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

[joana ro]

upps not myspace thread but metafilter thread .....

On 6/26/07, joana ro <joanaro at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>
> What really surprised me when reading your (really interesting and
> inspiring) article, was the framing of class in the terms "good" and "bad"
> kids. Does the popular, white girl actually see herself as good and the emo
> girl as bad? In Germany (where I live), class would be framed more through
> distancing and maybe specific (derogatory) terms which address class or race
> issues I think.
>
> It seems to me that the (moral?) distinction between good and bad might be
> reflected in labeling the groups hegemonic and subaltern. When dealing with
> class, it seems one always has to choose a side and figure out who is
> gaining from all of this and who is loosing. Reading your worries about both
> groups though, it seems hard to argue that any of these teenage groups is
> truly on the winning side.
>
> What about Bourdieu? I always found him helpful to deal with class in
> specific contexts and in trying to figure out small scale social structures
> and naming the different functionalities of these structures. Of course,
> translating Bourdieu`s reliance on the body into virtual terms could be a
> challenge - but might be a fun one (and has probably been done before).
>
> Just a note - from what I see and hear, your notion that class divisions
> are represented online holds true for Germany. Although I am not sure how
> MySpace fits into the picture, we have two German networks which can be
> class-identified, one overtly (StudiVZ for the university students), and
> the other less overtly (Kwick for the pupils of the shortest branch of our -
> very stratifying - three-way school system). Btw - Kwick has a very clean
> and precast design and is not reminiscent of junky myspace.
>
> Oh and another thing - analyzing the myspace thread commenting on the
> article for social positioning, habitus and distinction could be a fun task.
>
> Regards,
> Johanna
>
> Johanna Roering
> Sfb War Experience
> University of Tuebingen
>
>