3453431) (20 January, 2008) [Google Scholar]) recap.