Essay Describes Class Divisions Between Facebook and Myspace
In the essay, titled "Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace," Boyd divides teenagers into two groups: the "hegemonic teens" and the "subaltern teens."
Hegemonic teens are, in Boyd's words, "The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other 'good' kids." They tend to come from families that preach the importance of a college education, are primarily white, and tend to be popular in school. These teenagers tend to use Facebook, says Boyd.
On the other hand, Boyd describes subaltern teens as "kids who didn't play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm." These might include minorities, immigrants, punks, goths, and other "outsider" groups who don't fit into the dominant high school social structure. According to Boyd, they are less likely to go to college, and more likely to use MySpace.
While Boyd proposes many reasons for this divide, the most prominent may lie in Facebook's origins. As Facebook was once exclusively for college students, it became the "cool" site for those both in and headed for college, Boyd says.
MySpace may also have been hurt by negative media coverage in recent years. When stories about online predators and the dangers of leaving personal information online became prominent, MySpace was the primary target. This hurt MySpace's image in general, and especially among the hegemonic teens, Boyd suggests.
Boyd also found a similar divide in the military. According to the essay, officers tend to favor Facebook, while soldiers are on MySpace.
MySpace and Facebook are two of the largest social networking sites on the Internet. Users can create customized pages that share a variety of information about themselves, and form networks with other users based on interests, locations, or previous relationships. According to an article at ITPro, MySpace has approximately 60 million users, while Facebook claims about 25 million.
Boyd's conclusions come after interviews with teenagers from across the United States, along with analysis of thousands of MySpace profiles, interviews with parents, teachers, and others who may influence the lives of teenagers, and observations of teenagers in everyday life. While admitting the essay is not up to academic standards, Boyd hopes to revisit the topic in the future.
"Hopefully," Boyd says, "one day, I can get the words together to actually write an academic article about this topic, but I felt as though this is too important of an issue to sit on while I find the words."
Sources: Boyd, Danah. 2007. "Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace ." Apophenia Blog Essay. June 24 . http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html
Simon Brew, "Is Facebook vulnerable to takeover?" ITPro. URL: http://www.itpro.co.uk/internet/features/118495/is-facebook-vulnerable-to-takeover.html
Published by Ed Scimia
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6 Comments
Post a CommentIt's rare that somebody would care enough about an issue to post three responses to it. I commend you on choosing a subject that has created such a stir. :) This was well written and I don't think there is any need to "explain" yourself. If this were an op/ed it would have been categorized as such, neh? Anyway, well written and well presented. Good job.
Personally, I think that if there's any differences between the two user bases, it's only because of Facebook's origins, and that'll probably change over time. I don't necessarily agree with the content of the essay, but it was certainly an interesting read, which is why I wrote about it.
Or to put it another way, you aren't disagreeing with my opinion, you're disagreeing with the opinions of the essay's author. I just wrote a story about it. :)
cut off, even if the labels are true do they even matter? I feel like this article was biased and quite unnecessary.
Facebook hasn't gotten as bad a rap as myspace because it was only for college students first who more than likely aren't getting into a lot of trouble, it caters to a younger audience because you can keep up with all of the friends you've made in school. But MySpace was originally for musicians so it draws a really diverse crowd.
I don't think this speaks toward class or race or whatever facebook happened to cater towards college students at first so that's the audience they drew, now they accept highschool kids and whoever else wants to join. Myspace catered toward musicians, artists, actors, and everyone who wanted to feel included so that's the audience they drew. It all boils down to the purpose of the sites and the way they were marketed and nothing else. And for the record the Myspace majority is more than likely Caucasian and most of the people rather goths, emos, minorities, immigrants are probably really good people.
Why does everything have to be labeled and even if th
I don't think this is a great article and I'm not going to agree with your opinion just because it presents an interesting idea. First of all it's offensive to say that "the other" also known as the druggies, minorities, immigrants, punks and goths into a group that is opposite from a goody two shoes. Are you saying that just because these people aren't white or choose to express themselves differently through their style of dress that they are bad people or irresponsible?
First of all facebook does have a lot of white kids on their site and that's because the majority of people in this country or white so that doesn't say much, secondly who's to say they were all popular. There are so many unpopular people on the site that it's ridiculous. Thirdly how do you know that they are all good people?
There are tons of minorities on the site, I'm black and went to college and the majority of my black friends, as well as asian and latinos are also on Facebook.
Facebook hasn't gotten
Very interesting how the Internet is also reflecting social, class, and racial divides in America. Great article!