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ONLINE social networks, WEBSITES, SOCIAL networks, ORGANIZATIONAL structure, and TEENAGERS

During the 2006-2007 school year, American teenagers flocked to two distinct social network sites: MySpace and Facebook. The division was by no means clean, as plenty of teens adopted both or neither. Yet, in choosing which social network site(s) to adopt, teens reproduced their everyday social networks and began marking digital turf. Their choice was neither arbitrary nor geographically delimited and distinctions existed in every school and community in which I interviewed teens. In examining teens' descriptions of who preferred MySpace from those who preferred Facebook, I found that teens often went beyond identity and taste markers, using the language of social categories, race, and class to make distinctions. The adoption patterns that unfolded between MySpace and Facebook reproduced and publicly displayed social and structural divisions that are a part of everyday teen life. The goal of this paper is to locate the digital distinctions that emerged in a broader discourse of teenage social categories, leveraging ethnographic data to make sense of how teens understood the split that was taking place. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ONLINE social networks, WEBSITES, COMPUTER network resources, and WEBSITE usability

A quick peek into MySpace is bound to overwhelm your senses. Animations are flying, movies are playing, music is screeching, text is blinking, and there are colors galore. The style has parallels to Geocities homepages or American teenagers' bedroom walls. Yet, what is fascinating about these pages is how they emerged. MySpace doesn't support users' modifications; it simply allows users to hack into the form code to alter the underlying HTML and CSS. As a result, a copy/paste culture has emerged as people help each other personalize their page. Taking codes from all over the web, modding them when possible, MySpace users have learned to remix code to construct a digital identity.??In this paper, we will discuss how the codes process serves as a form of structural and social remix. We will argue that copy/paste codes allow people to remix cultural artifacts to say something about themselves. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SOCIAL networks, NETWORK analysis (Communication), SOCIAL groups, ETHNOLOGY, WEBSITES, SOCIAL theory, and INTERNET

Social networking is a fundamental feature of all social software. From blogrolls to Buddylists, people have learned to negotiate implicit networks in everyday digital interaction. Social networking is now achieving popular and technological prominence via the Internet. Dozens of sites have emerged to address how social networks can help people connect to have sex, find jobs, sell cars, and waste inordinate amounts of time. Yet, people are also using these sites to negotiate identity and play. Embedded in the culture of social networks is an increasing tension between the creators and the users as each are unaware of the expectations and motivations of the other. In what ways are these sites intended to model offline behavior? How do the technological shifts create a shift in social behavior? Does current social theory properly explain the emerging behaviors or must new theories be developed that challenge the current? Drawing from ethnographic research on Friendster and other social networking sites, I discuss the tensions that have emerged between creators and users as both work to understand the emerging social and technological boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]