Identity, Integrity, and Affinity on Social Network Sites for Young People in Australia

294 Pages·2017·1.52 MB·English

Systems of Belonging: Identity, Integrity, and Affinity on
Social Network Sites for Young People in Australia
Author
Robards, Brady
Published
2012
Thesis Type
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
School
School of Humanities
DOI
https://doi.org/10.25904/1912/2842
Copyright Statement
The author owns the copyright in this thesis, unless stated otherwise.
Downloaded from
http://hdl.handle.net/10072/366078
Griffith Research Online
https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au
Systems of Belonging: Identity, Integrity, and Affinity
on Social Network Sites for Young People in Australia

Brady Robards
Bachelor of Arts (2006)
Bachelor of Arts with Honours (2007)

School of Humanities
Arts, Education & Law
Griffith University

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

July 2012
Abstract
Social network sites such as MySpace and Facebook play an important role in
mediating the everyday social and cultural lives of many internet users. Young
internet users were amongst the first to incorporate these sites into their
everyday lives, and many young people continue to use them to connect and
share with their networks, forging conventions and strategies for ‘being’ in
online social spaces. For some of these young people, participation in these
social spaces has become central for inclusion amongst peer groups. These
sites offer a platform of mediated sociality that is distinct, while also manifesting
in forms of interaction that are familiar and embedded in the everyday, blurring
distinctions between online and offline, and troubling notions of public and
private.
Drawing on qualitative data collected between mid-2009 and late-2010, this
thesis charts the role of the two most dominant social network sites, MySpace
and Facebook, in the social lives of thirty-three young people in Australia.
Fieldwork was conducted in two phases: first, through gaining access to the
profiles of my participants, observing interactions and exchanges on these
profiles, and analysing content; and second, drawing on these observations to
frame semi-structured, in-depth, in-person interviews. At the centre of the
analysis of my findings is a focus on questions of identity and self-presentation
online, and how the performance of identity in online social spaces represents a
reflexive ordering of self-narratives that manifest in a ‘digital trace’. I explore
friending strategies, notions of integrity and authenticity, and challenge
dominant conceptualisations of belonging that do not adequately encompass
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the systems of belonging made visible by my participants on social network
sites.
The implications of this research are broad. Early on in the thesis, I establish a
theoretical framework for the empirical work that follows, drawing in particular
on Goffman’s (1959) dramaturgical framework and more recent applications of
the dramaturgical framework to online social spaces. Through the challenges I
have encountered in this empirical work that informs this project, I call on future
research that explores young people’s use of social network sites to attend
closely to the blurring of public and private in these spaces. I challenge
researchers and institutional ethics committees or review boards to recruit
appropriate expertise and literacies to the design and ethically reflexive
execution of research projects involving social network sites.
In the chapters that draw directly on my empirical work, I describe a complex,
dynamic and heavily strategic set of practices for ‘being’ in online social spaces
that develop out of and work alongside the conventions that govern everyday
life. I advance a ‘systems of belonging’ approach to better explain the mediated
belongings described by my participants. This approach recruits existing
theoretical models of belonging and combines them to make sense of broad,
multiplicitous, coherent and reflexively ordered narratives of affinity and
belonging. Throughout this thesis, I work to resist the online/offline binary by
asserting the everyday, enmeshed nature of sociality in online social spaces. I
conclude by again drawing attention to this argument, and by suggesting
several trajectories for future research from this project.

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Table of Contents
Abstract ............................................................................................................ 2

Acknowledgements .......................................................................................... 9

Statement of Originality and Ethical Clearance .............................................. 12

Publications arising from the dissertation ....................................................... 13

Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................... 14

Research Direction and Frameworks .......................................................... 20

The Internet: From the Utopic and Dystopic to the Everyday ...................... 24

Web 2.0? .................................................................................................. 31

Social Network Sites: History and Definition ............................................... 33

Social Network Sites: An Australian Perspective ..................................... 38

Chapter Conclusion ..................................................................................... 38

Chapter 2: Young Mediated Identities ............................................................ 40

Questions of Identity: Always-already Mediated ......................................... 42

Fragmented Selves and the Crisis of Identity .......................................... 43

Revisiting Goffman and the Dramaturgical Framework ............................... 46

Regions and Standards ........................................................................... 48

The Idealised Self and Socialisation ........................................................ 50

Sign-equipment ........................................................................................ 53

Performances Versus Exhibitions, as Artefacts of Self ............................ 58

The Reflexive Project of Self ....................................................................... 60

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Chapter Conclusion ..................................................................................... 64

Chapter 3: Methodology and Ethical Challenges ........................................... 67

Research Design ......................................................................................... 70

Pilot Study ................................................................................................ 70

Participant Selection Criteria .................................................................... 71

Recruitment .............................................................................................. 76

Participant Diversity ................................................................................. 77

Profile Observations ................................................................................. 78

Semi-structured, In-depth Interviews ....................................................... 83

Data Analysis ........................................................................................... 88

Internet Research Ethics Beyond a Public/Private Divide ........................... 92

Researching Social Network Sites and Young People ............................ 93

New Media, New Ethics? Undoing the Private/Public Dichotomy ............ 95

The ‘T3’ Project and the Use of In-network Research Assistants .......... 100

Friending Participants: Audiences and Context ..................................... 102

