Gay men, Gaydar and the commodification of difference

Purpose To investigate ICT mediated inclusion and exclusion in terms of sexuality through a study of a commercial social networking website for gay men Design/methodology/approach The paper uses an approach based on technological inscription and the commodification of difference to study Gaydar, a commercial social networking site. Findings Through the activities, events and interactions offered by Gaydar, we identify a series of contrasting identity constructions and market segmentations which are constructed through the cyclic commodification of difference. These are fuelled by a particular series of meanings attached to gay male sexualities which serve to keep gay men positioned as a niche market. Research limitations/implications The research centres on the study of one, albeit widely used, website with a very specific set of purposes. The study offers a model for future research on sexuality and ICTs. Originality/value This study places sexuality centre stage in an ICT mediated environment and provides insights into the contemporary phenomenon of social networking. As a sexualized object, Gaydar presents a semiosis of politicized messages that question heteronormativity while simultaneously contributing to the definition of an increasingly globalized, commercialized and monolithic form of gay male sexuality defined against ICT

Who do they think they're talking to? framings of the audience by social media users

This paper examines the understandings and meanings of personal information sharing online using a predominantly symbolic interactionist analytic perspective and focusing on writers’ conceptions of their relationships with their audiences. It draws on an analysis of in-depth interviews with 23 personal bloggers. They were found to have limited interest in gathering information about their audiences, appearing to assume that readers are sympathetic. A comprehensive and grounded typology of imagined relationships with audiences was devised. Although the blogs of those interviewed were all public, some appear to frame their blogging practice as primarily self-directed, with their potential audiences playing a marginal role. These factors provide one explanation for some forms of potentially risky self-exposure that have been observed among social media user

Ethics and social networking sites: A disclosive analysis of Facebook

Paper has been accepted for publication in Information, Technology and People.Purpose: This paper provides insights into the moral values embodied by a popular social networking site (SNS), Facebook. We adopt the position that technology as well as humans has a moral character in order to disclose ethical concerns that are not transparent to users of the site. Design/methodology/approach: This study is based upon qualitative field work, involving participant observation, conducted over a two year period. Findings: Much research on the ethics of information systems has focused on the way that people deploy particular technologies, and the consequences arising, with a view to making policy recommendations and ethical interventions. By focusing on technology as a moral actor with reach across and beyond the Internet, we reveal the complex and diffuse nature of ethical responsibility in our case and the consequent implications for governance of SNS. Research limitations/implications: We situate our research in a body of work known as disclosive ethics and argue for an ongoing process of evaluating SNS to reveal their moral importance. Along with other authors in the genre, our work is largely descriptive, but we engage with prior research by Brey and Introna to highlight the scope for theory development. Practical implications: Governance measures that require the developers of social networking sites to revise their designs fail to address the diffuse nature of ethical responsibility in this case. Such technologies need to be opened up to scrutiny on a regular basis to increase public awareness of the issues and thereby disclose concerns to a wider audience. We suggest that there is value in studying the development and use of these technologies in their infancy, or if established, in the experiences of novice users. Furthermore, flash points in technological trajectories can prove useful sites of investigation. Originality/value: Existing research on social networking sites either fails to address ethical concerns head on or adopts a tool view of the technologies so that the focus is on the ethical behaviour of users. We focus upon the agency, and hence the moral character, of technology to show both the possibilities for, and limitations of, ethical interventions in such cases

More than just friends? Facebook, disclosive ethics and the morality of technology

Social networking sites have become increasingly popular destinations for people wishing to chat, play games, make new friends or simply stay in touch. Furthermore, many organizations have been quick to grasp the potential they offer for marketing, recruitment and economic activities. Nevertheless, counterclaims depict such spaces as arenas where deception, social grooming and the posting of defamatory content flourish. Much research in this area has focused on the ends to which people deploy the technology, and the consequences arising, with a view to making policy recommendations and ethical interventions. In this paper, we argue that tracing where morality lies is more complex than these efforts suggest. Using the case of a popular social networking site, and concepts about the morality of technology, we disclose the ethics of Facebook as diffuse and multiple. In our conclusions we provide some reflections on the possibilities for action in light of this disclosure

Shout Into the Wind, and It Shouts Back: Identity and interactional tensions on LiveJournal

The use of LiveJournal to create personal journal-style weblogs exposes issues concerning identity management and audience control. Tensions exist between (1) notions of diaries as personal and private vs. the recognition of online journals as public and performative; (2) the efficiency of blending one's social contacts into one audience vs. the ability to provide different self-presentations to different groups; (3) the desire for personal control of discourse vs. the desire for connection to others; and (4) values of individualism and autonomy vs. the desire for feedback and attention. Content

