Blogging: Self Presentation and Privacy

McCullagh begins by stating that “privacy” involves a variety of different issues and because of this, there is no single definition of “privacy”. She then continues by providing DeCew’s cluster concept of privacy, which she believes provides a useful concept for her study on bloggers and their sense of privacy. DeCew’s cluster concept consists of three aspects of privacy: (1) information privacy; (2) accessibility privacy; and (3) expressive privacy. 


Additionally, McCullagh provides five main findings of her study, based on an online survey that was completed by 1,314 respondents. First, the survey showed that bloggers value self expression and social interaction. Many bloggers used blogging as a medium for self-reflection. Second, it was clear that bloggers value privacy. Because of this, there were many categories that bloggers found too personal to post about (i.e. sex/relationship, financial information, etc.). Third, bloggers are aware of privacy risks. Therefore, some bloggers tried to preserve their anonymity by restricting personally identifiable information about themselves. Fourth, blogs are perceived to be public spaces. Many bloggers expressed that privacy and anonymity was not possible on the internet, and the more accessible a blog was then the more it was considered to be public. Finally, the survey showed that bloggers employ different mechanisms to protect their privacy. One example is that some individuals password protect their blog so that only certain people have access to it. 


While reading this article, I of course thought a lot about Facebook. Many of the categories which bloggers stated were too personal to write about online, I have found many of my friends updating about! Twitter and Facebook I believe has made it very hard (if not impossible) for people to separate their private life from their other lives (work life, school life, etc). So while a lot of people in the study listed topics they wouldn't write about, I am sure many of them have contradicted themselves and done what they said they would not do. Because of this, I found McCullagh's implications at the beginning of the study to be quite important since "it is well documented that people's perceptions of their own behavior can differ from how they actually behave" (7). 

Navigating Technomedia

In this article, Han discusses the concept of “technomedia.” Before the internet age, technology and media were considered distinct from each other. With the advancement and evolution of the internet, however, the two entities did not replace each other but rather they connected to each other to form a fluid relationship. An example of technomedia that the article presented was the mobile phone. While in the 1990s, the cellular phone was used just for phone communication,  today with the invention of Iphones, Blackberrys, etc., we use our phones to sent texts, browse the net, watch videos on Youtube etc. 


Additionally, Han continues the chapter by providing a brief history of technology and media. He explains that there are four eras: Mechanical, Electric, Broadcast, and Virtual. To end the chapter, Han explains how information systems and communications systems are no longer distinct from each other as it was in the past. Thus, he again emphasizes the idea of technomedia and writes: “It challenges thought and pushes it toward the future.” After reading this quote, I was reminded of the Occupy Movement that is going on right now. The Occupy Movement has greatly used the internet and specifically social networking to communicate with other protesters about where they are meeting up and what's occurring at the camping sights, as well as to communicate to supporters and the world about their views/beliefs. The internet therefore is not only allowing for communication between different people but it is also helping people challenge thought and hopefully move towards a more equal tomorrow. 

Personal Dynamic Media

From this article, I learned about the Dynabook, a personal dynamic medium created by the Learning Research Group at Xerox PARC. The Dynabook was intended to input and output information much like a human’s sensory system and the goal of the research group was to examine how each individual could manipulate the Dynabook according to their own needs/wishes. The article, therefore, offers a variety of examples of simulations that different users created.

While the ideas of this article are nothing special nowadays, they were quite revolutionary in the 1970s. I often forget to realize how far technology has come in the past few decades. Because of this, I thought this article was a very interesting read since it allowed me to see how the personal computer started off.   Additionally, I enjoyed reading the various simulations created by a variety of uses. I was especially amazed at how children were able to program the machine. Finally, the most useful part of the article for me was the conclusion which contained a lot of important implications. Goldberg and Kay discussed several different ways that the Dynabook could be used by different professionals and I am sure that today, many of them have used their personal computers/laptops for these specific purposes and much more.

Facebook < Sex

Cosmo magazine did a study to see if women would rather give up sex or Facebook for a week. According to this article, 2,000 women were surveyed and a surprising 20% said they would rather give up sex rather than miss out on Facebooking for a week! Another surprising finding was from a survey conducted by TeleNav. 514 participants were included in the study and nearly 1/3 of them said that they would sacrifice sex for a week over giving up their phones. Finally, MSNBC added a live poll to the article and out of 4,829 voters who participated in the poll, 13% said they would give up sex for a week over Facebook. 


