EDUC 628-Spring-08

I will have to admit that I had to look up the word when I first found out about the assignment from my EDUC 628 class, and from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnography, it gives the following definition:

Ethnography (Greek ἔθνος ethnos = people and γράφειν graphein = writing) is a genre of writing that uses fieldwork to provide a descriptive study of human societies. Ethnography presents the results of a holistic research method founded on the idea that a system’s properties cannot necessarily be accurately understood independently of each other. The genre has both formal and historical connections to travel writing and colonial office reports. Several academic traditions, in particular the constructivist and relativist paradigms, employ ethnographic research as a crucial research method. Many cultural anthropologists consider ethnography the essence of the discipline.^{[citation needed]}

I chose to do my ethnography on MySpace.  There is so much controversy about this SNS, and about many of them, and so since I have a 15 year old daughter who spends a huge amount of time on the site, I initially thought I would check up on her by having my own page, which is located at http://www.myspace.com/elvis412.

When I first designed the page, I enlisted her, and my niece’s help, and if it weren’t for them, I would not have a home skin or a song, and I would have about 9 out of my total 14 friends less showing up under my FRIENDS category.  I do have 5 friends from my class, and the 9 others that my daughter Paige helped me get-either by me just knowing them, or them thinking it was cool that I had a MySpace page.

And to the defense of MySpace, and what it stands for to my daughter, her friends, and myself, I now can and will always stand up for her and her circle of friends—plus myself -in the social networking that occurs from this site.  She was my first friend, so what can I say to that that is anything negative.  Her profile is private, as is mine, and I hope all of her friends, and as far as her activity on the space, she mainly just converses with her little network.  No, she doesn’t do much about school on it, except for maybe asking about an assignment through her IM, but as far as her safety and education, as long as she is on MySpace and not out drinking and driving, or doing all the other things that teenagers can engage in, then I’m okay with her on the SNS.  If she is safe, she can get her education, and I believe that one day one her teachers will have a MySpace and it will have more of an educational meaning to her.

There are many activities, and things about MySpace that she and her circle of friends utilize more so than me, and some of my friends from EDUC 628 utilize the options as well.

Privacy: 

I hope that all have they’re profile set to private, and NOT talk to people you don’t know.  I don’t.  Paige doesn’t, and anyone with any sense shouldn’t.  When I first joined MySpace, TOM was my first friend, and since I didn’t know him, I took myself off of the site because it scared me a little, only to find out from EVRYONE that he owned the space.

 Profile:

My profile has stayed pretty much the same since I acquired a space, but I think many people change there’s all of the time.  It is part of the fun.  Getting a new home skin about once a week happens a lot with my daughter and here circle of friends, and with this comes different songs, and for those of her friends her are really good at their profile presentation, slideshows are available as well as –slide TV-any many more applications.

The mood is important for some in the profile scheme of MySpace.  Some people update it daily, every 12 hours, I am not sure, but I never did anything with the mood. 

TOP FRIENDS:

This seems to be the most important for my daughter.  I set my friends to the top 24, and I have 14 friends, and I didn’t randomize it, so Paige would always show up first.  When I get more than 24 friends, I will set it to the TOP 50 friends.  I don’t want to get into this hype, but others utilize this feature a lot and this can stir up a lot of friction on people’s circles of friends.

Songs:

Changing songs happens a lot.  It is part of the fun too.

Pictures:

My friends add and update their pictures it seems like everyday.  I could never leave the house, and ask them to take pictures that day, and I would be able to see them that day.  Digital cameras are making a ton of money, and film developing probably isn’t now-a-days.

Bulletins:

 I posted a bulletin once, and got 1 response. (I can’t complain thought because I didn’t respond to posted bulletins at all.)Here is what I posted, and got a response to…  Thank you to the one who responded.

1.Why do you use MySpace? I use MySpace to keep in touch with my friends from high school and college mostly. We are scattered all over the place, and busy with our own lives, so it’s nice to be able to talk to them through MySpace.

2.How many hours a week do you spend on MySpace? maybe 3 hours
A day? about half an hour

3. Do you access MySpace from your phone? No my phone doesn’t have internet on it.

4. Is your profile private? Yes 5.How many friends do you have? 126 I think6.How many of them are YOUR friends? I’m not sure what this means… but I know all of them.7.How many of them are your good (not top) friends? Maybe 10-15 actual friends, the rest are just people that I know.

has a  post with excerpts from Danah Boyd’s observations of the site.

When MySpace launched in 2003, it was primarily used by 20/30-somethings The bands began populating the site by early 2004 and throughout 2004, the average age slowly declined. It wasn’t until late 2004 that teens really started appearing en masse on MySpace and 2005 was the year that MySpace became the “in thing” for teens.

While I may refer to the history as being a good reference, the observations about socio-economic divisions seem to me to be either old or wrong, or based on a certain pool of students surveyed.  Unspoken rule—what is written is not written in gold—it is an opinion.

 Observations: socio-economic divisions“good” kids are now going to Facebook: These kids tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college. They are primarily white, but not exclusively. They are in honors classes, looking forward to the prom, and live in a world dictated by after school activities.

• MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, “burnouts,” “alternative kids,” “art fags,” punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn’t play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm. These are kids whose parents didn’t go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school. These are the teens who plan to go into the military immediately after schools. Teens who are really into music or in a band are also on MySpace. MySpace has most of the kids who are socially ostracized at school because they are geeks, freaks, or queers…..

Written in June of 2007, I think that her observations about socio-econnomic status—while then MAY have been true, I think that the culture of MySpace users is not that they are ostracized……  Her essay is about the pros and cons of MySpace and Facebook and fore further interest in her essay, at http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html, one could read here.

I am just for the space, so I will advocate for it primarily in this ethnography, and the culture to me of the space is not a social-economic division but can be considered a bridge instead….a bridge of cultures, education and technology.