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

[rhiannon sawyer]

Throwing in my two cents:
I've been following this discussion with great interest. I'm in the process
of researching friendship on MySpace, loooking at who is on MySpace, what
types of friendships exist and how they function. Part of my thesis was
going to be dedicated to a Bourdieuisian analysis of social capital and how
different types of capital function on MySpace and how they are connected to
ideas on friendship. Alas my research doesn't allow room for this anymore
but I think a Bourdieuisian approach would be very effective in analysing
who uses MySpace and Facebook and how.
I'm finding in my research (though quite limited) that in Sydney Australia
at least, Facebook is predominately among university students and young
professionals whereas MySpace is still dominated by highschool students.
Most older people are leaving MySpace for Facebook just for it's simpler
interface- a quick glance in my opinion would say that it's not so much a
class thing in Sydney as an age thing.
Regards,
Rhiannon

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
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