Empfohlen
Empfohlen
Weitere ähnliche Inhalte
Andere mochten auch
Andere mochten auch (20)
Ähnlich wie Social Intimacy in Social Media - How Youth Practice Friendships and Construct Identity Online
Ähnlich wie Social Intimacy in Social Media - How Youth Practice Friendships and Construct Identity Online (20)
Mehr von Malene Charlotte Larsen
Kürzlich hochgeladen
Kürzlich hochgeladen (19)
Social Intimacy in Social Media - How Youth Practice Friendships and Construct Identity Online
- 1. SOCIAL INTIMACY IN SOCIAL MEDIA HOW YOUTH PRACTICE FRIENDSHIPS AND CONSTRUCT IDENTITY ONLINE MALENE CHARLOTTE LARSEN Keynote presentation at ECREA regional conference: “Addressing the role of media in interpersonal communication and social interaction – in different contexts and professions” Aarhus University, Nov 10 2015
- 2. About me • Associate Professor, PhD, Department of Communication, Aalborg University • Research area: Social media and digital youth culture • PhD on Danish adolescents’ use of social network sites (2007-2010) • Current research projects/interests: • “Intimacy, social media and youth” (with Jette Kofoed) • “Young children (0-8) and digital technology” (with Stine Liv Johansen) • Internet based fieldwork and ethical challenges in internet research
- 3. About my research • 10 years of qualitative research and participant observations • Multi-sited connective virtual ethnography (Marcus, 1995; Strathern, 1996; Hine, 2000) • Snowballing (Bijker, 1995)
- 4. About the talk The social media landscape among Danish youth (2005-2015) Methodological and theoretical background Empirical background (2005-2015) Three analytical perspectives on social intimacy in social media Constructing identity-in-practice (2005) Practicing friendship by stating “I love you” (2010) Being intimate in private (2015 - initial findings) Concluding remarks
- 5. The social media landscape among Danish youth (2005-2015) • From first-generational (Danish) social network sites (SNS) or chat-forums to (American) “big business” platforms • From ”networked communication” to ”platformed sociality” (van Dijck, 2013) • From public to semi-public or more private communication • From text-heavy to increasingly visual communication • From usernames to real names and cross-platform handles • From a distributed self-presentation to a unified identity (on FB) (Wittkower, 2014) - to more distributed practices once again • From social network sites to social media apps • From stationary to mobile internet use
- 6. Methodological and theoretical background • Nexus Analysis (Scollon & Scollon, 2004) • Combines an ethnographic methodological approach with discourse analysis – especially Mediated Discourse Analysis (Scollon, 2001a, 2001b; Norris & Jones, 2005) • Focusing on central mediated actions carried out by social actors – rather than focusing solely on discourse • Actions are always mediated by technologies or cultural artefacts (mediational means) • Discourse, meaning language and texts can, however, be the ‘technology’ that mediates actions, but not necessarily
- 7. Analysing young people’s use of social media as a Nexus of Practice • A “nexus of practice” is not a physical place, nor a specific group of people, but: • ”a recognizable grouping of a set of mediated actions” (Scollon, 2001a: 150) • “a genre of activity and the group of people who engage in that activity” - as opposed to Community of Practice (Wenger, 1998) • e.g. “having coffee at Starbucks”, “sending a snap” “using Facebook” • A SNS could be analysed as a Nexus of Practice (which could entail various Communities of Practice)
- 8. Analysing young people’s use of social media as a Nexus of Practice (Larsen, 2005: 33, inspired by Scollon, 2001)
- 9. Ethnographic focus in Nexus Analysis • Does not necessarily focus on a specific field site or a group of people among whom to carry out an ethnography • An interest in certain social practices • Focusing on central “cycles of discourse” (Scollon &Scollon, 2004) within the Nexus of Practice • Engaging, navigating and changing the Nexus of Practice
- 10. Collecting data and engaging with the field • I have created profiles (as myself)
- 11. Collecting data and engaging with the field • I have made ’friends’
- 12. Collecting data and engaging with the field • I have written field notes • ”I feel I have a hard time keeping track of my different friends (who is who – who writes what to me and who have I written to). Especially, it is confusing that users can freely change their user names and profile pictures […]. Based on this, I can conclude that it is easier to navigate ones’ friends if you know them IRL.” (Larsen, 2005: 223)
- 13. Collecting data and engaging with the field • I have taken (a lot of) screenshots
- 14. Collecting data and engaging with the field • I have had informal conversations online and conducted focus group interviews
- 15. Collecting data and engaging with the field • I have used social media features to collect data
