Books by Brady Robards
This volume critically examines ‘subculture’ in a variety of Australian contexts, exploring the w... more This volume critically examines ‘subculture’ in a variety of Australian contexts, exploring the ways in which the terrain of youth cultures and subcultures has changed over the past two decades and considering whether ‘subculture’ still works as a viable conceptual framework for studying youth culture.
Richly illustrated with concrete case studies, the book is thematically organised into four sections addressing i) theoretical concerns and global debates over the continued usefulness of subculture as a concept; ii) the important place of ‘belonging’ in subcultural experience and the ways in which belonging is played out across an array of youth cultures; iii) the gendered experiences of young men and women and their ways of navigating subcultural participation; and iv) the ethical and methodological considerations that arise in relation to researching and teaching youth culture and subculture.
Bringing together the latest interdisciplinary research to combine theoretical considerations with recent empirical studies of subcultural experience, Youth Cultures and Subcultures will appeal to scholars and students across the social sciences.
"I was surprised by this book – but in a good way. Teaching youth studies through popular culture... more "I was surprised by this book – but in a good way. Teaching youth studies through popular culture is aimed firmly at teachers, providing a rationale, resources and methodology for teaching youth studies in the 21st century classroom. The approach is participatory, uses form to reveal content, and, while firmly rooted in a scholarly tradition, it is utterly responsive to the imperatives of the ‘now’. Asserting the continuing relevance of a cultural studies approach, Baker and Robards show how film, television, literature and social media offer methods for active learning as well as texts for analysis. Accessible, practical, yet intellectually nuanced, this book offers the educator a series of methodologies that are student-centred and research-led, and which promise to reanimate the teaching of youth studies." (Rachel Thomson, Professor of Childhood and Youth Studies, University of Sussex, UK)
"Engaging, well-written and insightful, Teaching youth studies through popular culture is a versatile tool for identifying the elusive teaching/research nexus. If you want innovative teaching and assessment tips, they’re here. If you want ‘insider information’ on what your lecturers are looking for, it’s here. But more importantly, if you want to know how to make research-led, student-centred teaching a reality, with a life beyond administrative buzzwords, this book is for you. With appealing modesty, Baker and Robards connect new media and learning environments to much older ideas about the social relevance of media research. Don’t be fooled by the title; this a trenchant analysis of where media education fits within a rapidly changing university landscape. You might not agree with everything you read, but so much the better. Teaching youth studies through popular culture isn’t just about how to teach, but also why anyone should bother in the first place." (Andy Ruddock, Communications and Media Studies, Monash University, Australia)
This book brings together thirteen timely essays from across the globe that consider a range of ‘... more This book brings together thirteen timely essays from across the globe that consider a range of ‘mediated youth cultures’, covering topics such as how stories about growing up are mediated on Facebook, the phenomenon of dance imitations on YouTube, the circulation of zines online, the resurgence of roller derby on the social web, drinking cultures, Israeli blogs, Korean pop music, and more. The collection, drawing on research conducted with young people into their social and cultural lives, provides readers with a deep, fine-grained understanding of how youth culture circulates online. It is clear that although the internet affords young people with new opportunities and risks, many of the youth cultures covered in this collection are not ‘new’ in themselves, but are instead mediated – played out – in new, and imaginative forms.
With an engaging visual design and just 15 chapters, THINK Sociology is the Australian Sociology ... more With an engaging visual design and just 15 chapters, THINK Sociology is the Australian Sociology text your students will want to read. This text thinks their thoughts, speaks their language, grapples with the current-day problems they face, and grounds sociology in real world experiences. THINK Sociology is informed with the latest research and the most contemporary examples, allowing you to bring current events directly into your unit with little additional work. The groundbreaking instructor supplements package will help you bring the core concepts of Sociology to life for your students and MySocLab, the text’s online learning resource, provides students with a large range of tools to help them achieve a better grade.
