danah boyd tweeted an unedited version of her talk given at the Personal Democracy Forum Conference (#pdf09) entitled “The Not-So-Hidden Politics of Class Online” and I must say, it’s absolutely fabulous. Though her ideas might be controversial, she touches on an important reality I think many tech evangelists are scared to recognize; that class divisions are being reproduced online and that the Internet isn’t the great equalizing utopia we may have hoped for. At the very least it provokes thinking about the social context of technology and the ways in which technologies shape and are shaped by the host culture in which they incubate. The powerful and encompassing forces of technology are undeniable (I think of Edmund Carpenter and his thoughts on the transformative potential of media, “…we may as well stop the ocean.”), but danah reminds us technologies are never neutral and that they are also influenced by (and often mirror) the culture of their users. Below are the ideas from her talk that she wanted to drive home, but I encourage you to read the entire thing. It’s definitely worth it.
1) Social stratification is pervasive in American society (and around the globe). Social media does not magically eradicate inequality. Rather, it mirrors what is happening in everyday life and makes social divisions visible. What we see online is not the property of these specific sites, but the pattern of adoption and development that emerged as people embraced them. People brought their biases with them to these sites and they got baked in.
2) There is no universal public online. What we see as user “choice” in social media often has to do with structural forces like homophily in people’s social networks. Social stratification in this country is not cleanly linked to race or education or socio-economic factors, although all are certainly present. More than anything, social stratification is a social networks issue. People connect to people who think like them and they think like the people with whom they are connected. The digital publics that unfold highlight and reinforce structural divisions.
3) If you are trying to connect with the public, where you go online matters. If you choose to make Facebook your platform for civic activity, you are implicitly suggesting that a specific class of people is more worth your time and attention than others. Of course, splitting your attention can also be costly and doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll be reaching everyone anyhow. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. The key to developing a social media strategy is to understand who you’re reaching and who you’re not and make certain that your perspective is accounting for said choices. Understand your biases and work to counter them.
4) The Internet has enabled many new voices to enter the political fray, but not everyone is sitting at the table. There’s a terrible tendency in this country, and especially among politically minded folks, to interpret an advancement as a solution. We have not eradicated racism. We have not eradicated sexism. We have not eradicated inequality. While we’ve made tremendous strides in certain battles, the war is not over. The worst thing we can do is to walk away and congratulate ourselves for all of the good things that have happened. Such attitudes create new breeding grounds for increased stratification.
via “The Not-So-Hidden Politics of Class Online”.
Tagged: class, danah boyd, facebook, myspace, politics, race, social networking, society, stratification, technology