The Different Incidences of Self-Awareness - Term Paper Example

Context Collapse Explanation Name Institution Date Context Collapse Explanation Introduction Social online sites have enabled people who are miles away from one another to communicate as if they are next to each other. Conversations take place in such a manner that one gets audience from different people all over the world. Due to this, the account user is supposed to behave in a certain manner in regard to the audience. they will therefore present themselves differently based on the audience and the location, just as people will present themselves differently while at work with the workmates and seniors or while hanging out with friends at a drinking joint. All these differ in both the expectations and the norms. Similarly, this is the case for online socializing. Social online sites have not only brought in new methods of through which people can express themselves but also getting to know themselves better by how people rate them and their relationship with different people (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). Therefore, this piece of writing explores the different incidences of self-awareness that come up as a result of creating, viewing, and responding to extremely personal, unaddressed blogs and posts. Context Collapse Explanation Of late, Facebook has been the most widely used social site and as at October 2012, there were over a billion account owners. Therefore this, means that we are in a world that is connected everywhere socially thanks to the emerging technological trends. According to Boyd (2008) this emerging interaction structure resulting from an increasingly mediated form of sociality is known as “networked publics,” whereby the chief interaction form is the social network sites. In addition, Boyd has defined social network sites are as ‘‘web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulates a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system” (Boyd, 2007). The content that is generated and used as far as social media and networking is concerned has several characteristics. It is replicable, searchable, persistent and scalable. Having this in mind, the account users ought to know how well to deal with invisible audiences, context collapse, and the blurring of private and public (Boyd, 2010). Persistence refers to the persistent accessibility of the content way long after it has been created. This is because the content may have multiply or even stored or equally distorted, in a range of physical and digital locations maintained by other users even when deleted. The content can also be scalable meaning that it is over and over again shared amongst a very large and different audience. This audience may in turn share the content with their own networks, which consequently ensures that the content is far past the local interaction situation. Another characteristic of the content is that it is searchable. This means that it is readily available since it is stored and in that case another user can access it (Boyd, 2010). It is very conspicuous those social networks sites have a form of presentational control. “In fact, social network sites are first and foremost social, and each profile is a co-construction through public wall posts and tagged status updates, pictures, and comments” (Marwick, 2011). This means that the content on an account user’s profile is actually both self-generated and other generated. The audience will give superior credibility to other-generated content rather than the self-generated content. In a situation where an account user has different pictures tagged by himself and tagged by others, then the audience tends to go with the picture tagged by others since the earlier has been done intentionally. This will create a picture or an image of who the user actually is. Nonetheless, this does not mean that context collapse is not present from face-to-face settings. Quite the opposite is that social gatherings such as funerals, weddings and parties have for a very long time been locations of merger networks and different user expectations (Marwick, 2010). It is very logical to argue that context collapse is not easy to avoid. This is due to the architecture and normative constitution of social media space. Facebook and Tweeter for example have an option of friend requests. The account owners are searchable, and the cost of connection is actually very low. Generally, it is common sense that one will accept a request from a person they know or know little about regardless of where that person may be. Networks are growing at a very high rate due to the ease with which the setting has been done. Recent study has revealed various methods that have been used by account users to control context collapse. Facebook and Tweeter all do have various settings that limit connection. Limiting content so that only what is appropriate according to the account user is what every member of the network can deem appropriate is what is been done. Private settings in Facebook for example ensure that a user can block some of his friends. A certain post may only be viewed by a certain class of people preferred by the user thanks to private settings. Engaging re-segmentation tools within the social media platform has ensured that some features of the profile are not viewed. Others may even “unfriend” their followers in Facebook or even delete comments or posts they deem unfit on their account (Marwick & Boyd, 2011). Social sites users at times have to balance some things. For example, for Twitter users who are trying to gather audience, personal legitimacy and audience expecta­tions ought to be balanced. So as to plea for an extensive audience, some popular Twitter users have a preference to a situation whereby they continually keep an eye on their followers and at the same time and meet their expectations. On the other hand, due to context collapse, their followers ended up having diverse inclination for revealing personal information vis a vis paying attention to the informative topics (Marwick, 2011). Therefore, the account users will have a sense of audience in every mediated conversation, which can be through an instant messenger or via blog comments. In all the instances, this audience is over and over again imagined and created by a person so as to present themselves suitably, on the basis of the technological affordances and the immediate social situation. It is imperative to note that account owners actually do value their respective audience. This has been emphasized by the fact that there is identity presentation on profile- based sites, such as social network sites and personal ads, have demonstrated that profile owners are attentive to audience (Boyd, 2006). According to Marwick and Boyd, although users often act as though their audiences are bounded, they are in fact, potentially limitless (Marwick & Boyd, 2011). However, it is important to note that in the nonexistence of certain understanding about audience, social sites users will take cue from the social media environment to imagine the community (Boyd, 2007: 131). This is most definitely some form of imagined audience, who indeed might be entirely different from the actual readers of a tweet, profile or a blog post. Context collapse has its consequences which will affect the users and people at large. However, it is imperative to note that people will be affected differently. There are factors that ensure the difference on the effects. These range from age, gender, race, class among others. The capacity to choose re-segmentation is in principal reliant on the user skill level and technological comfort, which will vary in relation to the above mentioned factors. Equally, those account users who use very difficult or even strange identities or socially behave abnormally are at many a time required to keep their networks segmented so as to steer clear of potential physical harm or social rejection (Marwick, 2005). Conclusion Social sites have ensured that people all over the world are living as if they are in one big house. Communication through these sites has been eased to a level that one can communicate with another or view blog posts or tweets at any time. However a need for some measures to ensure no extremes is urgent. Different audience may have different motives and that should not be the case. This can only be curbed if there are uniform measures in place. Context collapse is the default state, and whatever effort might be put so as to ensure that this state is unstable will definitely come at a price. There have been many lengths reached by people seeking to interact. However good this interaction it goes without saying that some level “playing surface” is required for all social site users. Those kinds of in-depth connections may breed trouble hence the need for a level and common interacting surface. This is because when it goes too far, the account user may be expelled from the social site. References Boyd, D. (2006b). Friends, friendsters, and Myspace top 8: Writing community into being on social network sites. First Monday. Vol. 11(2). Boyd, D. (2008). Taken out of context: American teen sociality in networked publics. PhD Dissertation, Berkeley: University of California. Boyd, D, Golder, S, and Lotan G. (2010). Tweet, tweet, retweet: Conversational aspects of retweeting on Twitter. Kauai HI: HICSS-43 IEEE. Marwick, A. (2005). I’m More Than Just a Friendster Profile: Identity, Authenticity and Power in Social Networking Services. Chicago, IL: Association for Internet Researchers. Marwick, A, & Boyd, D. (2011). “I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience.” New Media & Society. Vol. 13/114-133. Boyd, D, & Ellison, N. (2012). “”There Isn’t Wifi in Heaven!” Negotiating Visibility on Facebook Memorial Pages.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media. Vol. 56/378- 400. Boyd, D. (2010).” Social network sites as networked publics: Affordances, dynamics, and implications. A Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites’. New York: Rutledge. Boyd, D. (2008). “Why Youth Heart Social Network Sites: The Role of NetworkedPublics in Teenage Social Life.” Pp. 119-142 in Youth, Identity, and Digital Media. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. Boyd, D, & Ellison, N. (2007). “Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. Vol. 13/210-210. Read More