- 16. Collecting data and engaging with the field • I have applied a different (more qualitative) approach to collect online questionnaire data (from 2007 – 2400 respondents)
- 17. Collecting data and engaging with the field • I have applied a different (more qualitative) approach to collect online questionnaire data (from 2015 – with Jette Kofoed, in progress)
- 18. Collecting data and engaging with the field • I have coded the data in Nvivo using a Grounded Theory inspired approach (Gibbs, 2002; Welsh, 2002)
- 19. Collecting data and engaging with the field • But it does not end there… ”To put it crudely, a nexus analysis would like to document or record everything that might be relevant….” (Scollon & Scollon, 2007: 621) • Building an “archive of data” (Rapley, 2007) consisting of: • Already existing data (e.g. online discussions, blog posts, press coverage etc.) • Researcher-generated data (interviews, survey-data etc.) • “Nexus-ethnographic data” (Larsen, 2010) à collecting new data by communicating research results within the nexus of practice
- 20. CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY-IN-PRACTICE Three analytical perspectives on social intimacy in social media
- 21. The concept of identity • Inspired by Lemke’s (2003, 2008) division of identity-in-practice and identity across timescales • Identity-in-practice: • The short timescales of situated small-group activity • Identity across timescales: • Larger institutional scales and lifespan developments • Co-existing concepts on SNS Identity-in- practice Identity across timescales (Larsen, 2007)
- 22. Using the body as mediational mean (Larsen, 2005) ß “Do not write to me before you have commented on my pictures!”
- 23. Receiving positive feedback • "good'damn babe you are hot!” (Comment to a picture of a 13 year old girl) • "you are looking good as hell, sweetie <3<3 (Comment to picture of a 17 year old boy) • You are so CRAZY hot, honey <33" (Comment to a picture of a 15 year old girl) • "Ugh some people are getting more and more handsome every day” (Comment to a picture of a 14 year old boy)
- 24. Actively seeking acknowledgement “I’m bored girls, write in my gb, and please leave a comment in my picture gallery” “Leave a comment in my picture gallery! they are extremely hot! kisses mille!” My poll What do you think of me: J Beautiful J Extremely beautiful J Too gorgeous J Too hot J Too nice Show result See votes Old polls (Larsen, 2005)
- 25. Self-regulating practices • Too vulgar or porn-like pictures are reprimanded • ”get a grip !!” (Boy, 18). • ”This is a weak fake profile why don’t you choose a picture normal girls would choose…” (Boy, 14). • ”Cheap, Cheaper, Cheapest!” (Girl, 14). • ”be careful they don’t pop out.” (Boy, 17). • ”fake, faker, fakest…” (Girl, 15) • A high level of self-regulation of pictures and chat
- 26. PRACTICING FRIENDSHIP BY STATING “I LOVE YOU” Three analytical perspectives on social intimacy in social media
- 27. The Love discourse among Danish teens • “Hi my always lovely honey <3 Guess what? (; I love you – SOOO much, and you know what, actually more than that! You mean the world to me! You are always so wonderful. So cool, funny, great, sweet, beautiful, charming, wonderful, loving, great… I could go on, beautiful. You are EVERYTHING!” (Message on the front page of a 16-year-old girl’s Arto profile – written by her best friend) • Discourse with a capital D: • ”… socially accepted associations among ways of using language, of thinking, valuing, acting, and interacting, in the “right” places and at the “right” times with the “right” objects…” (Gee, 1999, p. 17)
- 28. Communicating with strong ties • Instead of writing about themselves in profile text, users often wrote about their best friends • Status updates, blog posts etc. often mentioned best friends and how much they love them • Usernames would often include name of ‘BFF’s’: • “idascarolineforever” (user name belonging to a 12-year-old girl named Ida – Caroline is her best friend)
- 29. Using features creatively • They “get married” online • They use tagging creatively (e.g. “If you are tagged in this picture, I love you!”) • The best message: ”I love you” • “Because it makes me warm inside and makes me feel like someone everybody loves :D” (15-year-old boy) • “it means a lot to me when someone says they love me and I know that they mean it.” (15-year-old girl)
- 30. Placing intimate feelings in public space • Emotional communication is almost always publicly accessible within the SNS (Larsen, 2011) • Not one-to-one, but most often one-to-many, asynchronous (mass) communication • Frontstage (instead of backstage) (Goffman, 1959) • ”… it is nice to know what someone else thinks of you, and it’s nice that he writes in public so that others can see how fond he is of me :D” (15 year old girl)
- 31. Using each other as mediational means • Messages from friends become elements in the individual user’s performance of identity-in-practice • They (strategically) use each other as mediational means Messages from the ones that matter!!
