Online Media

Social media, friends, communication, keeping in touch, annoying people, begfriends, stalking, fights, relationships, pictures, SLUTS, memories, avoiding work, nosey, judgementalness, bitching, lack of privacy, fraping

Positives -
Keeping in touch with long distance/old friends/relatives
Help young people promote themselves in a positive way - forum to advertise band/photography/web design etc.
Accessible to all no matter about social class/age
Communicate with a lot of people in one go

Negatives -
Bullying/low self-esteem
Allows people to manipulate people (Pedophiles)
Pre-judging before you've met someone

What new forms of social interaction have media technologies enabled?
Globalisation
Sharing of Information
Development of Self-Identity
Self-Realisation
Collective Intelligence
Reshaping media messages and their flow; reshape amd recirculate messages
Increased Voice
Consumer communication with business (greater influence) - mass collaboration
Build Awareness - Bands/Skills
Communication has become interactive dialogue
User Generated Content (UGC)
Self-Representation and Self-Disclosure
Increasingly diversity within cultures
Online media focus on some or all of the 7 functional building blocks - Identity, conversations, sharing, presence, relationships, reputation and groups (Kietzmann et all. 2011)

'Online media are especially suitable to construct and develop several indentities of the self (Turkle, 1998)
'The mobile phone has become a central device in the construction of young peoples individual indentity (Castells, Fernandez-Andrevol, Linchuan Qiu and Sey 2006)

Digital Indentity

A person has not just one a stable homogenous indetity
Identity consists of serveral fragments that permantly change
A life-long developing and new conceptualized patchwork

Identity

"Identity is complicated - everybody thinks they've got one" - David Gauntlett

"A focus on identity requires us to pay closer attention to the ways in which media and technologies are used in everyday life and their consequences of social groups" - David Buckingham

Buckingham -

Classifies identity as an 'ambiguous and slippery' term;
Identity is something unique to each of us, but also implies a realtionship with a broader group;
Identity can change according to our circumstances;
Identity is fluid and is affected by broader changes;
Identity becomes more important us if we it is threatened.

Cultural Imperialism - Other cultures ideas coming into British society - Gloabalisation
Social mobility
Immigration - Becoming a multi-cultural society

Gauntlett -

Identity is complicated, however, everybody feels that they have one;
Religious and national identities are at the heart of major international conflicts
The average teenager can create numerous identities in a short space of time (especially using the internet, social networking sites etc)
We like to think we are unique, but Gauntlett questions whether this is an illusion, and we are all much more similar than we think.

5 Key Themes of Identity
1. Creativity as a process about emotions and experiences
2. Making and sharing to feel alive, to participate, in community
3. Happiness through creativity and community
4. Creativity as social glue - a middle layer between individuals and society
5. Making your mark and making the world your own

Representation - The way reality is 'mediated' or 're-presented' to us.
Collective Identity - The individual's sense of belonging to a group (part of personal identity)