[Air-l] myspace and race

[Mary L. Gray]

hey folks,
to add to Danah's run down of myspace and noted lack of participation  
from rural kids in the U.S.:

from the ethnographic work I did of rural youth (predominantly  
working poor to lower middle class white folks) using new media in  
the U.S. (primarily rural KY and its border states), young people in  
non-metro communities did not use computers at school for myspace or  
other community networking because <drum roll>
as poor as their school districts might be, the 1 thing their schools  
(often county or regional aggregate schools here) did was invest in  
tracking and website blocking software. Students couldn't view  
anything online without their moves being registered and documented.  
Most of the money and technology came from the State level. In other  
words, this is what the State budgets would offer...that and  
abstinence only sex ed of course.

so, rural public library branches were some of the most important  
places for youth access outside of the home (and home access was  
limited to a subset of white middle class kids where broadband  
delivery was a luxury and not a given regardless of the means to buy  
it). So, rural youth are still a predominantly dial-up crowd in the U.S.

really enjoying the list discussions these days.
best,
mg
________________________
Mary L. Gray, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Communication and Culture
Affiliate Faculty
Gender Studies Department and American Studies Program
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN 47405-9700
ph. 812/855.4379
fx.  812/855.6014
email: mLg at indiana.edu
http://www.indiana.edu/~qcentral



On Mar 28, 2006, at 2:24 PM, air-l-request at listserv.aoir.org wrote:

> Message: 5
> Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 23:22:18 -0800
> From: danah boyd <aoir.z3z at danah.org>
> Subject: Re: [Air-l] myspace and race
> To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
> Message-ID: <C9E5772A-623D-4CD0-8109-FBFA6A6FF35F at danah.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
>
> Sorry - i should clarify - i don't mean that there isn't diversity in
> users.  MySpace has more traction with youth from diverse backgrounds
> than any site on the web.  In the schools that i'm tracking, there's
> no racial differentiation in MySpace participation.  That said, of
> the kids who i've talked to who refuse to use the site, 100% are
> white (most come from wealthy backgrounds too... a handful view it as
> a political stance against Murdoch... but the number of intentional
> non-participants is relatively small).  Urban and suburban kids are
> more likely to participate than rural kids, but that's the only
> segmentation i've really seen. But when it comes to race and class,
> this is not stopping participation.  Working class kids are all on
> there - they log in at school mostly.  (Interestingly, the poorer
> schools are less likely to have the blocking devices on their
> technology so underprivileged kids can log in at school while rich
> kids can't.)  [All this said, i have no official numbers - only what
> i see on a daily basis... PEW is working on getting some formal
> numbers though.]
>
> The lack of diversity that i'm noting is within a given network (on
> all levels).  Users' friends tend to use the same language,
> representation style, have the same music identification, and, on a
> performance level, read as the same race.  Homophily at work.  This
> probably says something significant about offline interracial
> friendships.  Take some of the schools that i'm following in Los
> Angeles and Oakland.  These schools are typically half Latino and
> half black.  If i look at the kids' profiles, the Latino kids all
> link to each other and the black kids all link to each other but
> there is very little interracial connections.
>
> I hope that helps clarify.
>
> As for the clunky interface... well, that's exactly why teens wanna
> be there.  It's their space, not adult space.  And all the better
> that adults can't figure it out.  <grin>
>
> danah