[Air-L] facebook ethnic diversity?

Tue Dec 29 02:58:50 PST 2009

Just one additional observation on the discussion of FB and ethnic 
diversity is the importance, outside of the US anyway, of the use of 
multiple social networking sites by individuals and the need, already 
mentioned, to focus on the differing practices of individuals rather 
than the social networking sites. As Danah already mentioned in her 
research on users who shift between FB and MySpace, in a study we are 
doing on Polish and Filipino non-nationals in Ireland, we have seen that 
these non-nationals often participate in at least two social networking 
sites and use each for different purposes. While having the data from FB 
is useful, focusing on a single social networking site like FB or 
MySpace, rather than the users of such sites, is likely to lead to 
distorted understandings of use and practice.

regards,
Lee Komito
--
Lee Komito                              lee.komito at ucd.ie
School of Information & Library Studies	(p) +353.1.7167594
University College Dublin		(f) +353.1.7161161
Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland             (w) www.ucd.ie/lkomito

Jessica L. Beyer wrote:
> Echoing a lot of what has been said…
> 
> There are places to critique the methodology of this study—but, although 
> we cannot replicate their study as we don’t have access to the same 
> data, we can work through the pros and cons of their methodological 
> choices because of the researchers’ transparency (a great point made by 
> someone else already).  And, since there is no perfect methodology, I 
> appreciate their openness.
> 
> Thus, because they were open about their attempts to control for the 
> most obvious weaknesses in their research design (it’s based on US 
> users, the potential problems with their use of census data, etc)--I 
> think the more interesting critique is whether racial/ethnic difference 
> is the best proxy for difference online.  Their study seems to have this 
> assumption although it is not explicitly stated as such.  Brought into 
> conversation with danah’s findings about difference of practice it seems 
> like a solid foundation to expand study of social spaces in really 
> wonderful ways.
> 
> Happy winter solstice!
> - Jessica
> 
> --------------------------------------
> Jessica L. Beyer
> Doctoral Candidate
> University of Washington
> Department of Political Science
> http://students.washington.edu/jlbeyer
> --------------------------------------
> 
> On Mon, 21 Dec 2009, danah boyd wrote:
> 
>> I'm with Dave - I'm glad to see proprietary data analysis put out for 
>> public discussion, regardless of how coarse the categories are, how 
>> American-centric the focus is, how problematic the roots of the issue 
>> are.  It kills me to know how much data is behind gated walls that 
>> could be so valuable to conversation.  Thus, I'm more inclined to be 
>> thankful for what Cameron and his team DID do than diss them for all 
>> of the things that they could've, should've, might've done. Are there 
>> problems with the methodology? Of course, but that's true for most of 
>> us. I'm just thankful that they clearly stated what they did do, what 
>> their logic in doing so was, and what they found. Much better than 
>> marketing research that doesn't even state the methodology. So is the 
>> approach taken by the census folks fraught? Sure. But let's applaud 
>> them for taking the time to put this out there.
>>
>> Now the meat... In my own fieldwork, I've found 2009 to be a turning 
>> point with U.S. youth. Many of the teens that I've been tracking on 
>> MySpace for a long time are now also on Facebook. So I'm not surprised 
>> by the data showing this shift. That said, what they're doing and how 
>> they're treating it appears quite different. A lot of what I'm trying 
>> to work out has to do with the differences in perceptions about 
>> public-ness.  So I hear things like "Facebook is where I share photos 
>> but MySpace is where I try to get noticed."  Certainly common for the 
>> teens in bands, who model, and other wannabe celebs.  But I'm 
>> intrigued by those who aren't in those categories who see MySpace as a 
>> place to get noticed. And the race, class, and ethnic patterns in the 
>> qualitative data I'm collecting.
>>
>> I have also been tracking public teenage use of Twitter and seeing 
>> fascinating racial and ethnic patterns in the U.S. (Not surprisingly, 
>> MySpace is still over-represented in the links in the population I'm 
>> looking at. Not surprising given the public-ness of MySpace, but also 
>> the types of teens who are using Twitter.)  [Note: outside of the 
>> U.S., the teens on Twitter are more likely to come from countries 
>> where Facebook isn't dominant... Singapore, Malaysia, S. Korea, 
>> Brazil, etc.]
>>
>> I know that Ilana Gershon has been investigating a specific Facebook 
>> feature and how it's used differently by African-American and white 
>> Facebook U.S. youth users. (She'll be presenting this work at the 
>> Digital Media & Learning conference in February: 
>> http://dmlcentral.net/conference/ )
>>
>> All of this leads me to believe that what we're seeing is a difference 
>> of practices that is correlated with socio-structural position which, 
>> in turn, is shaped by race, ethnicity, class, religion, and a whole 
>> host of other socio-cultural factors. So I see Facebook's announcement 
>> as equivalent to an announcement of the closing of the digital 
>> divide.  Sure, "access" is no longer a huge issue but just because 
>> folks have access doesn't mean they're engaging in the same practices 
>> or gaining the same benefits.  We are still seeing the equivalent of 
>> the "participation gap" in the space of social network sites.  Access 
>> and simple presence is becoming more widespread, but practices still 
>> vary.  Of course, presence on FB is not the same as Internet access 
>> and we're already seeing a host of youth purposefully leaving FB or 
>> purposefully opting out (and for reasons that are very different than 
>> opting out of Internet access... religion is rarely the dominant 
>> explanation).  So I'm not co!
> nvi
>> nced this is all stable and that once they're on FB, they'll never 
>> leave. (I am though convinced that very few people will voluntarily 
>> give up internet access once they have it.)
>>
>> As for my own claims in all of this... Yes, I noticed a distinction 
>> that played out across both race and class wrt MySpace and Facebook 
>> (long before FB surpassed MS in numbers), but I wasn't able to 
>> quantify this.  Eszter did a much better job of putting together 
>> numbers that backed my observations.  I decided to focus on the 
>> attitude difference that surrounded the two that really upset me.  I'm 
>> finally packaging all of this into an academic article for a book 
>> edited by Peter Chow-White and Lisa Nakamura entitled "Digital White 
>> Flight?"  I'm still working on drafts of this but if anyone wants to 
>> read drafts (and is willing to provide feedback), drop me a line.
>>
>> danah
>>
>>
>>
>> ------
>>
>> "taken out of context, i must seem so strange" -- ani
>> http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/
>> http://www.danah.org/
>> @zephoria
>>
>>
>>
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> 
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