Isa's Journal/ Chapter Article

The journal article, Why Youth ♥ Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life raises a number of issues about young people’s relationship with the media. The article focuses on social networking sites and raises three main issues of online safety, control and self-representation. From these issues educational implications for young people are formed.

Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace provide teenagers with ample opportunity network with other teenagers. These sites provide space for youth to publish information and share it with friends or the world. Photos, videos and other resources can also be tagged and referenced. These sites allow for teenagers to invite friends to events and create Ads, organisations and other pages. Self-representation, control and online safety are all pivotal parts of networking sites that young people must recognise.

The first issue is online safety. The article raises important points in regards to young people and their use of social networking sites. The first point examines parent’s reaction to their children’s use of these sites by banning them from participating. Parents do believe that they are keeping their children safe from online predators by doing this but this reaction can create a rift between parents and their children. The article did make an important find that is that teenagers are actually socialising with people they know personally or celebrities they adore (Boyd, 2008). This is also backed up by Dezuanni (2010a) and James et al (2008). Thus the parent’s reaction whilst understandable is not valid. Other protection measures that teenagers put in place, possibly without knowing it are sharing the information only with friends, sending private messages on the public space and ensuring their security through obscurity. That said it would be worth educators ensuring that all young people know how to protect themselves in the online world not only the digitally literate.

Another educational implication for online safety is to help parents and teachers create trust with their children or students. Developing this trust should make young people feel able to approach their trusted adult and tell them what is happening in their life and online. This way the young person and the adult together can develop a plan to deal with any problems that arise. Helping youth feel that they can explore the online world with a safety net will prevent any backlash that may occur if parents simply ban them from accessing these network sites.

The second issue is self-representation. When young people create a video, insert a photo and add friends on social networking site they are presenting themselves to the online world. A very interesting finding was raised in the article. It found that gender affects who goes on Facebook. In a certain age range more of one gender prefers to use it but in another age range the opposite occurs (Boyd, 2008). It appears that at a certain age more social groups are interested in the online sites than others and it will be interesting to see if this trend continues.

The other interesting point the article makes is that in the past young people communicated through their actions, today’s youth do this though social networks. Friendships and other connections are confirmed on social networking sites and through associations more friendships are determined (Dezuanni, 2010a). The groups that people join, tests people take and other items on their social network site all determine if friendships stay together or are formed. The basic everyday actions of youth are now explored through this social medium. This is a clear sign that media convergence has influenced young people’s methods of communication (Dezuanni, 2010b) and self-representation. The creation of the ‘in crowd’ is now formed by items that are on the person’s profile.

Educators should work with students to help show them appropriate ways to explore their self-representation. Programs and activities in class will enable students to use the safety of the school environment to explore who they are and how to safely demonstrate this in the online world (Dezuanni, 2010a). Other school activities will explore issues that may arise with people trying to push forward self-representation. Examples such as teachers and other prominent figures that when using self-representation on online sites they have got into trouble would be used to explore this issue. These educational implications will help teenagers with self expression issues.

The last issue is control. Networking sites allows their users to change the site permissions so that users have control over what is published and who sees their content, apart from the site’s administrators. The article uses a classic example of Carmichael who was not able to control his audience and isolated himself to one target audience (Boyd, 2008). This incident raises the prominent issue of control and this should be explored further in an educational setting. Students should be taught about ethical implications of relinquishing control over what information is published (Dezuanni, 2010c).

The article also explores how networking sites demonstrate control over what is published. YouTube has the ability to remove information that is not appropriate to the site. Friendstar demonstrated control as they did not take lightly to band sites advertising themselves and deleted these sites (Dezuanni, 2010d). Understanding that these sites can determine what is published it is vital that the user ensures that there is some sort of control over the information they present.

Young people need to understand the information they provide to the networking sites can be seen ultimately by anyone. Teenagers need to be educated on how to protect their profiles. They should also be educated on why giving inaccurate information will protect their identity for the future. The youth need to also be educated on how to check what the privacy settings are for the networking site and taught not just what the settings are but also what they mean (Dezuanni, 2010c). Without this young people will not be able to keep up to date with the changes that frequently occur to site’s privacy settings.

This article has brought three main issues into focus. Online safety, self-representation and control are all parts of social networks. Teenagers need to be educated to understand how to manage these areas to benefit themselves. By understanding how young people relate to the media both parents and teachers can gain a better understanding on how to help educate today’s youth.

