scholarly journals Powerful Entanglements: Interrelationships Between Platform Architectures and Young People’s Performance of Self in Social Media

2021 ◽  
pp. 87-107
Author(s):  
Viktoria Flasche
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Young People ◽  
Longitudinal Studies ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Subject Positions ◽  
Youth Cultures ◽  
Economic Strategies ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Media Formats

AbstractThis chapter explores intertwinements between digital media and communicative and socio-cultural practices as they emerge in relation to contemporary cultures, specifically youth cultures. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok are discursive-operative networks within a framework of economic strategies. The chapter’s empirical approach draws on the assumption that young people’s aesthetic practices, transmitted via social media formats, evoke in each instance specific relational modes that preform a space of possible subject positions. The chapter summarises the findings of two selective longitudinal studies examining young people’s practices of self-articulation, consistently interpreted in the context of the specific platform used in each instance. These findings point to the potential of aesthetic-tentative practices as performed by young people to catalyse societal critique.

‘That’s not necessarily for them’: LGBTIQ+ young people, social media platform affordances and identity curation

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (8) ◽  
pp. 1261-1278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Hanckel ◽  
Son Vivienne ◽  
Paul Byron ◽  
Brady Robards ◽  
Brendan Churchill
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Young People ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Family Work ◽  
Gender Diverse ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
And Gender ◽  
And Control

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and other non-heterosexual and gender diverse (LGBTIQ+) young people utilise a range of digital media platforms to explore identity, find support and manage boundaries. Less well understood, however, is how they navigate risk and rewards across the different social media platforms that are part of their everyday lives. In this study, we draw on the concept of affordances, as well as recent work on curation, to examine 23 in-depth interviews with LGBTIQ+ young people about their uses of social media. Our findings show how the affordances of platforms used by LGBTIQ+ young people, and the contexts of their engagement, situate and inform a typology of uses. These practices – focused on finding, building and fostering support – draw on young people’s social media literacies, where their affective experiences range from feelings of safety, security and control, to fear, disappointment and anger. These practices also work to manage boundaries between what is ‘for them’ (family, work colleagues, friends) and ‘not for them’. This work allowed our participants to mitigate risk, and circumnavigate normative platform policies and norms, contributing to queer-world building beyond the self. In doing so, we argue that young people’s social media curation strategies contribute to their health and well-being.

Sexting as sexual stigma: The paradox of sexual self-representation in digital youth cultures

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 563-578 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sander De Ridder
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Young People ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Social Constructionist ◽  
Sexual Stigma ◽  
Focus Group Research ◽  
Youth Cultures ◽  
Sources Of Knowledge ◽  
Group Research

Drawing on focus group research (N = 39) with young people between 15 and 18 years old in Dutch-speaking Belgium, this article looks at sexting in the context of early social constructionist work on (sexual) stigma. Considering the context of digital media, which are used by young people to express themselves sexually, this contribution explores why stigma surrounds sexual self-representation in digital media and youth cultures. The findings illustrate how young people’s discourse creates a consistent ideology, defining sexting as a violation of the norm of ‘good’ online conduct, while normalizing stigmatizing responses to sexting (e.g. shaming and bullying). Perceptions of social media affordances, societal responses and surrounding cultural values to sexting were found to be crucial sources of knowledge used to make sense of sexting as stigma.

scholarly journals TRUST IN FRIENDSHIP: LGBTQ+ YOUNG PEOPLE AND HOOK-UP APP SAFETIES

2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Byron ◽  
Kath Albury ◽  
Tinonee Pym ◽  
Kane Race ◽  
Anthony McCosker
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Young People ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Sexual Communication ◽  
Support Networks ◽  
Safety Strategies ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Communication Practices ◽  
Media Research ◽  
Use Of Social Media

