scholarly journals Gender of the Interface

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordan Kraemer
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Young People ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Interaction Design ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Class Status ◽  
Visually Based ◽  
A Site ◽  
Modes Of Interaction ◽  
Media Practices

For many cosmopolitan urban Germans and Europeans in Berlin in the late 2000s, social media platforms were a site where gender and class were enacted through articulations of emergent nerd masculinity or hip, ironic femininity. But these platforms, such as Facebook or Pinterest, encoded normative assumptions about masculinity and femininity in their visual and interaction design, excluding women and acceptable femininity as subjects of technological expertise. Sites that presented themselves as neutral spaces for connection and interaction, like Twitter or Facebook, instantiated gendered understandings of technology that rendered public space implicitly masculine, white, and middle class. Visually based sites like Pinterest and Etsy, in contrast, were marked as domains of feminine domesticity, representing not only a shift to visual communication but to visual modes of interaction that structured gender online. Although many young people resisted hegemonic notions of gender, their social media practices stabilized their class status as aspiring urban cosmopolitans. In this article, I consider how gender and class stabilized temporarily through material-semiotic engagements with technology interfaces.

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 For lack of a better word: neo-identities in non-cisgender, non-straight communities on Tumblr

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Feraday
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Creation ◽  
A Site

Non-cisgender and non-straight identity language has long been a site of contention and evolution. There has been an increase in new non-cisgender, non-straight identity words since the creation of the internet, thanks to social media platforms like Tumblr. Tumblr in particular has been host to many conversations about identity and self-naming, though these conversations have not yet been the subject of much academic research. Through interviews and analysis of Tumblr posts, this thesis examines the emergence of new identity words, or neo-identities, used by non-cisgender and non-straight users of Tumblr. The work presents neo-identities as strategies for resisting and challenging cisheteronormative conceptions of gender and attraction, as well as sources of comfort and relief for non-cisgender/non-straight people who feel ‘broken’ and excluded from mainstream identity categories. This thesis also posits that Tumblr is uniquely suited for conversations about identity because of its potential for self-expression, community, and anonymity.

From Street Corners to Social Media: The Changing Location of Youth Citizenship in Guinea

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clovis Bergère
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Youth Politics ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
History Of ◽  
Youth Citizenship ◽  
Media Practices

Abstract:This study explores social media platforms, Facebook and Twitter in particular, as emergent sites of youth citizenship in Guinea. These need to be understood within a longer history of youth citizenship, one that includes street corners and other informal mediations of youth politics. This counters dominant discourses both within the Guinean public sphere and in academic research that decry Guinean social media practices as lacking, or Guinean youth as frivolous or inconsequential in their online political engagements. Instead, young Guineans’ emergent digital practices need to be approached as productive political engagements. This contributes to debates about African youths by examining the role of digital technologies in shaping young Africans’ political horizons.

Wrestling with Contradictions in Government Social Media Practices

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lars Haahr
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Central Control ◽  
Maturity Models ◽  
Dialectical Theory ◽  
Dialectical Approach ◽  
Digital Infrastructure ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Local Engagement ◽  
Media Practices

Research in government social media practices highlights expectations of co-creation and progression mirrored in maturity models, but research also documents low deployment degree and thereby points to a discrepancy. The paper suggests that the authors instead of co-creation and progression draw on a dialectical approach and understand the development of government social media practices as a wrestling with contradictions. The case of emerging social media practices in a Danish municipality used to illustrate this framework suggests three main categories of contradictions in emerging social media practices: Contradictions between service administration and community feeling as forms of practice, contradictions in organizing between local engagement and central control, and contradictions in the digital infrastructure between proprietary municipal websites and public social media platforms. The paper discusses if a paradox lens will enhance our understanding of inherent contradictions or the dialectical notion of contradiction serve the purpose. The paper contributes to a dialectical theory of contradictions through an analysis of emerging government social media practices.