- 32. BEING INTIMATE IN PRIVATE Three analytical perspectives on social intimacy in social media
- 33. A snap of intimacy – practicing friendship in 1 – 10 seconds • Snapchat • An ephemeral social media platform where pictures disappear after 1 – 10 seconds • The second largest social media platform among Danish young people • Half of all 12-19-year-olds use the app on a daily basis (Christensen, 2014) • Often used and perceived as text messaging • Is seen as “more intimate” and more enjoyable than Facebook (Larsen & Kofoed, 2015; Bayer et.al., 2015)
- 34. From the mundane to a high level of self-disclosure • Typical snaps • Food and snacks • Mundane in-the-moment activities • (Ugly) selfies (Larsen & Kofoed, 2015) • “Polished” photos are shared on Instagram • Facebook is reserved for practical communication • On Snapchat many users are sharing photos that they would not post on other social media
- 35. Signalling trust through intimacy • A high level of self-disclosure: • ”An ugly picture of myself, but I only send it to my girlfriends and I know that they will not screenshot it. But if they do, I ask them to delete it or else I know that they will not use it in an evil way.” (14 year old girl) • Sending an ugly selfie is like saying: • ”I trust you enough to share this with you” • Knowingly: ”You will not pass it on” (e.g. by taking a screenshot) • But what happens when that trust is broken?
- 36. Concluding remarks • Young people employ many different resources and meditational means to communicate intimate feelings on social media • On social media intimacy is heavily intertwined with both the maintenance of friendships and the construction of identity • In public or semi-public social media spaces young people are co-constructors of each other’s identity • But there is a tendency to communicate more privately • Young people’s friendship practices are constantly changing due to changes in the social media landscape - and vice versa…
- 37. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION AAU profile: http://tinyurl.com/le3m6kk malenel@hum.aau.dk
- 38. References • Bayer, J. B., Ellison, N. B., Schoenebeck, S. Y., & Falk, E. B. (2015). Sharing the small moments: ephemeral social interaction on Snapchat. Information, Communication & Society, 1–22. • Bijker, W. E. (1995). Of bicycles, bakelites, and bulbs: toward a theory of sociotechnical change. Inside technology. Cambridge: MIT. • Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that Matter. New York: Routledge. • Christensen, D. (2014). Medieudviklingen 2014, DR Medieforskning, 2014: https://www.dr.dk/NR/rdonlyres/ 6E40D722-3E66-4304-9800-076F3F7C2FEE/6062535/DR_Medieudviklingen_2014.pdf • Dijck, J. van. (2013). The culture of connectivity : a critical history of social media. New York: Oxford University Press. • Gee, J. P. (1999). An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method. London: Routledge. • Gibbs, G. R. (2002). Qualitative data analysis: explorations with NVivo. Buckingham: Open University Press. • Hine, C. (1998). Virtual Ethnography. In IRISS '98: Conference Papers. Retrieved from http://www.intute.ac.uk/socialsciences/ archive/iriss/papers/paper16.htm. • Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life (Vol. Reprint). Harmondsworth: Penguin. • Hine, C. (2000). Virtual Ethnography. London: Sage Publications. • Larsen, M. C. (2005). Ungdom, venskab og identitet - en etnografisk undersøgelse af unges brug af hjemmesiden Arto. Institut for Kommunikation, Aalborg Universiet • Larsen, M. C. (2007). Understanding Social Networking: On Young People’s Construction and Co-construction of Identity Online. In Proceedings from the conference Internet Research 8.0: Let’s Play, Association of Internet Researchers, Vancouver. Association of Internet Researchers.
