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| Image 1: Writing our Facebook Narratives |
Our autobiography is also developed through diverse aspects of FB activities such as photo tagging, which creates the allusion of developing network identities (Vaas, 2012). With this FB activity of tagging photos it diminishes our privacy and control over our private life. Dr Van Luyn discusses "you are not the only person constructing your identity" as it may seem like you have control over who visits your profile, however there is always a way to lurk around others FB profile. The virtual self has its own narratives "for a particular purpose and context" (Luyan, 2013); within the virtual network power is a central aspects in the way I perceive myself within the atmosphere of the space.
Facebook is global (McNeill, 2012, p.103). As it accommodates for all diverse cultures and languages. It provides equality to all countries world wide. This is through people's profile I formation (also known as their autobiographies). We develop our autobiographies through our FB profile information; opposed to how Aboriginals create their autobiographies via the dreaming(Stanner, 1979). The dreaming is presented through dance and song ceremonies and is presented through the features of songlines (Chatwin,1987). The diverse features of Aboriginals belief and culture backgrounds are also visual on FB through the different links to pages and songlines; demonstrating diversity and equality. This allows Aboriginals to illustrate their cultural belief.
Well I am off to check my Facebook notifications :) keeping in mind that when you 'tag photos' or share statuses that the whole world can embrace the same power of space that is presented through one individuals profile; regardless if your setting is on 'friends only'.
References
Chatwin, B. (1987). Chapter 3, in songlines (pp. 11-15). London, England: Jonathan Cape.
McNeill, L. (2012). There is no "I" in network: Social networking sites and post human auto-biography. In biography, 35(1), 101-118.
Stanner, W.E.H. (1979). The dreaming (1953), in white man got no dreaming:essays 1938-1973 (pp. 23-30). Canberra, Australia: Australian National University Press.
Van Luyan, A. (2013). BA1002: Our Space: Networks narratives and the making of place. Lecture 4: Networked narratives. (PowerPoint slides). Retrieved from http://learnjcu.edu.au
Vass, L. (2012). Facebook privacy control overhaul will remove ability to limit who can find us. Retrieved from:http://naked security.sophos.com
Image 1: Writing our Facebook narratives. retrieved from https://www.google.com.au/search?q=facebook+autobiography&biw=1366&bih=546&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=wDE1UsvRItal4AP6g4HQAw&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=IE9Aeip90T2adM%3A%3BNGEWtLsvb7j3QM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fstatic.ibnlive.in.com%252Fpix%252Fslideshow%252F11-2011%252Ftop-10-new%252F10-121111.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fibnlive.in.com%252Fphotogallery%252F5223.html%3B630%3B420
Nice post :) In relation to your point about the ubiquity of FB, and thinking back to last week (mapping), there's been some interesting work done on mapping fb connections - there's a summary & a map here: http://www.geekosystem.com/facebook-connection-world-map/
ReplyDeleteThe world begins to appear as the connections between friends are mapped. However, China, a lot of Russia, Brazil and Central Africa remain notably absent, or only marginally visible on this map. I leave the rest of you guys to think through the implications of this, in terms of power realtions & networks ;) I think FB definitely promotes westernized/anglo conceptions of self. The self is seen as a unified, singular and individually representable entity (not as part of a collective). In contrast to Australian Indigenous cultures, or many Asian & African cultures, members of western-anglo cultures tend to define themselves in terms of "I" as opposed to "we" (Individualist vs collectivist conceptions of self). And the notions of identity promoted by FB, as outlined by McNeil (2012),definitely adhere to and promote this humanist notion of identity.
It is a worry at times that we are not the only ones constructing our own identity, especially with the lack of privacy over the internet. In the past, I have watched news articles where tagging photos may aid facial recognition technologies for other programs, which may aid crime fighting agencies. But who else is using the same technology. I guess facebook has this technology built into the program - especially when you upload photos, it is able to recognise and group photos with the same person together and prompts you to tag the person. Grouping photos with the same person makes it easy to tag. How far will this technology go?
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