Class and MySpace

[lydamorehouse]

My partner Shawn sent me this link this morning (cross posted from Tate Hallaway's blog):

http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html

If you follow it, it will lead you to a very fascinating essay called "Viewing American Class Divisions in Facebook and MySpace."  I'm so old that I still think you LJers are a bit too young for me, so I don't have a MySpace or Facebook account.  To be honest, I fall into that category that the article talks about which are people who've only heard of MySpace (apparently most Facebook folks are aware of MySpace, but that's not always the same in reverse.)  But, that being said, I still found this discussion really fascinating, particularly in regards to how the division between MySpace and Facebook have played out in the U.S. Army -- according to the author, the military has banned MySpace, which was mostly used by the rank and file soliders, but not Facebook, which was populated primarily by officers.  

The author expends a lot of energy talking about how difficult it is to talk about class in America.  I would have to agree.  However, I'm glad s/he tries.  This is also why, even though the issues are often over-simplified, I appreciate when shows like Battlestar Galatica have their "very special episode" about labor relations and class.

Comments

[alirose.livejournal.com]

I suspect that the class difference is largely a product of the fact that Facebook was originally created as a social networking place for college students. It used to be that you had to have a valid college e-mail address to join Facebook. It has only been about a year or two since it has been opened up to a wider audience, where are MySpace has been for the general public for years longer.

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

Wasn't Facebook just opened up to the general public?

I think I have a Friendster account, but I never did anything with it. LiveJournal was much more useful -- and interactive.

[kellymccullough.livejournal.com]

About a year ago, but the vast majority of its user base is people who signed up when it was still college only, so either students, faculty, or university staff. It's kind of a silly article and study if it doesn't mention that.

[lydamorehouse]

Actually, the article *does* mention that Facebook was only recently opened to the public.

[xochiquetzl]

Just a random data point. Make of it what you will.

I mainly know both MySpace and Facebook from our students surfing them for hours. They appear to be equally popular--I'm not network services and don't have hard numbers--but until recently it was mostly MySpace. We also have high school students show up and borrow our computers to camp out on MySpace and Facebook.

As for class, I think the PC term I'm looking for is "disadvantaged." Mostly poor and African-American in the deep south. I suspect the nearby high school is better than my SO's high school in Florida where the teachers literally dumpster dove for textbooks at the rich school across town, for what it's worth.

Which leads me to another point. I think it's probably a lot more useful to consider the way that school funding via local property taxes maintains the class status quo and limits upward mobility. When I was in high school in the 80s I had a friend who swore that in El Paso her social studies textbook included the line, "...and someday, man may walk on the moon!" That said, I don't have any clever ideas for anything better. It sure as hell ain't vouchers, IMHO. When I was in Texas, the Dallas Independant School District started a wildly unpopular funding plan called "Robin Hood." Guess what it did? ;)

(Why, yes. I am a product of the school system that was ranked 49th out of 50. And 50 wasn't Florida, it was Mississippi.)

Seriously, it's a vicious spiral. You're poor, so you live in a neighborhood with underfunded schools, and maybe the history teacher gets your kid's textbook by dumpster diving across town, and your kid doesn't get a very good education that way, and doesn't get into college, and ends up poor, living in a neighborhood with underfunded schools...

[ashkta.livejournal.com]

That's an intriguing essay point. I know that, for myself, I've resisted getting a MySpace several times because, from what I've seen, there just seems to be a big jump in the maturity levels between the MySpace users and the LiveJournal users. And I know quite a few teenagers on LJ, but they (the ones I know, that is) just seem to act more...adult...than the teens I've seen on MS.

So I've seen some kind of "division" if you want to call it that, though I would have never considered it in terms of class.