- 39. References • Larsen, M. C. (2009). Sociale netværkssider og digital ungdomskultur: Når unge praktiserer venskab på nettet. MedieKultur, 47, 45-65. • Larsen, M.C. (2010). Unge og online sociale netværk – en neksusanalytisk undersøgelse af medierede handlinger og offentlige diskurser. Ph.d.-afhandling, Institut for Kommunikation, AAU. • Larsen, M.C. (2011). Ungdommelige følelser i offentlige rum. Tidsskriftet Barn. Nr. 3-4: ”Digitale medier i barn og unges hverdag”, Norsk Senter for Barneforskning • Larsen, M. C. (2012). Børn, unge og sociale netværkssider. Hvad ved vi? I Sociale netværkssider som tekst og kontekst, Systime, 2012 • Larsen, M. C. (2013). Unges identitetsdannelse på Facebook. In Facebook. Fra socialt netværk til metamedie (pp. 157–185). Frederiksberg: Samfundslitteratur • Larsen, M. C. (2016). An 'open source' networked identity: On young people's construction and co-construction of identity on social network sites. I M. Walrave, K. Ponnet, E. Vanderhoven, J. Haers, & B. Segaert (red.), Youth 2.0: Social Media and Adolescence – Connecting, Sharing and Empowering. Springer. • Larsen, M. C., & Kofoed, J. (2015). Snip snap snude - dobbelthagerne er ude: Analyse: Hvorfor hitter Snapchat?. Kommunikationsforum, 8. april 2015. • Larsen, M. C., & Ryberg, T. (2011). Youth and Online Social Networking: From Local Experiences to Public Discourses. In E. Dunkels, G.-M. Frånberg, & C. Hällgren (Eds.), Youth Culture and Net Culture: Online Social Practices. IGI Global. • Lemke, J. L. (2008). Identity, Development and Desire: Critical Questions. In Identity Trouble: Critical Discourse and Contested Identities. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
- 40. References • Norris, S., & Jones, R. H. (Eds.). (2005). Discourse in Action: Introducing Mediated Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge. • Marcus, G. E. (1995). Ethnography In/Of the World System: the Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography. Annual Review of Anthropology, 24, 95–117. • Rapley, T. (2007). Doing Conversation, Discourse and Document Analysis. London: Sage Publications. • Ryberg, T., & Larsen, M. C. (2008). Networked Identities: Understanding Relations Between Strong and Weak Ties in Networked Environments. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 24(2), 103–115. • Scollon, R. (2001a). Action and Text: Towards an integrated understanding of the place of text in social (inter)action, mediated discourse analysis and the problem of social action. In R. Wodak & M. Meyer (Eds.), Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (pp. 139-183). London: Sage Publications. • Scollon, R. (2001b). Mediated discourse: The Nexus of Practice. London; New York: Routledge. • Scollon, R., & Scollon, S. W. (2004). Nexus Analysis: Discourse and the Emerging Internet. London; New York: Routledge. • Strathern, M. (1996). Cutting the network. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2(3), 517. • Welsh, E. (2002). Dealing with Data: Using NVivo in the Qualitative Data Analysis Process. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, Vol. 3 (No. 2). • Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice - Learning, Meaning, and Identity. New York: Cambridge University Press. • Wittkower, D. E. (2014). Facebook and dramauthentic identity: A post-Goffmanian theory of identity performance on SNS. First Monday, 19(4).
Hinweis der Redaktion
- First of all: Thank you for inviting me to speak at this interesting conference. I am very flattered to be considered a keynote speaker. In this talk I will try to look back on ten years of research on young people’s use of social media – and will highlight some of my analytical findings in relation to social intimacy in social media. And I will try to reflect on how the social media landscape have changed during the past 10 years and how young people’s practices might also have changed during this period.
