myspace.com
Introduction
Critical analysis allows an individual to view culture from both critical and tolerant perspective. It is essential to judge culture without considering one’s likes and dislikes while at the same time understanding the difference between information and knowledge. There are five stages involved in developing a critical perspective. These stages are description, analysis, interpretation, evaluation and engagement. This essay paper will examine and analyze myspace.com by applying the five-step media literacy, critical process.
Discussion
Examination and analytical critique of myspace.com
Myspace.com is one of the largest social networks globally. The company was launched in 2004 and acquired a Fox Interactive Media in 2005. Moreover, the company is based in Los Angeles. This social network is primarily aimed to give the youth an opportunity to express themselves and relate to brands and bands. This site has more than 100 million active users monthly around the world and it is one of the fastest growing websites worldwide (Cashmore, 2006).The other point that is worth noting about myspace.com is that, the site allows members to create personal profiles online with the aim of finding and communicating with old and new friends. This networking space is a site where youth are engaged in social modalities of community and individualism. The site has a well-developed architecture, user-driven platform, ubiquitous web presence and staggering account volume. Myspace.com provides a complex focus in terms of queer youth, community development and education.
Online profiles are a form of identifying the personality of an individual user. There are several cues that guide users through identificatory tool kits. Hence, profiles act as venues for choreographing identity performance. Popularity is a form of social capital and it is based on the accumulated number of friends. Potential friends are sought using autobiographic details such as income, sexual orientation and even educational level of a user (Cashmore, 2006). Myspace.com communities form around sport teams, geographical locations, sexual orientation, gender identities, favorite bands, favorite movies and other common points of interest. Users freely develop endless streams of networking potential.Analysis of myspace.com will be based on the growth of this social networking site in relation to contemporary culture theory in regard to community networks, performative identification and politics of recognition and belonging (Hammer and Kellner, 2009).
One of the beliefs on the role of the Internet is transformation. For example, myspace.com has been viewed as a tool for constructing one’s identity. This has in turn affected sociality since individualism has been lost. Loss of individualism is due to the fact that individuals in myspace.com are free to modify and transform themselves into contradictory and multiple ways.Myspace.com is largely inhabited by the youth and this has led to a shift in perspective regarding narrativization of online social networking. The notion of online community no longer upholds in sites such as bulletin boards, Multi-User Domains and chat rooms.Criticism of myspace.com is in relation to the youth. One of the issues is that of online predators. In 2006, the United States House of Representatives passed an Act of parliament called the Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006. Under this act, recipients of universal service support for libraries and schools were required to protect minors from commercial chat rooms and social networking websites.
Social networking sites such as myspace.com serve as a venue for adults to lure children online. Hence, the requirement of the Bill was for schools and libraries to restrict access to all social networking sites. Critics however argue that the controversy of social predators is not new. It is just that adults nowadays can no longer ignore the aspects of youth culture that has been there all along (Hammer, 2009).Initially, communities were predicated on contiguity of spatiality. However, with the emergence of social networking sites such as myspace.com, the existence of communities is lined with a networked sociality.Some of the questions arising from the findings obtained from analysis of social networking sites such as myspace.com are, what elements of belonging and identity formation, private life and community building are brought about by myspace.com? What cultural affordances does myspace.com offer to queer youth?
Some of the regulatory terms through which researchers use to interpret the youth’s lives in the social networking spaces of belonging and becoming are rebellious, countercultural, resilient, at-risk and other categorizations. Previous research has shown that young women in search of lesbian or queer resources often turn to the Internet and web’s alternative literary resources when traditional methods fail. Hence, the Internet as been depicted as among the most common ways through which young women finds the resources they desire (Paasonen, 2005).The Internet, especially social sites such as myspace.com is a powerful tool through which individuals learn the queer culture. Hence, for majority of queer youth, this social networking site gives a venue for performing the queer behavior. They act as interstitial sites where the youth share with each other in the process of beginning to trace their real identity. These spaces are more like exploratory spaces. Hence, for queer youth, myspace.com presents a level of social mobility and a chance to develop incomplete identities within a heteronormative public.
It is important to note that though social networking sites such as myspace.com have demerits, they are of significance in the field of research. Myspace.com provides landscape within which researchers can study the infrastructure of the queer youth community. The infrastructure includes shifting and building in terms of identification process. Queer youth develop subjectivities and identities within muspace.com. Moreover, they engage in performative relations and roles and also challenge normative boundaries.However, it is important to note that there are some cultural affordances that shape the ways of socialization of youth online. It is appropriate to note that reinvention of sociality did not occur online. Instead there has been change in ways through socialization occurs whereby it is based on sharing of common interests or certain aspects.It is vital to take the spaces of self-expression that queer youth create for themselves as an important form of resistance. The experience of an individual depends on the individual’s interaction with the online community. Hence, there is networking within marginalized communities.
Conclusion
While myspace.com may engender different modes of conformity, it is essential to note its significance in education and peer-to-peer interactions. This social networking site has changed the way people socialize and has changed the structures of reconcilability. This site is a venue for researchers to analyze and examine the queer youth culture.
References
Cashmore, P. (2006) Myspace hits 100 million accounts. Retrieved November 15, 2010
From http://mashabe.com/2006/08/09/myspace-hits-100-million-accounts/
Paasonen, S. (2005). Figures of Fantasy: Internet, women and cyberdiscourse. New York:
Peter Lang.
Hammer, R., & Kellner, D. (2009) Media/ Cultural Studies: Critical Approaches.
Peter Lang.
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