Special Issues by Brady Robards
This special issue of New Media & Society represents an international reflection on the past 10 y... more This special issue of New Media & Society represents an international reflection on the past 10 years of Facebook. It also drives forward a scholarly understanding of where the site is heading. Enmeshed with the everyday lives of its users, corporate buyouts, the full gamut of politics and regularly renewed moral panics, it is clear that Facebook is not going anywhere yet, but it will no doubt be a very different Facebook in another 10 years.
This special issue of Continuum considers the impact of new communication technologies on youth c... more This special issue of Continuum considers the impact of new communication technologies on youth culture and the way these mediations have altered and enhanced the forms of interaction and belonging underpinning youth cultural practice. We have brought together 13 original articles that make visible an international and cross-disciplinary research agenda concerned with mediated youth cultures. Broadly speaking, the articles that follow can be grouped together around three key themes: first, social network sites and discourse; second, music, dance, and belonging; and third, mobile phones, and transnational configurations of youth culture.
Journal Articles by Brady Robards
Lincoln, S. & Robards, B. (2016) ‘Editing the project of the self: Sustained Facebook use and gro... more Lincoln, S. & Robards, B. (2016) ‘Editing the project of the self: Sustained Facebook use and growing up online‘, Journal of Youth Studies, online first.
Now in operation for 12 years, Facebook comes to serve as a digital record of life for young people. With significant parts of their lives played out on the site, users are able to turn to these profiles to reflect on how their use of Facebook has come to constitute a life narrative. In this paper, we report on findings from qualitative research into sustained use of Facebook by young people in their twenties in Australia and the UK. We focus on the 'editing' or reordering of narratives that our participants engage in while they scroll back through their years of disclosures – and the disclosures of others – that make up their Facebook Timelines. We present our analysis through three arenas (employment, family life and romantic relationships) subject to what we argue is a reflexive reordering of life narratives. We argue that Facebook profiles represent visual manifestations of Giddens' (1991) reflexive project of the self, that serve not only to communicate a sense of self to others, but that also act as texts of personal reflection and of growing up, subject to ongoing revision.
For the past 12 years, Facebook has played a significant role in mediating the lives of its users... more For the past 12 years, Facebook has played a significant role in mediating the lives of its users. Disclosures on the site go on to serve as intimate, co-constructed life records, albeit with unique and always-evolving affordances. The ways in which romantic relationships are mediated on the site are complex and contested: “What is the significance of articulating a romantic relationship on Facebook?” “Why do some choose to make socially and culturally critical moments like the beginning and ends of relationships visible on Facebook, whereas others (perhaps within the same relationship) do not?” “How do these practices change over time?” and “When is it time to go “Facebook official”?” In this article, we draw on qualitative research with Facebook users in their 20s in Australia and the United Kingdom who have been using the site for 5 years or more. Interviews with participants revealed that romantic relationships were central to many of their growing up narratives, and in this article, we draw out examples to discuss four kinds of (non-exclusive) practices: (1) overt relationship status disclosures, mediated through the “relationship status” affordance of the site, (2) implied relationship disclosures, mediated through an increase in images and tags featuring romantic partners, (3) the intended absence of relationship visibility, and (4) later-erased or revised relationship disclosures. We also critique the ways in which Facebook might work to produce normative “relationship traces,” privileging neat linearity, monogamy, and obfuscating (perhaps usefully, perhaps not) the messy complexity of romantic relationships.