- If I should just briefly introduce myself, I can say that I am an associate professor at Aalborg University - where I also did my Ph.D. from 2007-2010 – focusing on 12-18 year olds use of various social network sites. At the moment I am working together with Danish researcher Jette Kofoed from AU on a project on “Intimacy, social media and youth” – where we are focusing on photo sharing practices among Danish children and young people. As we speak: We are collecting online survey data on the use of Instagram and Snapchat among 12 to 17 year olds. I will be talking a little bit about some of our initial findings today. Also, I am involved in an EU-project with Joint Research Centre and The Danish Media Council for Children and Young People. Here I have the pleasure of working with Stine Liv Johansen from AU – focusing on small children and their use of digital technology in the home. This means that we are at the moment visiting Danish families – interviewing both parents and children – and observing a lot of iPad-use. It is very interesting for me to move out of my comfort zone and focus on small children. Also, I am very much preoccupied with internet based fieldwork – and how to use social media as field sites and tools for collecting data. In relation to this – I am also interested in the ethical challenges that follow.
- My research the past ten years consist of mostly qualitative research. I have come to define my approach as a multi-sited connective virtual ethnography. This means that I have applied a “snowballing” approach to move across (both online and offline) sites. Taking a snowballing approach means that discoveries, connections and interactions within the field can lead to invitations to move on. So when my respondents started moving from the first-generational SNS Arto to Facebook and friending me– I followed. When they told me about new sites and practices, I started observing them as well.
- In todays’ talk I will start by giving you you some background information on the social media landscape among Danish young people – and what changes we have seen during the past ten years. After that I will give you an insight into the methodological and theoretical background of my research – and explain how I have been analysing young people’s use of social media as a Nexus of Practice. After that I will elaborate on the empirical background and describe how I have collected data and been engaging with the field the past years. Then I will move on to present some of my analytical findings – focusing on three different themes or perspectives– that somehow also mark three different historical perspectives on Danish young peoples use of social media: First: How the body was used in the early years to seek acknowledgement and construct identity-in practice. After that I will focus on the discourse of Love which I have found to be very predominant in the young people’s communication – and I will reflect upon why these declarations of love between best friends were almost always publicly available on the social network sites. I will end by presenting some initial findings from our newest research on photo sharing practices among Danish teenagers.
- Before I move on to talk about my methodological and theoretical background, I will just briefly introduce you to the social media landscape among Danish young people and how it has developed during the past ten year. First of all – Danish young people have moved from using first-generational (Danish) social network sites or chat-forums such as Arto and NationX to American “big business” platforms such as Facebook. This development is what van Dijck calls from ”networked communication” to ”platformed sociality” (van Dijck, 2013) meaning that it is FB and not us who are in charge of how we communicate and socialise online. During the past ten years we have also moved from public to less public or more private communication – even though young people perceived their communication on Arto & NationX much more private in the early years even if it was public. And interactions on FB are today seen as public even if young people most often have a closed profile. We have also moved from a text-heavy to an increasingly visual way of communicating. And from communicating under usernames to using our real names or cross-platform handles. We have moved from a distributed self-presentation to what Wittkower calls a unified identity (on FB) – meaning that FB forces us to have a unified self-presentation because we are communicating with so many difference audiences at the same time. Maybe this is the reason many young people are less active on FB today – and have started to employ more distributed practices once again. Also young people have moved from using social media sites to social media apps due to that fact that we have moved from primary stationary to mobile internet use. I will argue that these changes in the social media landscape have also changed the practices related to friendship and identity construction on social media among young people.
- Now: I will move on to talk about how I have studied young people’s social media use from a theoretical perspective. I have come to depend on a methodological and theoretical framework within discourse studies called nexus analysis. Nexus analysis is developed by Scollon & Scollon and combines an ethnographic methodological approach with discourse analysis – especially Mediated Discourse Analysis. In a nexus analysis you are focusing on central mediated actions carried out by social actors – rather than focusing only on discourse. Actions are always mediated by technologies or cultural artefacts – that is what Scollon & Scollon call mediational means. Discourse, understood as language and texts will, however, often be the ‘technology’ that mediates actions, but this should not be taken for granted. For instance – clicking like on FB or uploading a picture might entail traces of text, but it makes more sense to view these actions as mediated actions rather than text.
- In an nexus analysis you analyse a nexus of practice. A “nexus of practice” is not a physical place and should not be seen as consisting of a specific group of people, but: As Scollon says ”it is any group who can and do engage in some action”. It is ”a recognizable grouping of a set of mediated actions” It is “a genre of activity and the group of people who engage in that activity” This is in contrast to for instance Wenger’s term “Community of Practice” where people have a mutual engagement, a joint repertoire and shared goals. Scollon & Scollon themselves uses the example of “having coffee at Starbucks” as an methophor. What makes people part of that nexus of practice is the fact that they know how to stand in line, where or order and where to pick up the coffee and so forth. Equally, we can think of Facebook-users as part of the same nexus of practice. Or knowing how to use Snapchat – for instance how to use the new selfie lens – is what makes people part of that nexus of practice. In my research, I have argued that a social networks site could be analysed as a Nexus of Practice (which could entail various Communities of Practice)
- For instance, here is an example of how I saw Arto as a nexus of practice back in 2005 – it consists of both a list of mediated actions and several communities of practices who employ theese actions. I have had en interest in the most commom mediated actions –and not so much the individual communities.
- That also points to the ethnographic focus in nexus analysis which should not be understood as traditional ethnography as we know it from anthropology or sociology. It has more resemblance with newer ethnographic approaches within internet research (for instance multi-sided or virtual ethnography as I mentioned earlier). In a nexus analysis you do not necessarily focus on a specific field site or a specific group of people - You are much more interested in certain social practices – focusing on what Scollon & Scollon calls the most predominant “cycles of discourse” within the Nexus of Practice That also means that you do not only analyse concrete social actions, but also the repeated everyday actions that take place in social actor’ lives. In order to do this you go through three activity phases – engaging the nexus of practice which is where you obtain a “zone of identification” and collect your data. The navigating phase where you map out and analyse you data and the changing phase where you look at how you analysis might have changed the nexus of practice. Let me move on to talk about how I have been engaging the nexus of practice the past ten year.
- First of all I have created profiles on many of the social network sites or apps that have been popular among Danish young people. I have openly stated my aim as a researcher and have used the the sites both to observe, to communicate with users and I have been active in using the sites myself drawing on what Hine calls “The ethnographer as informant”. That also means that I have had my pictures commented by young users (some of the boys stated that they liked ‘older women’ – and I have obtained the “zone of identification” that Scollon & Scollon talks about.
- I have also ”made friends” who became my informants. Often they would apply me for friendship after having read the description of my research aim in my profile text.
- I wrote field notes – especially in the beginning – the first years. Here for instance, I reflected on what it meant that users often would change their usernames and profile pictures.
- I have taken a lot of scrrenshots. Most of them I consider my own ”personal files” similar to my field notes. I will share some of them with you today to illustrate the presentation. But I do think there are some ethical challenges working with screenshots. Even though we are dealing with public communication.
- I have conducted several small unstructured interviews – often initiated by the users as informal conversations – and I have conducted focus group interviews.
- I have also used different social media features to collect data. For instance using the quiz feature on NationX to ask my friends how many of their friends they knew in real life. Or using the friend book on Arto to conduct a small survey.
- In relation to my PhD project I conducted a large scale questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of mainly open questions related to some of the practices, I had observed to be central within the nexus of practice. In some of the questions, the respondents were asked to give examples from their profiles, for instance the most recent message - or comment on a picture they had received - examples of messages they did not like, messages that had made them happy and so forth. After that they were asked to state who had sent the message/comment, and then to reflect on how they felt about it. For instance a 15 year old girl has received this message from a friend: “Ohh honey – you are so beautiful. I love you with all of my heart. And you are really something special”. They girl writes in the questionnaire that “I was very happy and a bit flattered because it was a picture of myself. It is nice when people write to you like this – it means almost as much as when they say it directly” – meaning face-to-face”. Questions like these have helped me gain an insight into the most typical messages and comments that young people send to each other. I and think you can imagine the data overload I felt with 2400 respondents participating in this particular survey!
- Together with Jette Kofoed I am using the approach once again. This time asking specifically about photo sharing practices on Snapchat and Instagram. For instance we are asking the respondents if they are sending photos on Snapchat that they would never share on other social media. As a follow up question we ask them to describe what could be in those pictures. Was also ask them about what they upload to Instagram and how they feel about the comment and amount of likes they receive – so again mostly open ended questions.
- I order to get a overview on the data material I have been using the software programme Nvivo to code some of my data using a grounded theory approach – this has made me able to quantify some of the qualitative data.
