[iDC] viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace

[dave cormier]

Interesting essay,

So much of the issues with trying to stencil European conceptions of class
onto a NA landscape stem from the obvious differences in historicity. The
tripartite division was a reality of mid-nineteenth century England, based
on hundreds of years of cultural separation... much of which still underlies
the culture today. The dominant on this side of the Atlantic is tied up with
a far more complex structure of money, individuality and ahistoricity (a
cultural dominance based on perceived current power rather than historical
place)

I'm a little concerned by the dualith that pops up in trying to 'classifye'
kids into 'hegemonic and subaltern' (language seems good btw). While i
understand that at some point it becomes necessary to group them in some
way, the complexity of your description (particularly where you start to
talk about the 'togetherness' of the subaltern) is somehow undermined by a
simple have/havenot distinction. Is there a way, and I'm not suggesting that
I know how, to diversify that distinction without actually making your
original class discussion to complex?

cheers,

dave

http://davecormier.com/edblog

On 6/25/07, danah boyd <zephoria at zephoria.org> wrote:
>
> I've been trying to write an essay for a while about the class
> dynamics around Facebook and MySpace.  I finally gave up and realized
> that I didn't have the proper words for talking about this issue so I
> wrote an essay with caveats.  I offer it to you to tear to shreds in
> the hopes that maybe some good can come out of it.  (I didn't include
> the full text here because it's long - i hope the link doesn't
> discourage folks from checking it out.)  Feedback is *very* welcome.
>
> Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace
> http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html
>
>
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