In tourism studies/tourism management, traditional approaches to the segmentation of tourists hav... more In tourism studies/tourism management, traditional approaches to the segmentation of tourists have tended to focus upon the tangible aspects of why people travel, such as visitors’ motivations, demo- graphic characteristics, and values and behavior exhibited at specific destinations. This review article from Hardy and Robards takes a critical approach to challenge the governing assumption involved here, that marketing studies of “tourism” should routinely or necessarily focus on the individual and thus upon class-based characteristics such as income to define tourists. Rather, the authors argue that tourists may be fruitfully segmented by commonalities of intangible aspects, such as “a shared sense of sentiment,” “tourist ritual,” “collective bonding,” and “belonging.” Hardy and Robards thereby suggest that neotribal approaches indeed offer rich opportunities to do this by empowering the exploration of tourists’ symbolic and behavioral characteristics. This review article consonantly pro- poses that by returning to Maffesoli’s work, researchers in the twin fields of tourism studies/tourism management may make substantial critical contributions to unfolding understandings of and about “consumer tribes.” Hence, Hardy and Robards suggest that subtribes exist within broader neotribes and that that sort of “membership” may not in fact be as fluid as many investigators have previously suggested. (Abstract by Reviews Editor)
Despite being distinct, online social spaces are governed by norms and conventions reminiscent of... more Despite being distinct, online social spaces are governed by norms and conventions reminiscent of those that govern offline social spaces. Our research into the ways young people’s ‘private’ or ‘quasi-private’ spaces are managed indicates that the strategies used to exert a sense of control over sites like Facebook borrow heavily from the strategies employed to manage offline private spaces like the teenage bedroom. In this article, we explore these continuities and then consider the limitations of applying a bedroom metaphor to online social spaces. We then consider how these strategies of control are related to a process of ‘marking out’ the narrative of ‘growing up’ both in online and offline social spaces.
In this article, I undertake a critical reading of Facebook’s look back videos to argue that they... more In this article, I undertake a critical reading of Facebook’s look back videos to argue that they serve as the strongest reminder yet about the function of Facebook as memory archive. I draw on several sources: my own analysis of the structure of the videos themselves, the Facebook corporate blog describing the roll out of the videos, and the public campaign played out on YouTube by John Berlin to have a look back video generated for his deceased son. I argue that Facebook comes to serve two critical functions for users, as both the site upon which life narratives are performed and organised, and also the site through which the variously public and private disclosures that constitute a persona are recalled and reflected upon. In setting out these arguments, I divide this paper into three parts: first, a description and reflection upon my own experience of the look back video; second, a consideration of critical moments selected for inclusion in the look back videos by algorithm as persona; and third, a discussion of death and memorialisation, as a sharp example of the significance of the digital traces we leave behind.
Research into youth engagement with social network sites such as MySpace and Facebook highlights ... more Research into youth engagement with social network sites such as MySpace and Facebook highlights a complex set of ethical dimensions, which do not always translate easily from similar concerns in traditional offline research. On social network sites, it is clear that many young people are managing their online presences in strategic ways, often involving conventions around determining access to these spaces. If these sites are framed by their young users as at least ‘partially private’, how should the researcher seek access to these spaces and how should the researcher operate in these spaces if access is permitted? This article reflects on qualitative research undertaken by the author from 2007 to 2010, which involved ‘friending’ participants on MySpace and Facebook. Based on this reflection, and contextualized by an engagement with literature concerning both Internet research and youth research, this article argues that social network sites blur the public/private dichotomy. Thus, research engaging with participants on these sites requires ongoing ethical reflection around assumptions about public and private information, and researchers, institutional ethics committees and review boards must develop and make use of suitably informed expertise to both conduct and review future scholarship in this area.
Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies
In the past decade, the reach of social network sites such as MySpace and Facebook has extended t... more In the past decade, the reach of social network sites such as MySpace and Facebook has extended to a point where for many young people, participation is now mandatory for inclusion amongst peer groups. For some of these young people, large parts of their social lives have been played out on these sites. The shift from one site (MySpace) to another (Facebook) can also be understood as marking an important change in the way young people manage their ‘digital trace’. This shift corresponds with narratives in which participants signal their movement towards forms of online sociality that are concerned with their relationships with others on Facebook rather than the often introspective and performative forms of sociality emphasized on MySpace. This article examines elements of each site that participants point towards as contributing to their own shift – both in terms of their functionality and the broader social milieu in which the sites operate. More broadly, this article also considers the ‘trace’ that is generated by participation on these sites (creating profiles, uploading images, commenting on pages and so on) as representing a key mechanism by which young people's transition narratives can be made accessible and visible amongst their network. This article draws on research from two linked small-scale qualitative studies conducted on the Gold Coast in Australia, the first with a group of 10 young people in 2007 and the second with 30 young people in 2009/2010.
