Response: Politics, Week 10

1. The Boyd articles discusses how teens create and update SNS profiles based on their perceived audience? How do we portray ourselves different on the Web than we would in other mediated spaces and why do we do so?

2. What implications will we see from the way that teens and young adults use the Web today? How will it change the way society views certain behaviors, or will it change it at all?

I can’t provide an answer here that has any kind of scientific or research-based evidence. However, I can say that I think people are narcissistic by nature. They want to show themselves off and they want to show themselves off in a positive light. People have a tendency to post things that communicate the “OH MY LIFE IS SO GREAT!” message. Or if they are going through a hard time they may take the “WOE IS ME, FEEL SORRY FOR ME!” approach.

We don’t know the implications of these public portrayals yet. It will be interesting to see the news agencies pull up 30 year old Facebook pictures of Presidential candidates getting drunk or high at a party in college. Or using status updates/comments from decades before to enhance political mudslinging. It seems like our society will lower its moral standards as life becomes more and more public. We’ll see that even the woman who sits next to us in church every Sunday has a tagged Facebook photo of her making out with the preacher at a bar.

Everyone has an intrinsic desire to be liked. We want people to envy our lives, to think we’re cool. That’s why we stalk our ex-boyfriends or our current bf’s ex-girlfriends. We want reassurance that our lives are better than our enemy’s. We need the competition to thrive, so we post things to make our lives into a narrative, filled with drama, comedy, successes and failures.

3. How will WikiLeaks affect how government is run? Will transparency become a bigger priority if officials are afraid of being caught up in corruption? Or will we have to move toward a more militant and secretive state in order to protect sources and information?

I think our discussion in class today was really interesting regarding transparency. Wikileaks hopes to encourage transparency in government but is unable to provide transparency within its own organization. However, I do think the fear of being caught it enough to keep officials and governments more transparent. It could work the opposite way in cultures that already have a more militant or dictatorial governments but in systems that value democracy and power of the people, I believe it will work to the benefit of the governed.

Tags: politics, response, social networks