Facebook v MySpace - a class divide
Rising star, Danah Boyd (note the first named URL! 'danah.org' - now that says something like 'KMA, Mimi Ito is my advisor' lol), on social networking and class.
Boyd believes richies use facebook and the rest of us use myspace.
But of course ... this reminds me of something Pippa Norris has written (who I think I have quoted on this blog previously - but here is is again),
Even if the basic digital divide shrinks gradually over time, it is naive to believe that the virtual world can overturn fundamental inequalities of social stratification that are endemic throughout post-industrial societies’ (Norris 2001: 17)Norris, Pippa. (2001) Digital divide: Civic engagement, information poverty, and the internet worldwide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Labels: internet, myspace, research, social class, social software, technology
posted by Scott @ 1:35 pm
2 comments
2 Comments:
so is that to say that Facebook is perceived to be more 'highbrow'...
as in, the very 'requirement' of a university network or affiliation with an organisation already weeds out the lower-socio economic demographic?
also it's not as plain easy to use and accessible as Myspace is.
Facebook assumes its users to be rather net savvy with a certain level of sophistication and class not often found in the seemingly crass, lowbrow and 'common' crowd Myspace pulls.
End of essay.
:-)
Is it just a rich/poor divide, or a digital native/immigrant divide? Facebook it MIGHTY easy to use, whereas MySpace...well, you need to learn to write, or at least cut and paste CODE to make that bugger work.
MySpace = confusing to grown ups.
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