[Air-l] social networking migration

[Nancy Baym]

Gail wrote:

>
>Nancy wrote: "There are also differences in what is even perceived 
>as a social networking site in the first place. To my surprise, a 
>number of people have commented in the last.fm forums in response to 
>my survey that they never thought of Last.fm as a social networking 
>site because of its central focus on music."
>
>I hang out online with a large international group of workplace 
>educators.[...] Members of this group have a digital language that 
>is representative of their cultural practices. I've found this 
>language rarely includes definitions that are promoted among members 
>of the AoIR listserve. For instance, Nancy suggested that user 
>profiles are hallmark defintions of online spaces. Profiles are 
>treated differently in work settings, including online spaces. These 
>profiles are often times created by employers, as opposed to 
>employees.


Just for clarification, my suggestion was that personal profiles with 
visible friends are a hallmark of *social networking sites*, not all 
online spaces. I guess that should be modified to *self-created* 
profile pages in light of Gail's point.

The broader point about being sensitive to the differences between 
our academic definitions of online media/genres ands the (range of) 
definitions of those using them is important.

Nancy