- However, with nexus analysis it does not end there. As Scollon & Scollon state: “a nexus analysis would like to document or record everything that might be relevant” For this reason I am working with the idea of building an archive of data consisting of: Already existing data (that could be data from online discussions forums where young people discuss their own use of social media, it could be blog posts or press coverage on the subject. ) The data archive also consists of the researcher-generated data which I have given you some examples of. And then it consists of what I call “Nexus-ethnographic data” (Larsen, 2010) which means that I am collecting new data by communicating research results within the nexus of practice For instance I am often interviewed by young people for school projects and I find that I can use the questions they ask me as data. But now I will move on to present some of my analytical findings on young people’s use of social media.
- The first analytical perspective focuses on how young people construct identity online – and I will especially focus on some of my early work – where young people were using first-generational social network sites which were very public – but were perceived as kind of private, because the youngsters had the sites for themselves – meaning that their parents or teachers were not represented on the site.
- First let me define how I see the concept of identity in relation to social media. I my work I have been very inspired by Lemkes division of identity-in-practice and identity across timescales. Lemke is inspired by Judith Butler’s (1993) notion identity performance, which includes the perception that longer time aspects of our identity are inscribed in us when we are acting in specific moments, as well as Bourdieu’s concept of habitus. The term identity-in-practice – which Lemke also calls “identity-in-the-moment” covers the individual identity performances that take place in specific social situations or group interactions - whereas the term identity-across-timecales involves a focus on social structures and historical aspects of time. The two perspectives are linked – and are co-existing concepts on social network sites.
- Pictures like these were very common on Arto back in 2005 – 2006. Boys would often upload a picture of their upper body – their six pack – and girls would often portray as something out of a music video. During the time as an observer on Arto it became clear to me that it seemed there was an unspoken rule to comment on each other’s pictures in a positive manner. For instance I once saw a photo of an 11 year old boy – showing off his chest – which could NOT be described as a six-pack – and other users – especially the girls – had commented on his picture in a positive way – saying that he was hot or good looking.
- So here are some of the usual comments that could be forund of the pictures. &quot;good&apos;damn babe you are hot!” &quot;you are looking good as hell, sweetie &lt;3&lt;3 You are so CRAZY hot, honey &lt;33” &quot;Ugh some people are getting more and more handsome every day” Comments like these seemed to be in high demand.
- And many users were actively seeking the acknowledgement – for instance sending an SMS to the front page of Arto asking for comments. --Examples-- Or they would create their own poll – and it was not uncommon that they would leave no negative options “am I beautiful – extremely beautiful – too gorgeous – to hot or too nice. Whatever the result – it will be a positive one, And it says something about how important it is for young people to be acknowledged and appreciated during adolescence. And actively asking to be commented on – was not so dangerous back in the early days on Arto or NationX – because users would most often leave nice comments.
- However, if users uploaded too vulgar og porn-like pictures they might be reprimanded by the other users. It seemed there were a high level of self-regulation. As we can see an example of here: This young girl have uploaded a very revealing picture – leaving little room left for the imagination. And other users commented in a more negative way – saying: --- EXAMPLES--- She is actually accused of being “a faker” – that the picture is not a picture of herself. And that she has created a fake profile. So: While users are constructing their identity-in-practice – they are also gaining an understanding of their identity across timescales. How they are perceived. How they want to act – what kind of feedback they like. And if they are reprimanded they might want to change their practices. They have to follow the unspoken rule and not crossing the invisible line of how challenging photos can be – from hot and nice to cheap and to vulgar.
- Now – lets move on to the second analytical focus: How young people were practicing friendships with their close ties – especially by using a quite specific love discourse.
- During my observations across different social network sites I have noted what I call love discourse in the language of young people. Here I am using Gee’s concept Discourse with a capital D:Its ”… socially accepted associations among ways of using language, of thinking, valuing, acting, and interacting, in the “right” places and at the “right” times with the “right” objects…” We see an example here from a 16 year old girl who writes about her best friend: “Hi my always lovely honey &lt;3 Guess what? (; I love you – SOOO much, and you know what, actually more than that! You mean the world to me! You are always so wonderful. So cool, funny, great, sweet, beautiful, charming, wonderful, loving, great… I could go on, beautiful. You are EVERYTHING!”