Digital media research commonly explores the use of social media platforms and dating/hook-up apps separately, implying distance between social and sexual communication practices. By exploring how friendships enfold into LGBTQ+ young people’s use of dating/hook-up apps, this paper troubles that delineation. In 2018, we ran four workshops with LGBTQ+ young people (18-35 years) about negotiating safety in dating/hook-up apps. Discussion of friendship featured in all workshops, mostly related to four key themes: the safety of having mutual friends with prospective dates/hook-ups; friend-making through apps; friend-involvement in safety strategies; and friendship advice on app use. Through analysis of these data, we highlight how friendship is an organising force in LGBTQ+ young people’s dating/hook-up app practices, and argue for greater attention to the porousness of media sites commonly defined as social (e.g. Instagram) or sexual (e.g. Tinder). Participants demonstrate that trust in friendship is far greater that their trust in apps, and so this is called upon, at many levels, to negotiate app use. Notably mutual friends (‘mutuals’) offer greater feelings of safety. An overlap between friendship and sexual connections is also apparent in these data, as per discussion of 'sliding into DMs'. Participants who were not cisgender men had greater concern for safety, and thus more knowledge on how to negotiate apps (and dating) safely, particularly through friendship support networks.

Storing and sharing: Everyday relationships with digital material

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 657-671
Author(s):  
Heather Horst ◽  
Jolynna Sinanan ◽  
Larissa Hjorth
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Solid State ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Solid State Drives ◽  
Cultural Systems ◽  
The World ◽  
Digital Material ◽  
Social Media Platforms

Solid-state drives, Bluetooth capabilities, smartphones, “the cloud,” social media platforms, and other digital technologies have fundamentally altered how we share and store digital materials. This article sets an agenda for understanding how people manage the proliferation of digital material in their everyday lives through a close examination of the strategies and rituals different people around the world employ to organize, curate, or delete digital materials. Drawing upon findings from 11 articles, it contextualizes contemporary forms with digital media and technologies with existing cultural practices of sharing and storing in relation to wider social and cultural systems and infrastructures such as household and family, logistics, health, government, and governance. We argue that the proliferation of platforms, changes in temporalities, and the emergence of different forms of digital labor have fundamentally shaped the ways in which we share and store digital material.

scholarly journals Positive Organisational Arts-Based Youth Scholarship: Redressing Discourse on Danger, Disquiet, and Distress during COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (11) ◽  
pp. 5655
Author(s):  
Ann Dadich ◽  
Katherine M. Boydell ◽  
Stephanie Habak ◽  
Chloe Watfern
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Young People ◽  
Health And Wellbeing ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Positive Experiences ◽  
Difficult Times

This methodological article argues for the potential of positive organisational arts-based youth scholarship as a methodology to understand and promote positive experiences among young people. With reference to COVID-19, exemplars sourced from social media platforms and relevant organisations demonstrate the remarkable creative brilliance of young people. During these difficult times, young people used song, dance, storytelling, and art to express themselves, (re)connect with others, champion social change, and promote health and wellbeing. This article demonstrates the power of positive organisational arts-based youth scholarship to understand how young people use art to redress negativity via a positive lens of agency, peace, collectedness, and calm.

scholarly journals Profiles, Identities, Data: Making Abundant and Anchored Selves in a Platform Society

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 169-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lukasz Szulc
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Digital Culture ◽  
Internet Users ◽  
Social Media Platforms

AbstractThe practice of profile making has become ubiquitous in digital culture. Internet users are regularly invited, and usually required, to create a profile for a plethora of digital media, including mega social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Understanding profiles as a set of identity performances, I argue that the platforms employ profiles to enable and incentivize particular ways and foreclose other ways of self-performance. Drawing on research into digital media and identities, combined with mediatization theories, I show how the platforms: (a) embrace datafication logic (gathering as much data as possible and pinpointing the data to a particular unit); (b) translate the logic into design and governance of profiles (update stream and profile core); and (c) coax—at times coerce—their users into making of abundant but anchored selves, that is, performing identities which are capacious, complex, and volatile but singular and coherent at the same time.

scholarly journals Towards nuanced universality: Developing a concept bible for public service online news production

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-87
Author(s):  
Jenni Hokka
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Online News ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
General Level ◽  
Audience Segmentation ◽  
News Production ◽  
Media Environment ◽  
Social Media Platforms