I am actually not surprised by these findings. Technology definitely plays a more prominent role in our lives today, especially our social lives, so of course it would have some affect on our carnal relations!! I remember when Myspace was very popular and I must admit I was completely addicted to it. I actually had a bet with my boyfriend to see who could refrain from logging on to our accounts the longest. I won but we both only last a little over a week haha 


In conclusion, this article was very entertaining and it goes to show how strong the relationship is between computers and humans when some humans choose their computer over a significant other! I wonder if the number of people who choose their Facebook over sex will increase in number in the next few years.


CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE!

Second Life

From the 2nd Life article, I learned about virtual worlds and what occurs in them. I have never engaged in any type of virtual environment so this article was a bit of a shock to me. Despite the shock, however, I did enjoy reading about how games and research can connect to one another. I have always viewed games as only being a form of entertainment but after reading this article, it became clear to me that games have a lot more to offer than just being a good pastime. From this article, I specifically learned about how a culture’s ideas about gender are performed, produced, and portrayed in the virtual world. The article also taught me about how technical skills and economics influenced a person's construction and performance of gender in the virtual world. 


What I find the most useful in the article is the fact that the researchers acknowledged their “own situated perspective.”  An individual’s situation/position affects his/her interpretation of an event, story, etc so I enjoyed the fact that the researchers pointed this out.  Furthermore, I found the idea of a collaborative project to be quite useful. The researchers were obviously engaging in a world they are not use to so in a way they were foreigners. But because they both could talk to each other about their encounters, I think it relieved a lot of stress they must have felt while conducting their research. Based on the ethnographic books I have read, it can be quite difficult for researchers to embark into a "new" world so I definitely believe that collaborative projects have a lot of benefits. 

Just Me Only Better

I have never engaged in virtual environments so I was fascinated to learn that there were few non-human avatars in Multi-User Virtual Environments like Second Life. I also found the idea of the users having three bodies very interesting: the imagined body, the physical body, and the digital body. Although the three bodies are connected with each other, there’s also a disconnect between them because the avatars have dimensions that are unattainable in real life. Because of this, I am very curious about the well-being of the people who participate in MUVEs (e.g. their level of self esteem).

Additionally, the most useful part of Fragoso and Rosario’s article is the section about Erwin Goffman and his ideas. Goffman emphasized the idea of “performance.” He believed that an individual portrayed certain impressions when he/she interacted with other people (i.e. the front stage). This is very similar to the avatars on MUVEs since users choose characteristics that they believe are easily identifiable to other users. Thus, they choose stereotypical indicators.

Moreover, I was not all that surprised when the study found that a majority of users chose avatars that contained a Caucasian standard of beauty. I also was not shocked to find out that often times the avatars had over-exaggerated characteristics (e.g large breast and tiny waists), which would be impossible to biological possess in the offline world. After all, look at the toys girls were grown up with --> Barbie. From the very beginning, Barbie had unrealistic dimensions. I’m sure most of you know that if Barbie was a real life woman, she wouldn’t be able to walk! Now let’s move onto G.I. Joe. Over the past decades, G.I. Joe has undergone a major transformation --> G.I. Joe

Finally, I think it would be interesting for the researchers to study the Mii characters people create on the Wii. I wonder if the results would be similar to the ones in this study.

Women > Men

An internet telecommunication company, Rebtel, surveyed 2,361 about their communications habits and much like the “Antecedents and Consequences of OSN Behavior: The Case of Facebook” article, the company discovered that more women use social media to keep in touch than men. The survey found that only 54% of men use social media to engage with friends, while 68% of women use social media websites to connect with friends. When it came to staying connected with family, the statistics were even lower! 60% of women use websites like Twitter and Facebook to maintain their relationships with their family, as opposed to 42% of men!

The statistic which I found the most shocking and fascinating, however, was the break down of the methods of communication that the participants used to communicate with friends. What was at the top of the list? Phone? Nope, it was email! Email emerged as the most popular way of communicating with friends. About 83% of the respondents used email followed by 74% of people using the phone and 61% of people using social networks.  (Click HERE for a pretty graph).

I am very surprised that email beat out the phone because to me, emails are a bit impersonal. The only reason I've sent an email to a friend is because they live abroad and calling is too expensive. After reading the article, I am very curious about the study sample. Were the participants in the study undergraduate students like the Antecedents and Consequences article??  The population that Rebtel chose to include (or even exclude) in their study could greatly affect the results of the study.

Nonetheless, the article was still very interesting to me.

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