On networks and networking.
Sitting in Springfield, Mass, the other day, waiting for the Vermonter to finish its crew change, keeping busy reading Danah Boyd and Nicole Ellison’s article Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship, which serves as the introduction to the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication’s special theme issue on Social Network Sites. It’s an excellent overview, and I recommend reading it in its entirety.
A few notes and thoughts:
Boyd and Ellison point out that, though many people refer to social sites as “social networking sites”, that’s not really correct.
“Networking” emphasizes relationship initiation, often between strangers. While networking is possible on these sites, it is not the primary practice on many of them, nor is it what differentiates them from other forms of computer-mediated communication (CMC).
Instead, they write:
What makes social network sites unique is not that they allow individuals to meet strangers, but rather that they enable users to articulate and make visible their social networks
The former – common and incorrect – definition is quite limiting. LinkedIn is the only site that I use that really counts as a social networking site.
The latter definition really opens up the possible sites under consideration. Again, just thinking of sites I use, you have sites that are secondarily social like Flickr, that are solely social like Facebook, and that are necessarily social like Twitter.
Strangely, though, Boyd and Ellison don’t fully take advantage of the freedom offered by their definition. They focus on the usual suspects – MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, Tribe.net, etc. – and their less English-centric cousins – Cyworld, Orkut, QQ, etc. In other worlds, the middle group of those summarized above: The solely social.
Why not analyze the history of the other sites? The sites where people actually do things? The sites to which people come because they want to get something done, and then are pleasantly surprised to meet other people doing the same thing? (As opposed to the sites to which people come because they’ve been told that’s where they should be.) The sites where people stick around longer than the period of time during which the site is a novelty?
Just asking.