Research Challenges and Solutions ......................................................... 104

Changes in Research Design ................................................................ 107

The Challenges of Being an Insider ....................................................... 109

Chapter Conclusion ................................................................................... 111

Chapter 4: Integrity and Authenticity ............................................................ 114

To Lack Integrity ........................................................................................ 117

Privacy ................................................................................................... 117

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Audience Segregation ............................................................................ 119

Singular Identity ..................................................................................... 122

Devices of Identity and Impression Management ..................................... 125

Encoding and Decoding Identity Performance ....................................... 127

The Profile Picture and ‘Close Friend Capital’ ....................................... 131

The ‘About Me’ Section .......................................................................... 138

The Friends List and ‘The Wall’: Collaborative Identity Performance .... 142

Chapter Conclusion ................................................................................... 147

Chapter 5: Friendship and Control ............................................................... 150

Towards Friendship ................................................................................... 152

Social Ties and Social Capital ............................................................... 156

Privacy ................................................................................................... 160

Bedroom Metaphors: Controlling and Conceptualising Audience ............. 163

Reconceptualising ‘Space’ ..................................................................... 163

Symbolic and Practical Control .............................................................. 164

Context Collapse and Rethinking the Glass Bedroom ........................... 166

A Multiplicity of Friending Practices ........................................................... 169

Accepting or Rejecting Randoms: Low Levels of Practical Control ....... 172

Investigating Before Friending ............................................................... 175

Real Life, Real Friends: High Levels of Practical Control ...................... 176

Friendship Hierarchies, Network Sizes and the Friendship Cull ............ 178

Chapter Conclusion ................................................................................... 182

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Chapter 6: Growing Up on Social Network Sites .......................................... 186

Profiles as Transition Texts ....................................................................... 188

Researching Identity ‘In Process’ ........................................................... 190

Hiding Hijinks ......................................................................................... 191

Transition Experiences as Punctuated by Critical Moments .................. 192

Broad Participation ................................................................................. 193

Leaving MySpace, Joining Facebook: Functionality and Mass ................. 194

Functionality ........................................................................................... 197

Critical Mass ........................................................................................... 201

Staying on MySpace to Avoid the Familial Gaze ................................... 203

Transition Narratives ................................................................................. 204

Parents and Family ................................................................................ 205

Chapter Conclusion: Transition Traces ..................................................... 208

Chapter 7: Systems of Belonging ................................................................. 211

Subculture to Postsubculture .................................................................... 214

Subculture Online .................................................................................. 216

Within, Across and In-between Belongings ............................................... 220

What is Subculture? ............................................................................... 223

Re-thinking Neo-tribes ........................................................................... 230

A Systems of Belonging Approach ............................................................ 231

Multiplicity .............................................................................................. 233

Everyday Youth ...................................................................................... 235

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Combining Perspectives ........................................................................ 237

Chapter Conclusion: Is there a Digital Generation? .................................. 238

Chapter 8: Conclusion .................................................................................. 242

Limitations ................................................................................................. 243

Implications and Trajectories for Future Research .................................... 247

Inclusion and ‘At Risk’ Youth ................................................................. 248

Civic Participation .................................................................................. 250

The Good, the Bad, and the Everyday ...................................................... 252

Appendix ....................................................................................................... 256

Appendix 1: Interview Schedule ................................................................ 256

Appendix 2: List of Participants ................................................................. 259

List of References ......................................................................................... 260

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Acknowledgements
Interrogating notions of identity and unpacking systems of belonging has at
once been an immensely personal and a rewarding endeavour. Without the
support of family and friends, and the guidance of supervisors and mentors,
what follows would not be possible.
My principal supervisor, Professor Andy Bennett, has been truly instrumental
in guiding my work and urging me forward. Beyond the thesis, Andy has always
supported the many side-projects and initiatives I have found myself
undertaking that litter the windy journey of a PhD. Thank you, Andy – your
guidance and support has seen this project through to conclusion. My associate
supervisor, Dr. Sue Lovell, has been a great source of focus and inspiration. I
have come to trust in Sue’s editorial voice and delight in the excitement she
derives from our exchanges. Thank you, Sue.
I would like to acknowledge and thank the many staff (past and present) within
Griffith University’s School of Humanities (formerly School of Arts), within the
Griffith Centre for Cultural Research, and the wider Griffith community, who
have shared their wisdom and provided timely words of ‘hallway inspiration’,
while also offering the best of advice and support: Assoc. Prof. Malcolm
Alexander, Prof. Catherine Beavis, Dr. Sally Breen, Dr. Narola Changkija, Dr.
Peter Denney (and Cass and Jeremy), Dr. Christine Feldman, Assoc. Prof.
Susan Forde, Assoc. Prof. Simone Fullager, Dr. Margaret Gibson, Ms. Sarah
Gornall, Dr. Stephanie Green, Ms. Helen Griffiths, Dr. Ben Isakhan, Dr. Cathy
Jenkins, Ms. Jill Jones, Dr. Jondi Keane, Ms. Clare Keys, Dr. Wendy Keys, Ms.
Caron Krauth, Assoc. Prof. Nigel Krauth, Dr. John Mandalios, Assoc. Prof. Jock
Macleod, Ms. Deborah Marshall, Professor Paul Taçon, Dr. Jodie Taylor, Prof.
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