References

Boyd, D. (2008). Why Youth Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life. Youth, Identity, and Digital Media,119-142. Retrieved August 1, 2010 from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dmal.9780262524834.119

Dezuanni, M. (2010a). CLN647 Youth, Popular Culture and Texts: Week 2 [Lecture Notes]. Retrieved July 29, 2010 from http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_64558_1%26url%3D

Dezuanni, M. (2010b). CLN647 Youth, Popular Culture and Texts: Week 1 [Lecture Notes]. Retrieved July 22, 2010 from http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_64558_1%26url%3D

Dezuanni, M. (2010c). CLN647 Youth, Popular Culture and Texts: Week 3 [Lecture Notes]. Retrieved August 2, 2010 from http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_64558_1%26url%3D

Dezuanni, M. (2010d). CLN647 Youth, Popular Culture and Texts: Week 5 [Lecture Notes]. Retrieved August 20, 2010 from http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_64558_1%26url%3D

James, C., Davis, K., Flores, A., Francis, J.M., Pettingill, L., Rundle, M., & Gardner, H. (2008). Young People, Ethics, and the New Digital Media: A Synthesis from the Good Play Project. GoodWork Project Report Series, 54, 1-62. Retrieved August 5, 2010, from
http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/contentWrapper.jsp?attachment=true&navItem=content&content_id=_3235259_1&displayName=Reading+4+-+Young+People%2C+Ethics+and+the+New+Digital+Media&course_id=_64558_1&href=/%40%40/2705D7B1EBCA39391F7AA5DE241D750D/courses/1/CLN647_10se2/content/_3235259_1/GoodWorkPaper54.pdf

Isa's Response to YouTube

Teens are responding to the online environment by using it to blog their ideas. Teens consistently participate in the media and more importantly YouTube. This is how a large proportion of teens are blogging their thoughts.

The first video that is examined is entitled; “I hate you Josh! Im a teen werewolf!” (AlfaWerewolff, 2010). This video has been created by an angry teen dressed as a werewolf. This teen blogs his thoughts about a classmate called Josh and the obvious bullying that is occurring. The teen demonstrates self-representation by actively promoting his group and defending his reason to belong and participate in this group. He allows others to view his thoughts and by placing it up on YouTube he releases his control over the content he has produced as a consequence others can rip it off (Dezuanni, 2010a) which has occured. By using this media others can alter and adjust his video to create alternative views and interpretations and possibly pay out the original author (Dezuanni, 2010b).

The YouTube video, “I hate teen werewolfs! (& Josh!)” (WhataboutMichaelG, 2010) has been made by a teenager in response to the previously mentioned video. The teen has blogged to show his disapproval of this new group called werewolves. He compares them to the Goths and Emos, just with fur. This teen can clearly separate and understand the cyclic method of fashion trends. The teen has used surveillance of the media (YouTube) to find this video. The video was placed on YouTube three months ago and within that time there are a lot of responses included in this video which is not unusual (Wesch, 2008).

YouTube normally demonstrates others opinions. By publishing this video the teenager has released his control over what people do to it. There must have been some consequence for this as the teen has in the last two weeks or more and blocked his video from the public by making it private. An educational implication is that educators must ensure that the treatment of others should be kept in check (Dezuanni, 2010c).

Both videos explore the notion of blogging, self-representation and control. YouTube has been a method for both to vent their frustrations about different topics. Whilst neither explores the topic in depth both provide a good example to how teens are reacting to the online environment and their engagement in participatory culture.

YouTube Videos


I hate you Josh! Im a teen werewolf! By: AlfaWerewolff.


I hate teen werewolfs! (& Josh!) By: WhataboutMichaelG.

References

AlfaWerewolff. (2010). I hate you Josh! Im a teen werewolf! [Video Webcast]. Retrieved September 12, 2010 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZLulEgXLOU

Dezuanni, M. (2010a). CLN647 Youth, Popular Culture and Texts: Week 9 [Lecture Notes]. Retrieved September 25, 2010 from http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_64558_1%26url%3D

Dezuanni, M. (2010b). CLN647 Youth, Popular Culture and Texts: Week 5 [Lecture Notes]. Retrieved August 20, 2010 from http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_64558_1%26url%3D

Dezuanni, M. (2010c). CLN647 Youth, Popular Culture and Texts: Week 3 [Lecture Notes]. Retrieved August 2, 2010 from http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_64558_1%26url%3D

Wesch, M. (Speaker) (2008). An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube. [Video Webcast]. Retrieved August 25, 2010, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU

WhataboutMichaelG. (2010). I hate teen werewolfs! (& Josh!). [Video Webcast]. Retrieved September 12, 2010 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlvPK1Ahvug&NR=1