One Direction Real Person Fiction on Wattpad.com: A textual analysis of sex and romance

This study conducted a textual analysis of 24 of the most popular real person fiction stories published on Wattpad.com about the members of the boy band One Direction. The analysis identified several problematic themes across the stories regarding gender roles and gendered sexual scripts. Males dominated sexual interactions, initiating kissing and sexual activity and actively participating in kissing and sexual activity twice as often as females in the dataset. The language used to describe kissing and sexual activity often insinuated male aggression or attack and female surprise at males’ sudden actions. Pain and hesitance/unease for kissing and sexual activity emerged as a prevalent theme expressed by female characters in these stories. Furthermore, inconsistent conceptualizations of sexual consent, nonconsensual sexual activity, and rape/sexual assault varied across the data in a ways that reinforce sexist patriarchal dominance. Gender roles outside of romantic relationships also reinforced the ideal of patriarchal protection of females.Master of Art

Public and Private in the Blogosphere

The public/private distinction is one of the most influential concepts of the modern era, both in terms of social theory and everyday life. For many, public and private have been treated as completely separate. The assumption that public and private are a dichotomous pair has influenced numerous aspects of social life, ranging from the gendered division of labor to the development of the suburb. However, the division between the public and private realms has proven to be permeable; the public and private realms have bled over into one another, and can no longer be treated as dichotomous. Information and communication technologies have been pivotal in these shifting conceptions of publicity and privacy. Based on a study of personal bloggers — individuals who write about their everyday lives on the Internet — this study finds that public and private are best understood in terms of the relationship among information, audience, and control over access to information. Bloggers conceptualize publicity and privacy relative to the information they make available online, and actively work to balance the benefits of writing online with the risks of granting readers access to that content. They manage this tension through a variety of techniques ranging from use of software controls (commonly used on some blogging platforms) to maintaining multiple blog documents. Through this process, bloggers continuously create and destroy both content and audiences. The end result is a vision of public and private that consists of “public” as synonymous with “widely accessible” and “private” as synonymous with “limited access”

Architecture and the record: Negotiating feminism in the Jezebel comments

This dissertation explores contemporary feminist discourse as it unfolds in relation to the website Jezebel, giving particular attention to the rising conflict between editorial content, reader commentary, and the affordances of website architecture. Regularly described as feminist in everything from the New York Times to HBO’s Girls, prominent women’s website Jezebel covers many topics and arguments popularly considered to be feminist concerns. Nevertheless, the site has never actually claimed the label. Drawing on article content, comment threads, forum posts, and commenting guidelines from Jezebel’s founding in 2007 until the adoption of its current commenting system in 2014, I show how readers leverage Jezebel’s comment section to intervene in what they deem to be problematic feminism in the main site content. Jezebel’s indeterminate feminism allows the site to profit from baiting its feminist readership while avoiding accountability to feminist principles; the commenters respond by appropriating the comment section to strengthen Jezebel’s feminist subjectivity. The role constructed for commenters by the architecture of the commenting system undermines the role editors attempt to legislate for them through increasingly detailed guidelines, leading to philosophical conflicts over site ownership. When changes in the commenting system led to an influx in disruptive trolling behaviors, commenters were forced to collectively negotiate the aims of the comment section as they sought to determine the limits of acceptable dissent in the commenting space. Crucially, the commenting architecture shapes discursive possibilities in ways that are sometimes at odds with feminist values; I conclude by attending to the ways community members resist those seemingly deterministic structures. This work contributes to rhetoric and composition’s decades-long conversation about feminism and women’s spaces online and extends the parameters of an emerging conversation about the rhetorical function of comment sections

Disconnecting with social networking sites

Ben Light puts forward an alternative way of thinking about how we engage with social networking sites, going beyond the emphasis upon connectivity that has been associated with research in the area to date. Analysing our engagements and disengagements social networking sites in public (in cafes and at bus stops), at work (at desks, photocopiers and whilst cleaning), in our personal lives (where we cull friends and gossip on backchannels) and as related to our health and wellbeing (where we restrict our updates), he emphasises the importance of disconnection instead of connection. The book produces a theory of disconnective practice. This theory requires our attention to geographies of disconnection that include relations with a site, within a site, between sites and between sites and a physical world. Attention to disconnectors, as human and non-human is required, and the modes by which disconnection can occur can then be revealed. Light argues that diversity in the exercise of power is key to understanding disconnective practice where social networking sites are concerned, and he suggests that the ethics of disconnection may also require interrogation