Since the early 2000s, sociologists of youth have been engaged in a debate concerning the relevan... more Since the early 2000s, sociologists of youth have been engaged in a debate concerning the relevance of ‘subculture’ as a theoretical framework in the light of more recent post-modern influenced interpretations of youth identities as fluid, dynamic and reflexively constructed. Utilising ethnographic data collected on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia, this article considers such debates in relation to social network sites such as MySpace and Facebook. Although on-line identity expression has been interpreted as exhibiting subcultural qualities, preliminary empirical research informing this article lends itself to a more neo-tribal reading.
Discussion around the use of social network sites, especially amongst young people, is pervaded b... more Discussion around the use of social network sites, especially amongst young people, is pervaded by sentiments heralding the decline of privacy. In this context, it is important for scholarship in this area to attend to the array of ways in which individuals are managing their information and identity-projects in these spaces in highly strategic ways, such as audience segregation. Drawing in part on empirical data collected through an ethnography of young Australian users of MySpace and Facebook, this article seeks to draw out the tension between authenticity and integrity that operates in these spaces. In doing so, I suggest that educators must be especially cognisant of the complexity occurring in the strategic management of these spaces, given the ongoing push for universities and agents within the university to engage with these spaces, along with the tension such engagement can bring to the teacher-student relationship.
The immense popularity of social network sites such as MySpace and Facebook has caused a signific... more The immense popularity of social network sites such as MySpace and Facebook has caused a significant shift in the way social interactions occur on the internet. Online interaction is no longer the sole domain of people seeking contact but rather it has become a key medium for maintaining and strengthening social relationships. This article draws on empirical research investigating emerging social practices being developed by young Australian internet users on social network sites. Consistent with other current research, this article argues that social network sites are increasingly regarded as private spaces where young people are ‘hanging out’ and articulating or playing with notions of identity and belonging. Some social networks have even been likened to bedrooms for teenagers, or are arguably replacing shopping centres and parks as spaces for casual youth interaction. Based on empirical research, this article tests these metaphors and suggests measures to strengthen their validity. As multiple social relationships are collapsed under the banner of Friendship on social network sites, important issues about privacy and audience management need to be addressed. What constitutes ‘Friendship’ in the Facebook era? How do young people deal with unsolicited contact in these private spaces? This article argues that young users of social network sites on the Gold Coast in Australia are, consistent with research being conducted throughout the world, developing increasingly complex strategies for managing their online privacy and social interactions.
Book Chapters by Brady Robards
Citation: Vivienne, S., Robards, B. & Lincoln, S. (2016) ‘“Holding a space” for gender-diverse an... more Citation: Vivienne, S., Robards, B. & Lincoln, S. (2016) ‘“Holding a space” for gender-diverse and queer research participants’ in A McCosker, S Vivienne, and A Johns (eds) Negotiating Digital Citizenship: Control, Context and Culture, Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 191-212.
Choosing how to represent one's self in digital social spaces might seem banal and everyday for some, but for others this process can be fraught and highly political. Consider a YouTube video detailing the physical changes associated with gender transition, or a selfie with a same-sex lover shared in a country where homosexuality is illegal. Sites like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and apps like Snapchat, Tinder, and Grindr, are centred in many ways around identity politics: who the user is, who they are not, what they stand for, who they are connected to, who they want to fuck, what their families look like and how their everyday lives play out. While it could be argued that all representations and performances of self are inherently political, the stakes for young gender-diverse and queer people who undertake 'performative self-making', are amplified. Despite progress in Western nations around gay rights, the visibility of (some) trans people, and a general move towards 'tolerance', people who do not conform to a dominant set of cisgender, heteronormative ideals continue to be at risk of stigmatisation and exclusion. As a result this cohort of people with diverse genders and sexualities (DGS 1) are still overrepresented in statistics on suicide, depression, homelessness, and drug-abuse (Hillier et al., 2010). On top of these very real potential harms there is a less tangible risk that these complex and somewhat fluid identities be judged inconsistent, deceitful or 'incoherent'. The process of performative self
On March 25, 2013, the "Human Rights Campaign" (HRC)—a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (L... more On March 25, 2013, the "Human Rights Campaign" (HRC)—a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) lobby—urged people to change their Facebook profile pictures to a pink-on-red equals sign to show support for marriage equality (see fig. 1). The campaign corresponded with a U.S. Supreme Court meeting to debate the issue. Shortly after, on March 30, Eytan Bashky (2013) from the Facebook data science team reported that "roughly 2.7 million (120%) more [users], updated their profile photo on Tuesday, March 26 compared to the previous Tuesday," which was roughly attributed to the HRC push. The campaign to change Facebook profile pictures spread to become a global phenomenon. Variations on the HRC profile picture emerged, some in support of the campaign, others opposing it, and others critiquing the impact changing one’s profile picture can have. In this case study, we explore the campaign through the lens of the "actualizing citizen" (Miegel and Olsson 2007) and discourses around "slacktivism" (Christensen 2011).
