Playing Nice in the New Media Playground

As a child of the digital age, to me, communication via New Media is as ubiquitous as my Diet Coke addiction and the use of "random" as a blanket adjective. In highschool it was text messaging and online chat rooms, evolving into user generated content sites like Facebook and Youtube with the inception of Web 2.0 in 2004 (Sternberg, 2010), and now, as I prepare to take the next step in life post-university, Facebook, Twitter, email, blog updates, entertainment media, and RSS news feeds are delivered straight from Cyberspace into my back pocket thanks to my beloved BlackBerry.

Which raises important questions about how we conduct ourselves ethically and morally in this virtually unlimited cyber playground, especially where intellectual property rights, piracy, privacy, computer crime, censorship and free speech are concerned (Hamelink, 2006). 

While "nettiquette" (Hamelink, 2006) frameworks have been put in place, the size and scope of the Internet make policing ethical or moral breaches a near impossible task (Sternberg, 2010).  As argued by Hamelink (2006) “The speed of digital communication does not create new forms of immorality…But it makes it possible to commit immoral acts so fast that one hardly notices.”

In other words, the moral and ethical dilemmas we face in the cyber playground aren’t all that different to those faced in the real world.  The Net does not imply a confrontation with new moral problems. The difference is the digital playground is a whole lot bigger, and provides the cloak and mask of pseudonym and anonymity, and subsequently, a better chance of getting away with morally and ethically questionable behaviour.

References

Hamelink, C. 2006. The Ethics of the Internet: Can we cope with Lies and Deceit on the Net? In Ideologies of the Internet, K. Sarikakis & Daya Thussu, pp. 115-130. New Jersey: Hampton Press.

Sternberg, J. 2010. "KCB301 Media Audiences, Week 3 Lecture Notes". The active audience: User-led co-creation and the re-negotiation of media power. Accessed March 28, 2011. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/.

Doing the Ipod Shuffle

"I'm way cooler on Facebook"

In recent years, we have grown accustomed to viewing the online world as a social space (Donath, Boyd, 2004).  The use of the World Wide Web as a tool for social interaction has blurred the lines between public and private life, and given rise to the notion of what Pearson (2009) describes as the “online performance”.

In week two, we focussed on the implications of the public display of our social interactions, and construction of the online identity via social networking.

Pearson (2009) introduces the idea of the “glass bedroom”; describing the online network as a place where intimate interactions that would otherwise be private are thrust into the public arena.  This is where the “performance” aspect of our online networking begins.

To synthesise this concept with an idea explored by Donath and Boyd (2004), links within our online networks are unnuanced; that is, there is no differentiation made between members of our immediate social circle - who may be privy to these private interactions within a traditional social context – and vague aquaintances.  The fact we are comfortable allowing near strangers in on our personal interactions is illustrative of Pearson’s notion of the online “performance”.  Furthermore, online networking tends to encourage a culture that dictates only the aspects of ourselves that are most positive to our identity, or “brand”, are displayed, leading to the construction of an online “self” that may not be a complete depiction of reality (Pearson, 2009).

However, despite the “performance” aspect of our online social interactions, the information we provide through our profiles is accessable by our close circle as well as our wider network, and this in itself  – through either fear of embarrassment or damage to our reputation – goes some way in preventing the construction of total online identity fallacies. (Donath, Boyd, 2004). 

References

Donath, J. and boyd, d. (2004). Public displays of connection.   BT Technology Journal , volume 22 (4): 71-82

Pearson, E. (2009).     All the World Wide Web's a stage: the Performance of Identity in Online Social Networks . First Monday, volume 14, Number 3.