DIGC101 Week 7 YouTube- Public and Private
The looking glass self
- Your actual knowing of yourself occurs through the interpretation of our understand of how others view us – it is a double action.
- We consider ourselves through the looking glass – the eyes of other people.
- E.g. what is so and so thinking about me now?
- What happens when you introduce a webcam to this theory? Your sense of self is made permanent through the lens of the camera to people on YouTube.
Webcams allow us to be voyeurs.
- What is going through your mind when you make a presentation of yourself via webcam?
- It is a very difficult process when you first record a YouTube video – you are not talking to an audience, but a strange device – mediating your concept of self.
- We imagine ourselves in an idealised self and consider ourselves by how others view our traits and actions – and this is viewed against the reaction of others.
Lange, P 2008, ‘Publicly Private and Privately Public: Social Networking on YouTube’, Journal of Computer-Mediate Communication 13 (1), pp.361-380 (wk 6 reading)
- “Public mess” – there is a real range of this on YouTube where the identity of the video makers is often disclosed in their bedrooms etc. but is often contained privately.
- How users create a sense of idea that overlaps with specific social groups.
- ‘Media circuit’ – “the use of media in these circuits of exchange help members reinforce social connections and interact in qualitative meaningful ways”.
YouTube as a social network site
- The 3 key elements of the definition from Boyd on a social network site- needs a profile, connection between others, and map connections via peoples exchange of information, media and comments.
- You have a ‘channel’ rather than a profile, you can make favourites, subscribe, and see what others have favourited, and you can have subscriptions.
- You can create a different persona.
- There are elements of vanity and performance.
Culture of talking back
- People respond to other videos – esp. memes.
- This is an actual communicative act to talk back to each other in a specific way.
What is public/private?
- Private is something only you have access to – but then there are private networks where u can exclusively chose who accesses your information.
- It is not a clear binary or on a spectrum – it us fractured and more complex.
- They are relativistic terms and shift according to context and individual perspective.
- How can you be publically private? Share private experiences in a public way e.g. put a home video on YouTube.
- You can use cryptic tags (tagging and labelling videos in strange ways so the general public can’t find it).