The post-subculture debate in youth culture research has opened up a series of discussions that i... more The post-subculture debate in youth culture research has opened up a series of discussions that invite new and dynamic conceptualisations of contemporary belongings, variously described and critiqued in this collection (specifically, see Chapter 1 by Bennett and Chapter 4 by Woodman and Wyn). In this chapter, drawing on qualitative research into young people’s uses of social network sites conducted on Australia’s Gold Coast, I explore the ways in which my participants reflect on and articulate experiences of everyday belongings. These belongings are variously positioned by my participants as ‘in between’ coherent or singular group formations, and are described as multiple, complex, interconnected and sometimes ephemeral, but also sometimes contradictory. To account for this multiplicity, I label these characterisations ‘systems of belonging’. These systems of belonging do not readily adhere to the rigid, ‘spectacular’ subcultures that previously have been the focus of research into youth culture such as the gangs of Chicago (Thrasher, 2005), Mods (Hebdige 1979), Bodgies and Widgies (Stratton, 1984), Sharpies and Skinheads (Bessant, 1995) or Goths (Hodkinson, 2002). However, despite this disjunction, participants in my own research do in fact use the term ‘subculture’ in reflections on their own systems of belonging. Thus I argue for the emergence of a ‘vernacular’ understanding of subculture that is related to but divorced from the more theoretical understandings of subculture developed and critiqued in this collection.
Elsewhere, following Bennett (1999), I have argued that Maffesoli’s (1996) ‘neo-tribe’, although limited, offers a more effective theoretical model than subculture to make sense of the belongings that play out in the ‘networked publics’ (boyd, 2011) of MySpace and Facebook (Robards and Bennett, 2011). Here, I set this discussion aside to focus instead on the aforementioned emergence of a vernacular understanding of subculture. I argue that this is distinct and operates separately from the theoretical understanding of subculture that I have previously critiqued with Bennett (Robards and Bennett, 2011). To explore this notion of vernacular subculture, out of a pool of 40 participants I will draw out extracts from interviews with just four, who most clearly mobilise a vernacular understanding of subculture. In demonstrating how each participant implicates vernacular understandings of subculture in their reflections on belonging (as mediated online), I will argue for the usefulness of a vernacular understanding of subculture for everyday identity work that accounts for multiple systems of belonging not complicated by the ongoing debate about the theoretical viability of the term. Rather than serving to advance a particular theoretical debate, I intend that this chapter will instead attend to the function and usage of the term in an everyday, popular (although not necessarily atheoretical) setting.
This chapter addresses the role of social network sites in both mediating transitional experience... more This chapter addresses the role of social network sites in both mediating transitional experiences for young people and acting as archives of transitional ‘growing up’ stories. In doing so, this chapter will make use of Bowker’s (2007) notion of the ‘digital trace’, or that which is left behind when the internet is used and thus produced. I frame this discussion of the digital trace through concerns around privacy, with a particular focus on drawing attention to the many strategies and social conventions young people are developing and deploying to manage a sense of their own digital trace. Although this chapter is not based on empirical findings as such, I will draw briefly from qualitative research conducted with young people (mid-teens to late twenties) on Australia’s Gold Coast from 2007 to 2010, contextualised by a broader review of the international and quickly growing literature concerning young people and their use of social network sites.