Facebook and cultural identity: Discourses on mediation among international students

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 303-322
Author(s):  
Delia Dumitrica
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Awareness Raising ◽  
Identity Discourses ◽  
And Performance ◽  
A Site ◽  
Media And Communication ◽  
Four Discourses

Abstract Digital mediation is implicated in the production of cultural identity in multiple ways. The representations produced and circulated on social media platforms, along with the ubiquitous nature of these platforms, become part and parcel of the production and performance of cultural identity. This paper investigates discourses of Facebook mediation and cultural identity among a sample of international undergraduates in media and communication at a major Dutch university. The analysis of 43 written student essays reveals four discourses: Facebook as a mirror of cultural identity, as a cultural mosaic, as a site of cultural difference and as an opportunity for critical reflection on the idea of cultural identity. Interestingly, these discourses are permeated by a recurrent vision of individual control of both mediation and cultural identity. This article discusses the ideological work entailed in these discourses, calling for more awareness raising on the ways in which social media actively construct social reality.

scholarly journals Young People's Use of Digital Tools to Support Their Mental Health During Covid-19 Restrictions

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudette Pretorius ◽  
David Coyle
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Young People ◽  
Support Groups ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Online Resources ◽  
Sensitive Period ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Mental Health Support ◽  
Google Search

Young adulthood represents a sensitive period for young people's mental health. The lockdown restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic have reduced young people's access to traditional sources of mental health support. This exploratory study aimed to investigate the online resources young people were using to support their mental health during the first lockdown period in Ireland. It made use of an anonymous online survey targeted at young people aged 18–25. Participants were recruited using ads on social media including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and SnapChat. A total of 393 respondents completed the survey. Many of the respondents indicated that they were using social media (51.4%, 202/393) and mental health apps (32.6%, 128/393) as sources of support. Fewer were making use of formal online resources such as charities (26%, 102/393) or professional counseling services (13.2%, 52/393). Different social media platforms were used for different purposes; Facebook was used for support groups whilst Instagram was used to engage with influencers who focused on mental health issues. Google search, recommendations from peers and prior knowledge of services played a role in how resources were located. Findings from this survey indicate that digital technologies and online resources have an important role to play in supporting young people's mental health. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted these digital tool's potential as well as how they can be improved to better meet young people's needs.

scholarly journals REDDIT QUARANTINED: CONSEQUENCES OF DEALING WITH DISTRUST IN SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS THROUGH RESTRICTING ENGAGEMENT

2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Copland
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Activity Levels ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
Social Media Site ◽  
Online Abuse ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
A Site

Online abuse has become a matter of trust for social media platforms, whose role as a facilitator of public debate has been called into question. In response social media companies have become more active in regulating and banning particular users and channels. Through the use of affordances theory, this paper examines one example of the regulation of content on a social media site, the revamp of the quarantining function on Reddit in late 2018. Quarantines are designed to halt participation within and growth of subreddits without banning them outright. The paper uses quantitative and qualitative data to examine the consequences of this revamp on two subreddits, r/Braincels and r/TheRedPill. Through studying activity levels on these subreddits the paper argues that quarantines did limit discussion within these subreddits. However, it also argues that the revamp had unintended consequences, in particular a growth in distrust between subreddit users and Reddit as a site, and a shift of users away from Reddit to less regulated sites. The paper argues that quarantining shifted the affordances of Reddit, in this instance resulting in greater discouragement of activity on particular subreddits. Using the mechanisms and conditions framework (Davis and Chouinard, 2016) the paper however argues that users adapted to and circumvented this discouragement to continue engaging in particular behavior. While quarantining had short term benefits, using an affordances framework this paper argues it had unintended consequences, ones which can result in a continued radicalization of actions and beliefs, furthering distrust in the online sphere.

scholarly journals “CLIMATE JUSTICE IS RACIAL JUSTICE”: THE YOUTH CLIMATE MOVEMENT AND INTERSECTIONAL MEDIA ORGANIZING IN AN ALGORITHMIC SOCIETY

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley Lee
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Young People ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Youth Movement ◽  
Youth Movements ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
The World ◽  
Hybrid Organizing ◽  
Social Media Platforms

Before the Covid-19 pandemic struck, the world saw unprecedented levels of youth mobilization. From Black Lives Matter to March for Our Lives to the Youth Climate Strikes, the past decade saw young people leveraging social media to build movements around the world. Existing studies have shown how young people use social media to build movements in liberal democracies under the conditions of free assembly and association. However, since the global pandemic hit, young people (and others) have had to face various constraints to street mobilization. During the pandemic, as youth movements come to depend heavily on digital tools for organizing, social media platforms and algorithms may further complicate the process by which young people’s exercise political power. Using the broader youth climate movement as a case study, I examine how youth movements shift their tactics in response to the pandemic, and what the implications of shifting to the digital space are for the youth climate movement. This study draws on in-depth interviews with youth climate activists, along with digital ethnography and surveys, conducted between 2019 and 2021. Findings show that young climate organizers galvanized social media to shift to remote and hybrid organizing tactics. At the same time, inequalities introduced by social media platforms and algorithms became more acute for the youth movement.

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