[Air-l] viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace

[Holly Kruse]

A cursory look at danah's latest stuff is really interesting.  Thanks danah,
for the link and thoughts!

Once again though, I'll add that the interviews I'm doing for the project on
which I'm currently working, on locality, local identity, indie music
scenes, and the internet reinforces that at least for active local music
scene participants, and maybe especially musicians, MySpace is absolutely
the place to be.  Now, this may not hold true for teens and some slightly
older, but in my rather eclectic, multi-locality sample it is certainly
true.  Facebook is secondary for those who are on it.  This trend transcends
class and genre, and is true to the origins of MySpace (even as MySpace has
changed hands -- maybe even if Yahoo! ends up with it?), and likely has to
do not just with history but with built-in affordances of MySpace: streaming
audio of one's music, gig calendars, that sort of thing.

Among my CMC undergrads, those who were interested in big social networks,
posting photos (especially, interestingly enough, among those in
fraternities and sororities who have a bazillion photos to post) tagging
photos, and leaving brief wall messages, being on Facebook was crucial, and
they'd left MySpace (and earlier, Xanga) behind.  OTOH, I have a student who
was in that class who's done a lot of promotion of local alternative rock
shows, and she's doing an independent study with me this summer that
includes an analysis of several local bands' MySpace pages.  Obviously these
are just a few examples, but they are indicative of the many, many, many
cases I've found across localities.  It may well be a changing trend, but
it's a FB/MySpace distinction that seems to have more to do with lifestyle,
interest, and identity than class.  I think Marj said essentially the same
thing earlier, and it was echoed by someone else (sorry, I can't remember
who!) in observations about artists and a few other groups.

It would also be interesting to know who has Facebook pages and also
personal webpages elsewhere.  Or MySpace pages and personal webpages
elsewhere.  Or who has one or both of these things and is blogging
elsewhere.  Or who is doing a lot of IM and/or texting.  My sense of my
students on Facebook is that they are mostly invested in Facebook.  My sense
of my students and others on MySpace is that they often have blogs
elsewhere, or, especially with those with labels or bands, webpages.  I have
no quantitative data to back this up, and am a tad bit busy with other
things, but it would be interesting to know this, because it would certainly
provide more information on why certain people use certain social networking
sites.  Clearly, class is a factor, and the way that class helps position
people in certain ways regarding education and technology and other
variables.

FWIW...

Holly

-- 
Holly Kruse
Faculty of Communication
The University of Tulsa
600 S. College Ave.
Tulsa, OK 74104
918-631-3845
holly-kruse at utulsa.edu or holly.kruse at gmail.com
http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~holly-kruse