Download pdf - Boundary Regulation in Social Media

Fred Stutzman and Woodrow Hartzog

School of Information and Library ScienceSchool of Journalism and Mass Communication

UNC-Chapel Hill

Boundary Regulation in Social Media

(Lenhart 2009)

Fred Stutzman, [email protected]

ContextPrivacy

Disclosure


Managing Contexts

• Friendster

• “Burners, gay men and bloggers”

• Myspace

• Teens and mirror profiles

(boyd, 2006 & 2007) http://www.flickr.com/photos/foxgrrl/3676857198/


Managing Contexts

• Presence of multiple social groups

• Behavioral Strategies

• Mental Strategies

• “Least Common Denominator”

(Lampinen et. al., 2009)

http://bit.ly/yS8yI


Context Tension• Connections across

status and power boundaries

• Propriety, work/family

• Inadvertent disclosures leading to harms

(Skeels and Grudin, 2009)

http://bit.ly/6HTDB


Conceptions of Privacy

• Privacy as selective control (Altman, 1975)

• Privacy as information practice (Dourish & Anderson, 2006)

• Privacy as boundary management (Petronio, 2002)


CPM

• Communications Privacy Management

• Rule Development

• Boundary Coordination

• Boundary Turbulence

(Petronio, 2002)


Study Goals

• Why are motives for using multiple profiles?

• What strategies to people employ in managing multiple profiles?

• Is this an effective strategy?


Method

• Criteria: multiple profiles on one social media site

• Twenty in-depth interviews, Summer 2009

• In-person/phone/Skype

• Analyzed using grounded theory


Respondents• Six in their 20’s, Seven

in their 30’s, Six in their 40’s, and one was 57

• Twelve females, eight males

• Respondents from US (NC, VA, GA, CA, FL) and UK


Motives

•Privacy

•Identity

•Utility

•Proprietyhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/gi/435888435/


Privacy• Control of access to the self;

withdrawal from public domain

• Safety

• Confidentiality

“I know some young kids who tweeted ‘I’m going to lunch at so and so’ and they came back to their apartment and they had been robbed...”


Privacy

• For many respondents, multiple profiles:

• Functioned as shield, protecting identifiable information

• Enabled content production


Identity

• Multiple profiles allowed for establishment of distinct identities (personal/professional)

[Created second Facebook profile so] “I could be all about business” [On personal profile] “could be a place where I have opinions, where I express personal stuff.”


Utility• Multiple profiles enable:

• Accomplishment of promotional and collaborative goals

• Catering to specific audiences at specific times

• Not having to apologize for off-topic posts


Utility• Segment volume of disclosure

• Offer differing information streams (topic/interest)

“If somebody on my personal Twitter says ‘oh gosh you are inundating me with too many updates,’ I will tell them that they can follow my public profile that I update substantially less”


Propriety

• Multiple profiles used to manage conformity to norms and customs

• Befriending the boss or parent

[On the personal profile] “when my boss pops up and Facebook tells me ‘we think you should be friends,’ I don’t say yes because she’s my boss.”


Forms of Regulation

• Multiple identities in a single space

• Single account, highly segmented privacy controls

• Segmentation by site

• Different social media for different audiences


Axes of Regulation

• Regulation by linkage

• Regulation by concealment

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thosch66/270060125/


Linkages

• Links to the identity

"I have two different identities, I have a personal one. [and] one geared towards my professional stuff, there's not much personal information there. But, I do have a separate Flickr account, I have separate Twitter accounts, I have separate Myspace pages”


Linkages

• Regulation by linked interconnections

“But I don’t try and hide the fact that I’m one or the other. You know in my [personal] bio, I say something about [my business twitter]. So its not like I’m trying to hide my two different identities.”


Concealment

• Three genres identified

• Pseudonymity

• Practical Obscurity

• Obscure name variants, non-disclosure of identity

• Transparent Separations


Concealment


Evaluation

• Do these techniques provide privacy?

“The thing going into it is I don’t put anything out there that I wouldn’t want everybody to know”

“I have to be careful about - that I say something that's generic enough”

“I’m very conscious of the fact I am basically speaking to an open mic”


Evaluation

• Is the process burdensome?

• High burden: Number of accounts maintained, large number of contacts

• High burden: Degree of linkage disassociation


Evaluation

• Technical strategies

• Most participants reported “bleedover”

• Segmenting by device

• Segmenting by time and location


Implications

• Multiple profile maintenance consistent with the theoretical provisions of Altman and Petronio

• Process reduces potential harms, and encourages disclosures

• Represents a reaction to limitations inherent in sites


Thank you!

Fred Stutzman: [email protected]@fstutzmanhttp://fredstutzman.com

Woodrow [email protected]@hartzoghttp://ssrn.com/author=1107005


Axis of Linkages


Pseudonymity


Practical Obscurity


Transparent Separations