Boundary Regulation in Social Media
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Transcript of Boundary Regulation in Social Media
Fred Stutzman and Woodrow Hartzog
School of Information and Library ScienceSchool of Journalism and Mass Communication
UNC-Chapel Hill
Boundary Regulation in Social Media
(Lenhart 2009)
Fred Stutzman, [email protected]
Managing Contexts
• Friendster
• “Burners, gay men and bloggers”
• Myspace
• Teens and mirror profiles
(boyd, 2006 & 2007) http://www.flickr.com/photos/foxgrrl/3676857198/
Fred Stutzman, [email protected]
Managing Contexts
• Presence of multiple social groups
• Behavioral Strategies
• Mental Strategies
• “Least Common Denominator”
(Lampinen et. al., 2009)
http://bit.ly/yS8yI
Fred Stutzman, [email protected]
Context Tension• Connections across
status and power boundaries
• Propriety, work/family
• Inadvertent disclosures leading to harms
(Skeels and Grudin, 2009)
http://bit.ly/6HTDB
Fred Stutzman, [email protected]
Conceptions of Privacy
• Privacy as selective control (Altman, 1975)
• Privacy as information practice (Dourish & Anderson, 2006)
• Privacy as boundary management (Petronio, 2002)
Fred Stutzman, [email protected]
CPM
• Communications Privacy Management
• Rule Development
• Boundary Coordination
• Boundary Turbulence
(Petronio, 2002)
Fred Stutzman, [email protected]
Study Goals
• Why are motives for using multiple profiles?
• What strategies to people employ in managing multiple profiles?
• Is this an effective strategy?
Fred Stutzman, [email protected]
Method
• Criteria: multiple profiles on one social media site
• Twenty in-depth interviews, Summer 2009
• In-person/phone/Skype
• Analyzed using grounded theory
Fred Stutzman, [email protected]
Respondents• Six in their 20’s, Seven
in their 30’s, Six in their 40’s, and one was 57
• Twelve females, eight males
• Respondents from US (NC, VA, GA, CA, FL) and UK
Fred Stutzman, [email protected]
Motives
•Privacy
•Identity
•Utility
•Proprietyhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/gi/435888435/
Fred Stutzman, [email protected]
Privacy• Control of access to the self;
withdrawal from public domain
• Safety
• Confidentiality
“I know some young kids who tweeted ‘I’m going to lunch at so and so’ and they came back to their apartment and they had been robbed...”
Fred Stutzman, [email protected]
Privacy
• For many respondents, multiple profiles:
• Functioned as shield, protecting identifiable information
• Enabled content production
Fred Stutzman, [email protected]
Identity
• Multiple profiles allowed for establishment of distinct identities (personal/professional)
[Created second Facebook profile so] “I could be all about business” [On personal profile] “could be a place where I have opinions, where I express personal stuff.”
Fred Stutzman, [email protected]
Utility• Multiple profiles enable:
• Accomplishment of promotional and collaborative goals
• Catering to specific audiences at specific times
• Not having to apologize for off-topic posts
Fred Stutzman, [email protected]
Utility• Segment volume of disclosure
• Offer differing information streams (topic/interest)
“If somebody on my personal Twitter says ‘oh gosh you are inundating me with too many updates,’ I will tell them that they can follow my public profile that I update substantially less”
Fred Stutzman, [email protected]
Propriety
• Multiple profiles used to manage conformity to norms and customs
• Befriending the boss or parent
[On the personal profile] “when my boss pops up and Facebook tells me ‘we think you should be friends,’ I don’t say yes because she’s my boss.”
Fred Stutzman, [email protected]
Forms of Regulation
• Multiple identities in a single space
• Single account, highly segmented privacy controls
• Segmentation by site
• Different social media for different audiences
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Axes of Regulation
• Regulation by linkage
• Regulation by concealment
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thosch66/270060125/
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Linkages
• Links to the identity
"I have two different identities, I have a personal one. [and] one geared towards my professional stuff, there's not much personal information there. But, I do have a separate Flickr account, I have separate Twitter accounts, I have separate Myspace pages”
Fred Stutzman, [email protected]
Linkages
• Regulation by linked interconnections
“But I don’t try and hide the fact that I’m one or the other. You know in my [personal] bio, I say something about [my business twitter]. So its not like I’m trying to hide my two different identities.”
Fred Stutzman, [email protected]
Concealment
• Three genres identified
• Pseudonymity
• Practical Obscurity
• Obscure name variants, non-disclosure of identity
• Transparent Separations
Fred Stutzman, [email protected]
Concealment
Fred Stutzman, [email protected]
Evaluation
• Do these techniques provide privacy?
“The thing going into it is I don’t put anything out there that I wouldn’t want everybody to know”
“I have to be careful about - that I say something that's generic enough”
“I’m very conscious of the fact I am basically speaking to an open mic”
Fred Stutzman, [email protected]
Evaluation
• Is the process burdensome?
• High burden: Number of accounts maintained, large number of contacts
• High burden: Degree of linkage disassociation
Fred Stutzman, [email protected]
Evaluation
• Technical strategies
• Most participants reported “bleedover”
• Segmenting by device
• Segmenting by time and location
Fred Stutzman, [email protected]
Implications
• Multiple profile maintenance consistent with the theoretical provisions of Altman and Petronio
• Process reduces potential harms, and encourages disclosures
• Represents a reaction to limitations inherent in sites
Fred Stutzman, [email protected]
Thank you!
Fred Stutzman: [email protected]@fstutzmanhttp://fredstutzman.com
Woodrow [email protected]@hartzoghttp://ssrn.com/author=1107005
Fred Stutzman, [email protected]
Axis of Linkages
Fred Stutzman, [email protected]
Pseudonymity
Fred Stutzman, [email protected]
Practical Obscurity
Fred Stutzman, [email protected]
Transparent Separations