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Books by Brady Robards
Richly illustrated with concrete case studies, the book is thematically organised into four sections addressing i) theoretical concerns and global debates over the continued usefulness of subculture as a concept; ii) the important place of ‘belonging’ in subcultural experience and the ways in which belonging is played out across an array of youth cultures; iii) the gendered experiences of young men and women and their ways of navigating subcultural participation; and iv) the ethical and methodological considerations that arise in relation to researching and teaching youth culture and subculture.
Bringing together the latest interdisciplinary research to combine theoretical considerations with recent empirical studies of subcultural experience, Youth Cultures and Subcultures will appeal to scholars and students across the social sciences.
"Engaging, well-written and insightful, Teaching youth studies through popular culture is a versatile tool for identifying the elusive teaching/research nexus. If you want innovative teaching and assessment tips, they’re here. If you want ‘insider information’ on what your lecturers are looking for, it’s here. But more importantly, if you want to know how to make research-led, student-centred teaching a reality, with a life beyond administrative buzzwords, this book is for you. With appealing modesty, Baker and Robards connect new media and learning environments to much older ideas about the social relevance of media research. Don’t be fooled by the title; this a trenchant analysis of where media education fits within a rapidly changing university landscape. You might not agree with everything you read, but so much the better. Teaching youth studies through popular culture isn’t just about how to teach, but also why anyone should bother in the first place." (Andy Ruddock, Communications and Media Studies, Monash University, Australia)
Special Issues by Brady Robards
Journal Articles by Brady Robards
Now in operation for 12 years, Facebook comes to serve as a digital record of life for young people. With significant parts of their lives played out on the site, users are able to turn to these profiles to reflect on how their use of Facebook has come to constitute a life narrative. In this paper, we report on findings from qualitative research into sustained use of Facebook by young people in their twenties in Australia and the UK. We focus on the 'editing' or reordering of narratives that our participants engage in while they scroll back through their years of disclosures – and the disclosures of others – that make up their Facebook Timelines. We present our analysis through three arenas (employment, family life and romantic relationships) subject to what we argue is a reflexive reordering of life narratives. We argue that Facebook profiles represent visual manifestations of Giddens' (1991) reflexive project of the self, that serve not only to communicate a sense of self to others, but that also act as texts of personal reflection and of growing up, subject to ongoing revision.
Book Chapters by Brady Robards
Choosing how to represent one's self in digital social spaces might seem banal and everyday for some, but for others this process can be fraught and highly political. Consider a YouTube video detailing the physical changes associated with gender transition, or a selfie with a same-sex lover shared in a country where homosexuality is illegal. Sites like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and apps like Snapchat, Tinder, and Grindr, are centred in many ways around identity politics: who the user is, who they are not, what they stand for, who they are connected to, who they want to fuck, what their families look like and how their everyday lives play out. While it could be argued that all representations and performances of self are inherently political, the stakes for young gender-diverse and queer people who undertake 'performative self-making', are amplified. Despite progress in Western nations around gay rights, the visibility of (some) trans people, and a general move towards 'tolerance', people who do not conform to a dominant set of cisgender, heteronormative ideals continue to be at risk of stigmatisation and exclusion. As a result this cohort of people with diverse genders and sexualities (DGS 1) are still overrepresented in statistics on suicide, depression, homelessness, and drug-abuse (Hillier et al., 2010). On top of these very real potential harms there is a less tangible risk that these complex and somewhat fluid identities be judged inconsistent, deceitful or 'incoherent'. The process of performative self
Elsewhere, following Bennett (1999), I have argued that Maffesoli’s (1996) ‘neo-tribe’, although limited, offers a more effective theoretical model than subculture to make sense of the belongings that play out in the ‘networked publics’ (boyd, 2011) of MySpace and Facebook (Robards and Bennett, 2011). Here, I set this discussion aside to focus instead on the aforementioned emergence of a vernacular understanding of subculture. I argue that this is distinct and operates separately from the theoretical understanding of subculture that I have previously critiqued with Bennett (Robards and Bennett, 2011). To explore this notion of vernacular subculture, out of a pool of 40 participants I will draw out extracts from interviews with just four, who most clearly mobilise a vernacular understanding of subculture. In demonstrating how each participant implicates vernacular understandings of subculture in their reflections on belonging (as mediated online), I will argue for the usefulness of a vernacular understanding of subculture for everyday identity work that accounts for multiple systems of belonging not complicated by the ongoing debate about the theoretical viability of the term. Rather than serving to advance a particular theoretical debate, I intend that this chapter will instead attend to the function and usage of the term in an everyday, popular (although not necessarily atheoretical) setting.
