Blog Essay

“White Flight in Networked Publics? How Race and class Shaped American Teen Engagement with MySpace and Facebook” by Dana Boyd and How it Relates to the Digital Divide that Everyone has Experienced

Earlier in the semester I posted the Article  “White Flight in Networked Publics? How Race and class Shaped American Teen Engagement with MySpace and Facebook” By Dana Boyd. This article talks about the digital divide between teens. I think that it is especially important to focus on teenagers on social media because they are the ones that use it the most and ultimately brought social media platforms such as Facebook and  Myspace to the masses. In her article Boyd mentions that “White and Asian a long with those whose parents had higher levels or education were overrepresented on Facebook while Hispanic students and those whose parents did not have high school degrees were more likely to use Myspace (boyd 10).”

Before reading this article I was not aware that teenagers used Myspace anymore. I was sure it was a dead platform.

            What struck me the most about this article was that a huge amount of teens are still on Myspace, and how some companies are failing to market to them. Since I graduated high school I have been interning at Public Relations boutiques and a fashion trade show. I was put in charge of managing their social media since I am a digital native. The platforms that were used were Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Myspace was never a focus when it came to pushing out information through social media.

With companies ignoring a social media platform that are still inhabited by people can exclude people from certain popular events, services, ect.. In an interview with dana boyd, she discusses how a huge number of people could potentially be locked out knowing certain information. She uses the example of political campaigns, which are essential for youth to be aware of.

The idea that a large number of people are not being accounted for is an issue that must be remedied for fair society. Though a “fair society” will never exist it is important to include people from all different races, ethnicity and socio-economic standpoints to ensure some degree of inclusion and acceptance.

We need to be aware of all different types of social media networks to that we are not surrounded by our own thoughts.

This brings me to the presentations that each of us had to do in class. Personally I had never heard of half of the social media network websites that were presented in class. It was really great to learn about the  different types of social networking sites that exist. Though I think that I am very tapped into what is happening on the internet I did not know about half of the websites presented in class. So I was experiencing a sense of a digital divide.

The digital divide doesn’t only stand between the young, the old and other countries it exists in high schools America.

Link To Article

http://www.danah.org/papers/2011/WhiteFlight.pdf