With the advent of popular social media platforms, news journalism has been forced to re-evaluate its relation to its audience. This applies also for public service media that increasingly have to prove its utility through audience ratings. This ethnographic study explores a particular project, the development of ‘concept bible’ for the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE’s online news; it is an attempt to solve these challenges through new journalistic practices. The study introduces the concept of ‘nuanced universality’, which means that audience groups’ different kinds of needs are taken into account on news production in order to strengthen all people’s ability to be part of society. On a more general level, the article claims that despite its commercial origins, audience segmentation can be transformed into a method that helps revise public service media principles into practices suitable for the digital media environment.

scholarly journals CHANGING FACE OF ELECTORAL BEHAVIOUR: ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA -GENERAL ELECTIONS 2019

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (03) ◽  
pp. 118-121
Author(s):  
Archana Sawshilya ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Digital Technology ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Majority Party ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
General Elections ◽  
History Of ◽  
Electoral Behaviour

The 2019 election witnessed a society that was consuming digital technology .For the first time in the history of India’s political platform the national elections were fought both on the streets and by using the smart phones and social media platforms using the digital technology .The digital media teams of the political parties in the 2019 elections played a very crucial role in trying to tip the scales in the favor of their party .The NaMo app had nearly 10 million downloads while the Shakti app of the Congress had around 70-80 lakh users. But the critics raised the question what if the party that mis-adopted the technology during 2019 is also the majority party in the house that would be responsible for designing the control mechanisms?

scholarly journals Influence of social media for sexuality of adolescents

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
M A Sousa ◽  
P A Oliveira ◽  
M D O Lima ◽  
M I F Freitas
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Young People ◽  
Sexual Health ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
School Students ◽  
Belo Horizonte

Abstract Background Adolescence is a phase of life of great emotional, cognitive, social and body changes. Also noteworthy are the changes related to the emotional relationship between young people and sexuality. Recent research indicates that the use of Social Media (MS) has increased dramatically among adolescents in the last 10 years, and they have a tendency to seek information on health, sexual health and STIs including AIDS in these media. Objective To understand the influences of social media for sexual health and sexuality in adolescents. Methods This is a research with a qualitative approach, based on the Theory of Social Representations. The study included 28 adolescents aged between 15 and 18 years old, high school students from two public schools in Belo Horizonte. Data collection took place through open and in-depth interviews, with a semi-structured script. The data were interpreted based on the Structural Analysis of the Narration, proposed by Demazière; Dubar. Results The results found point to positive and negative representations in relation to the interviewees' point of view on the influence of social media on the sexuality of these adolescents. The positive representations found revolve around the ease of access to information and the privacy of being able to search and answer your questions through the internet and other means of communication. The aforementioned negative representations point to the little media approach on the subject, in addition, they indicate sporadic approaches centered on festive periods and dates such as carnival, a unique focus on AIDS and aimed specifically at adult audiences. Conclusions It is necessary to rethink how adolescents and young people today experience their sexuality and how to reach them comprehensively, understanding the need to guarantee appropriate and quality information to adolescents. Key messages The present work leads to reflections on the ways that adolescents experience sexuality today. Currently, teenagers are involved in digital media, including social media, where they can express issues related to sexuality and the way they experience it.

Context collapse and anonymity among queer Reddit users

2019 ◽  
pp. 146144481989035 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Henry Triggs ◽  
Kristian Møller ◽  
Christina Neumayer
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Queer People ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Queer Communities ◽  
Four Levels

This article maps out how people in queer communities on Reddit navigate context collapse. Drawing upon data from interviews with queer Reddit users and insights from other studies of context collapse in digital media, we argue that context collapse also occurs in anonymity-based social media. The interviews reveal queer Reddit users’ practices of context differentiation, occurring at four levels: somatic, system, inter-platform and intra-platform. We use these levels to map out how lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer or questioning (LGBTQ) people express their identities and find community on Reddit while seeking to minimize the risks imposed by multiple impending context collapses. Because living an authentic queer life can make subjects vulnerable, we find that despite Reddit’s anonymity, sophisticated practices of context differentiation are developed and maintained. We argue that context collapse in an era of big data and social media platforms operates beyond the control of any one user, which causes problems, particularly for queer people.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document