Anneli Xie
Prof. Alice Friedman
ARTH 321: Gender, Sexuality, and the Design of Houses
2019/03/25
Prof. Alice Friedman
ARTH 321: Gender, Sexuality, and the Design of Houses
2019/03/25
Reading response:
Surveillance,
Performance and Privacy: Social Media and Steganography
The distinction between
private and public is problematized in danah boyd’s studies regarding the
dynamics of the internet. In “Teen Strategies in Networked Publics,” boyd
focuses specifically on the interaction, identity, and structural strategies of
young people, making the important distinction that “just because [they] want to
participate in a public, doesn’t mean they want to be public.”
This distinction becomes important as boyd goes on to talk about youth lacking
agency in relation to people who hold power over them. Having to wrestle with
the boundary issues of a mom looking over your shoulder, or cousins/family in a
community in which you don’t completely identify (but should), or other actors
in your life that simply do not understand the social norms in which you are
(or want to) place yourself within, the teenagers boyd has interviewed raises
interesting coping strategies. boyd references these as controlling access to meaning,
rather than content. Things that are published on the internet can be
accessed by anyone, but not everyone will understand what they mean: a successful
strategy for achieving some form of privacy in an otherwise completely public
space. Another interesting point that boyd raises in her talk is that many live
their life with the understanding that interactions are private by default and
public by effort, but that the strategies adopted by many young people are thatcontent is public by default, meaning people can access it if
they want to, but might not necessarily understand it (as meaning is
often private.) The meaning is thus hiding in plain sight, just like
many of the buildings we have discussed previously in this class, something
that boyd refers to as “social steganography.” boyd also argues that, much like
different public spaces “in the real world” look different, feel different, and
have different social dynamics, so does the virtual ones – “networked
publics.” Facebook will have a different language from Twitter, Instagram will
differ from Snapchat, etc. Each holds a different audience, different function,
different cultural capital, and different moments of access. Understanding each
different platform thus requires multiple levels of effort.
As someone who grew up with(in) internet forums, social media, and online games, I could very much relate to both boyd’s sentiment, as well as the teenagers she had interviewed for her research. Puberty is an extremely transformative period of life; not only is does a literal physical transformation take place in your body, but the connotations of growing independent, older, and more mature also come into play. It is also the time, for many (I assume), in which you try to rid yourself of an identity almost solely formed by your parents. At least my teenage years were like that, and the internet was the perfect space to do so in.
Towards the end of her talk, boyd also talks about performativity, as she says that many of the teenagers that she met wanted to perform whether they are “in the know, or not; perform the in-joke or perform the reference.” In boyd’s example, this performance is staged through likes on Facebook posts, as she tells the tale of a group of young women involved in a fight that they cannot explicitly reference but want to make sure people in their social circle know that they are aware/a part of. The idea of “backing someone up” thus becomes relevant even in virtual circles, as it is now easy to show whose side you’re on: did you like the post or not?
This talk about performance, anyhow, got me thinking about the different identities that are embodied on different social media platforms, something that is very different from the Victorian middle-class idea of retaining the same moralistic persona, both in private and public, that we have also discussed. Again, the idea of who has access, or who made the effort to have access, is at the core. The identity that is performed in school and in the park will differ, much like the identity that is performed on, say, LinkedIn, will differ from the identity that is performed on Instagram; because even though all are both public spaces, they are accessed by different people (boyd notes this in her park-story in the blog post, too.) One could hope that your teacher does not find you gossiping with a friend in the park, similarly to how one can hope that an employer does not find you on Instagram. I remember clearly in high school that people would change their Facebook names to permit college admissions people to find them on the platform, and similar measures sometimes takes place during recruiting season: a strategy for avoiding persons that see you in a very set persona – student, daughter, teacher, employee – to partake in the multiplicity of identities that make up an individual. Thus, the idea of interchanging identities, performativity, and who you choose to show in what setting becomes central.
boyd, danah. “Teen Strategies in Networked Publics.” At the “Hyperpublic Symposium”
at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdLCKdjClFw
Igo, Sarah E. The Known Citizen: A History of Privacy in Modern America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018.
As someone who grew up with(in) internet forums, social media, and online games, I could very much relate to both boyd’s sentiment, as well as the teenagers she had interviewed for her research. Puberty is an extremely transformative period of life; not only is does a literal physical transformation take place in your body, but the connotations of growing independent, older, and more mature also come into play. It is also the time, for many (I assume), in which you try to rid yourself of an identity almost solely formed by your parents. At least my teenage years were like that, and the internet was the perfect space to do so in.
Towards the end of her talk, boyd also talks about performativity, as she says that many of the teenagers that she met wanted to perform whether they are “in the know, or not; perform the in-joke or perform the reference.” In boyd’s example, this performance is staged through likes on Facebook posts, as she tells the tale of a group of young women involved in a fight that they cannot explicitly reference but want to make sure people in their social circle know that they are aware/a part of. The idea of “backing someone up” thus becomes relevant even in virtual circles, as it is now easy to show whose side you’re on: did you like the post or not?
This talk about performance, anyhow, got me thinking about the different identities that are embodied on different social media platforms, something that is very different from the Victorian middle-class idea of retaining the same moralistic persona, both in private and public, that we have also discussed. Again, the idea of who has access, or who made the effort to have access, is at the core. The identity that is performed in school and in the park will differ, much like the identity that is performed on, say, LinkedIn, will differ from the identity that is performed on Instagram; because even though all are both public spaces, they are accessed by different people (boyd notes this in her park-story in the blog post, too.) One could hope that your teacher does not find you gossiping with a friend in the park, similarly to how one can hope that an employer does not find you on Instagram. I remember clearly in high school that people would change their Facebook names to permit college admissions people to find them on the platform, and similar measures sometimes takes place during recruiting season: a strategy for avoiding persons that see you in a very set persona – student, daughter, teacher, employee – to partake in the multiplicity of identities that make up an individual. Thus, the idea of interchanging identities, performativity, and who you choose to show in what setting becomes central.
References
Igo, Sarah E. The Known Citizen: A History of Privacy in Modern America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018.