[Air-l] myspace and race

[danah boyd]

I am not trying to provide quantitative information or even formal  
research findings.  I'm trying to provide useful observations from  
living in the site for 2.5 years and from spending far too much time  
thinking about, talking to and spending time with teens, teachers,  
parents, and MySpace developers.

Every day, i surf teen profiles for 1-2 hours and have for 9 months  
now.  How i start each day differs.  Some days i start by search for  
16-18 year olds in different states. Some days i start with a school  
and spiral outwards.  Some days i search for a popular name. Some  
days i start from a profile that is shown to me for a variety of  
different reasons or from the name of some kid in the press.  I have  
no idea how many profiles i've seen - definitely tens of thousands,  
perhaps more?

I look for ethnicity in a couple of different ways.  In the blurbs,  
people talk about Azn pride, being Mexican, fella niggas, etc.  I  
look at the details where people list "Ethnicity" under "Body Type"  
and above "Religion."  Options are: Asian, Black / African descent,  
East Indian, Latino / Hispanic, Middle Eastern, Native American,  
Pacific Islander, White / Caucasian, Other.  Not everyone answers  
this though and many lie.  For example, users who upload images that  
resemble pre-pubescent teens with blond hair, blue eyes, very light  
skin who say that they are 100 years old, from Antarctica and black  
are probably lying.  At least about something.

I do not try to formalize genre distinctions, but i listen for  
differences in style between the music on people's profiles.  It's  
pretty obvious when a friend group is into the latest trends in indie  
vs. hip hop vs. house.  It's pretty obvious if the music is being  
sung in English, Spanish, or Japanese.  There are linguistic  
differences in profiles that i've learned to recognize.  When written  
with a positive connotation, nigga and niggs are usually written by  
people who identify as black.  When written with negative  
connotation, the author usually marks themselves as Asian (although  
usually Azn) or Latino.  Such expressions are particularly common in  
regions where there is significant racial tension.  When nigger is  
used in a negative connotation, it is usually spoken by someone who  
identifies as White.  Negro seems to be often used by Mexican- 
identified people.  Mixed case like "I'm NoT NauGhTy JuX PlaYfuL" is  
usually written by people who identify as Asian.  Street speak like  
"yo wtf jus cuz u say so aint makin it rite, boi" is typically spoken  
from people who live in urban regions and, in California, the schools  
they go to are typically API ranked below 5.

In terms of tracking schools, this is all work that i'm doing in  
California.  I spend a lot of time in Title 1 schools.  Title 1  
schools have students in the highest level of poverty; sadly, most  
have API ranks below 5.  I also work with charter schools and private  
schools that cost $20K+ (these schools typically have high API  
ranks).  No Title 1 school that i've engaged with in Northern or  
Southern California has blocking software or technology consultants.   
Every private school has a tech person.  Charter schools are a mixed  
bag - it depends on their constituency.  This maps mashup helps me  
understand the racial diversity in the schools: http:// 
map.spieslike.us/school.php  This maps mashup helps me understand the  
API rank of the schools (which unfortunately in California, is  
directly correlated with socio-economic class): http:// 
schoolperformancemaps.com/ca/

Does that help clarify where i'm coming from?  All this said, what  
i'm offering on this list is not conclusive - what i'm saying is that  
these are the impressions that i'm getting from the data that i'm  
seeing.  Racial clustering is something that i want to follow up on  
but haven't yet.  Still, i think that i have enough data to raise it  
as an interesting observation that needs to be tested for its  
significance.

danah


On Mar 29, 2006, at 1:37 PM, elw at stderr.org wrote:

> In reading this, I fall back to some of the same old tired saws...
>
> 1) where's the *data*, danah?
> 2) what size is N?  what sampling methodology?
> 3) what are your classification criteria for "black", "urban",  
> "suburban",
>     "hispanic", etc?  "working class"?  [want a flamewar?  here's  
> the place
>     to start..]
> 4) what's your cite on "poorer schools" vs. "richer schools"?  What
>     evidence for the proliferation of blocking mechanisms in one vs  
> the
>     other?
>
> If there's no data, what you have is not research - it is a set of  
> guesses
> and observations that you may or may not be able to substantiate  
> and make
> a strong argument out of.  You might want to modulate your  
> presentation a
> bit to take that into account...
>
> --e
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- - - - - - - - - - d a n a h ( d o t ) o r g - - - - - - - - - -
"taken out of context i must seem so strange"

musings :: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts