MECO 3602,
Online Essay
SID: 460375087
Question Two
Our relentless passion to build and broadcast ‘brand me’ has escalated in recent years, where danah boyd notes this as ‘social convergence’: where our online and offline personas collide.
With reference to the current ‘digital influencer’ phenomenon, discuss the impact of lifestyle blogging / vlogging in relation to social currency: are users sacrificing privacy in order to increase their social capital in larger social constructs?
Word Count: 1567
Introduction
The escalation of desiring to build a ‘brand me’ in recent years, particularly by ‘digital influencers’, has undoubtedly culminated in a loss of privacy in the pursuit of increasing social capital. However, this sacrifice is not a straightforward issue, as it can be both voluntary or involuntary, and the outcomes vary greatly.
The growing popularity of lifestyle blogging or vlogging, further complicates this issue of privacy. Not only are insights into the personal lives of influencers an immensely popular ‘genre’ for creators to draw upon, it is also proven that the more these influencers share about their personal lives, and show an ‘unfiltered’ view of themselves, the more social capital they gain (Bane, Cornish, Erspamer, Kampman, 2010).
This discussion will demonstrate that whilst privacy is certainly sacrificed to increase social capital, it is not necessarily negative if undertaken voluntarily. Two lifestyle vlogging case studies will be utilised to portray these concepts, including:
- Family vloggers.
- The Trying to Conceive Community vloggers.
What is Social Capital?
This discussion will first provide an analysis of social capital, also known as social currency, which has accrued much interest over the past three decades (Ellison, Vitak, Steinfield, Gray, & Lampe, 2011, p.20). The essential premise to the concept refers to an “investment in social relations with expected returns” (Lin, 2017, p.6). However, it is often these “returns” that spark much intellectual debate due to their dual nature of being both a sociological element, yet also sharing commonalities with other forms of capital, explicitly in the focus of receiving a profit or payoff (Dubos, 2017).
Often when discussing social capital in conjunction to influencers, there is an assumption that the desired outcome of gaining this social capital falls under the umbrella of the latter element. In that, the pay-off desired by accumulating social capital is of monetary value. However, as will be later demonstrated, there are many examples of influencers, specifically lifestyle vloggers, who desire an increase in social currency to create networks of close communities and social support (Dubos, 2017).
What is Privacy?
Another important element to understanding whether privacy is lost in the exchange for social currency, is defining privacy in the digital world. danah boyd defines privacy as a “sense of control over information, the context where sharing takes place, and the audience who can gain access” (2008, p.18). A key conception here is the ability to control the persona or information one is sharing with the wider world (Cho, Alsmadi, & Xu, 2016).
Social Convergence
This conjures one of the key issues regarding privacy in the digitalised sphere; social convergence – when “disparate social contexts are collapsed into one” (boyd, 2008, p.18). People have been long accustomed to following an unofficial ‘script’ of appropriate behaviourisms dependant on the context. For example, one’s behaviour at a dinner with school-friends would likely be different to that at work (boyd, 2008, pp.18-9). However, social platforms have converged these contexts, and forced people to “handle disparate audiences simultaneously without a social script” (boyd, 2008, p.18).
Most find this convergence uncomfortable, often tricky to navigate, and likely will do their best to separate these spheres due to the effect it has upon privacy. However, this social convergence, and lack of privacy, is often not only necessary for influential lifestyle vloggers, but desired due to the social capital it yields.
Numerous studies have revealed the clear trade between dispensing the preservation of privacy and social (Cho et al., 2016). Whilst this relationship is complex, indeed many vloggers wrestle with the desire for privacy or combat the social stigmas or dangers of revealing too much (Smith, 2012), often the desire of acquiring social capital supersedes the need for privacy (Ellison et al., 2011).
Critically important to this trade of privacy for social capital is its voluntary nature. That is, influential vloggers must be willing to release some of their private information in exchange for social currency. Unfortunately, however, this is not always the case, as will be demonstrated through the study of prominent family vloggers.
Case Study: Family Vlogging
Family vlogging is a ‘genre’ of YouTube videos that has recently risen in popularity. YouTube reports that the time spent watching family vlogs increased by 90% between 2016 and 2017 (Luscombe, 2017). This style of video involves parents interacting, raising, and playing with their kids on camera.