- Especially this kind of communicating is reserved for strong ties: In stead of writing about themselves in profile text users often wrote about their best friends Status updates, blog posts etc.. often mentioned best friends and how much they love them Usernames would often include names of best friends – for instance ’: “idascarolineforever” is the user name belonging to a 12-year-old girl named Ida – Caroline is her best friend. So the user name is in this case used to communicate intimate feelings – even though a username normally has a different purpose.
- As you can see, many different features are used to communicate love on social media. For instance changing one’s relationship status on Facebook to being ”married with ones best friend”. They also use tagging creatively – for instance uploading a picture with the text” If you are tagged in this picture, I love you. Or uploading a collage with different labels – ”Someone i love” someone who is like a brother to me” – and then tagging a few of the closest friends. This is a way of practicing friendship on Facebook. And it is needed because the concept of friend is rather hollow – and is more of less perceived as the common term for a relation/some you know. That is way – on SNS young people must do an say more to indicate who their real friends are this could also explain the predominant Love discourse. In the online questionnaires from 2007 – respondents were asked to copy an example of a message they had received which they really liked. Most often that was a message which included the words ”I love you”. As a 15 year old boy said: it makes me warm inside and makes me feel like someone everybody loves And a 15 year old girl wrote: “it means a lot to me when someone says they love me and I know that they mean it”.
- What is interesting is that this kind of emotional communication is (or was) often publicly available within the SNS. It is not written in private messages because that would “be too intimate” – but users value the public nature of theses kind of messages. Like a 15 year old girl said: … it is nice to know what someone else thinks of you, and it’s nice that he writes in public so that others can see how fond he is of me :D”
- Therefore - I would argue that Danish young people are co-constructors of each other’s identities, on SNS They “help” one another create a desirable online identity Sometime the individual user even intentionally uses a message from a friend in his or her own identity-construction For instance posting a screenshot to twitter with a nice text messages you had received from a friend – saying “HI my sweetest and beautiful Emma. I love you. You are wonderful and amazing”. In stead of keeping this message to herself Emma is sharing it with others and is using her friends as a mediational means in her identity construction.
- The third analytical perspective deals with some of my new data on photo sharing practices among young people.
- At the moment Snapchat is the second largest social media platform among Danish youth (next to Facebook) – half of all 12-19 year olds use snapchat on a daily basis. On Snapchat a picture (or short videos) will disappear after 1 to 10 seconds which affects how the app is being used. Our early findings point to the fact that snapchat is seen as text messaging. It is not always about the pictures – but it is a more intimate and enjoyable way of sending a text message – as other new studies have also shown. And it is more enjoyable than Facebook – who by notifications and time hops never lets you forget about earlier communication.
- Some of the most typical snaps are of: food and snacks, mundane in-the-moment-activities (That are simple too mundane or too boring to be shared on Facebook and Instagram – but is something that the user nevertheless wants to share with a few close ties. A big category of snaps is “ugly selfies”. Young people use instagram for the polished photos and facebook is reserved for practical communication – and on Snapchat they send pictures that they would not post on other social media. This indicates a high level of self-disclosure!
- These pictures often involve a high level of self-disclosure. Like this 14 year old girl says: “An ugly picture of myself, but I only send it to my girlfriends and I know that they will not screenshot it. But if they do, I ask them to delete it or else I know that they will not use it in an evil way” Also a few examples of sexting even though our study and other studies find that it is not very frequent. Sending an ugly selfie can then be understood as saying “I trust you enough to share this with you – because I know you will not pass it on.” The act of sharing something very private or intimate – is the ultimate confirmation of being close friends. What is interesting is, however, what happens when that trust is broken and the intimate moment is not so intimate anymore? That is what we are interested to study and hope to find out based on our new data material.
- So to sum up my talk: Young people employ many different resources and meditational means to communicate intimate feelings on social media On social media intimacy is heavily intertwined with friendship and identity construction In public or semi-public social media spaces young people are co-constructors of each other’s identity But there is a tendency to communicate more privately – is seems there is a need to be able to be “more intimate”. After years of sharing with various networked publics on Facebook . And also based on 10 years of research I would say that it is quite clear that young people’s friendship practices are constantly changing due to changes in the overall social media landscape. And the social media landscape is constantly changing due to young peoples practice.