Popular channels include The Shaytards and Family Fun Pack. The latter has close to nine million subscribers and have utilised the intrigue into personal lives to gain social capital. They appear to demonstrate this concept of voluntarily exchanging their privacy in return for monetary social currency, as the family is estimated to make up to 10 million dollars a year (SocialBlade, 2019).
There are some significant issues surrounding the community of family vloggers, including the inability of young children to give consent, exploitative parents who take most or all profits generated from these videos (Dunphy, 2017), and the lack of any legal protection for the children of YouTube, unlike traditional child performers (Tait, 2015). However, this discussion will focus primarily on the issue of losing control of the exchange of privacy for social capital.
Allison Irons willingly sacrificed an element of her privacy when she uploaded a video of her new-born baby to YouTube in a reusable nappy. Irons accepted that her 13,000 followers would view this moment, typically accepted as private. However, what she did not know, or consent to, was that the video would be embedded on paedophile websites and included on suspicious playlists on YouTube itself. A few weeks later, after discovering this violation of privacy, Irons deleted any trace of her children from her channel (Tait, 2016).
Irons demonstrates how complex and convoluted this debate of exchanging privacy for social currency truly is. Whilst to an extent, Irons voluntarily sacrificed a private moment of her life in exchange for growing her channel and perhaps profiting, she lost control over this information and thus her privacy was violated (Child & Petronoi, 2011). Further discussion needs to address these issues; perhaps vloggers need to accept the potential dangers arising with pursuing social currency, or do platforms such as YouTube need to better educate their users about possible dangers and increase their protective systems.
Differing Categories of Social Currency
Finally, a further element essential into an analysis on influencers sacrificing privacy for social capital is an inquiry into the differing types of social currency this may be. As aforementioned, often monetary value is placed upon concepts of social capital, however, this is not always the primary outcome. Through studying the YouTube ‘Trying to Conceive’ (TTC) community, it is apparent that often lifestyle vloggers are willing to sacrifice their privacy for social capital in the form of close relationships.
Case Study: The Trying to Conceive Community
The TTC community involves female vloggers documenting their attempts at conception, and subsequent challenges in both pregnancy and parenting. Videos often include discussions on menstruation, ovulation, and intercourse, whilst the ‘holy grail’ of this community are videos showing positive pregnancy results. Often these depict cups of urine with the test inside (Meltzer, 2011). Once a woman has become pregnant, the highlight of a vlog is the ‘belly shot’, in which the vlogger shows her bare and growing stomach (Smith, 2012).
To many, revealing such private information appears bizarre. Many even critique this community for disclosing such personal and intimate information to strangers online. For example, some women reveal their pregnancy to the TTC community before telling even their partner (Meltzer, 2011). However, these women are willingly sacrificing their privacy due to the incredibly supportive relationships they gain in return.
An investigation into intimacy patterns in friendships, published by Beverly Fair (2004), found that most participants believed disclosure, support, loyalty, and trust were integral to forming close relationships. Additionally, another study revealed that bloggers who disclose more information about themselves had a larger and more satisfying online community of friends (Bane et al., 2010, p.131). Both results support the concept that female vloggers active in the TTC community are sacrificing their privacy to increase their social capital as it is in the form of intimate friendships.
These groups, as A. Morrison states, are “marked by direct emotional reciprocity among its participants, creating strong bonds of trust and support that bloggers characterize as meaningful friendships within a community” (2011, p.37). Therefore, whilst lifestyle bloggers are losing privacy to gain social capital, it is not necessarily a negative thing or simply for monetary gain, but rather can be in the form of a positive and supportive community.
Conclusion
The desire to create a ‘brand me’, aided by the popularisation and growth of sites such as YouTube, has created a complex and intricate issue surrounding the sacrifice of privacy to gain social capital. Perhaps the most essential concept to take from this discussion, is that whilst yielding some privacy is critical to growing social capital, this is not necessarily a negative thing if conceded voluntarily.
Moreover, a notion important for future discussion is recognising that social capital is not simply equated to monetary value. Social currency can be in the form of friendships and communities. Lifestyle vlogging is a new phenomenon and, as Child and Petronoi state, “Not only are our social relationships changing because we have access to this form of interaction with others, so too is our sense of autonomy and therefore privacy in ways we cannot fully comprehend at the moment” (2011, p.36).
References
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