Richly illustrated with concrete case studies, the book is thematically organised into four sections addressing i) theoretical concerns and global debates over the continued usefulness of subculture as a concept; ii) the important place of ‘belonging’ in subcultural experience and the ways in which belonging is played out across an array of youth cultures; iii) the gendered experiences of young men and women and their ways of navigating subcultural participation; and iv) the ethical and methodological considerations that arise in relation to researching and teaching youth culture and subculture.
Bringing together the latest interdisciplinary research to combine theoretical considerations with recent empirical studies of subcultural experience, Youth Cultures and Subcultures will appeal to scholars and students across the social sciences.
"Engaging, well-written and insightful, Teaching youth studies through popular culture is a versatile tool for identifying the elusive teaching/research nexus. If you want innovative teaching and assessment tips, they’re here. If you want ‘insider information’ on what your lecturers are looking for, it’s here. But more importantly, if you want to know how to make research-led, student-centred teaching a reality, with a life beyond administrative buzzwords, this book is for you. With appealing modesty, Baker and Robards connect new media and learning environments to much older ideas about the social relevance of media research. Don’t be fooled by the title; this a trenchant analysis of where media education fits within a rapidly changing university landscape. You might not agree with everything you read, but so much the better. Teaching youth studies through popular culture isn’t just about how to teach, but also why anyone should bother in the first place." (Andy Ruddock, Communications and Media Studies, Monash University, Australia)
Now in operation for 12 years, Facebook comes to serve as a digital record of life for young people. With significant parts of their lives played out on the site, users are able to turn to these profiles to reflect on how their use of Facebook has come to constitute a life narrative. In this paper, we report on findings from qualitative research into sustained use of Facebook by young people in their twenties in Australia and the UK. We focus on the 'editing' or reordering of narratives that our participants engage in while they scroll back through their years of disclosures – and the disclosures of others – that make up their Facebook Timelines. We present our analysis through three arenas (employment, family life and romantic relationships) subject to what we argue is a reflexive reordering of life narratives. We argue that Facebook profiles represent visual manifestations of Giddens' (1991) reflexive project of the self, that serve not only to communicate a sense of self to others, but that also act as texts of personal reflection and of growing up, subject to ongoing revision.
Choosing how to represent one's self in digital social spaces might seem banal and everyday for some, but for others this process can be fraught and highly political. Consider a YouTube video detailing the physical changes associated with gender transition, or a selfie with a same-sex lover shared in a country where homosexuality is illegal. Sites like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and apps like Snapchat, Tinder, and Grindr, are centred in many ways around identity politics: who the user is, who they are not, what they stand for, who they are connected to, who they want to fuck, what their families look like and how their everyday lives play out. While it could be argued that all representations and performances of self are inherently political, the stakes for young gender-diverse and queer people who undertake 'performative self-making', are amplified. Despite progress in Western nations around gay rights, the visibility of (some) trans people, and a general move towards 'tolerance', people who do not conform to a dominant set of cisgender, heteronormative ideals continue to be at risk of stigmatisation and exclusion. As a result this cohort of people with diverse genders and sexualities (DGS 1) are still overrepresented in statistics on suicide, depression, homelessness, and drug-abuse (Hillier et al., 2010). On top of these very real potential harms there is a less tangible risk that these complex and somewhat fluid identities be judged inconsistent, deceitful or 'incoherent'. The process of performative self
Elsewhere, following Bennett (1999), I have argued that Maffesoli’s (1996) ‘neo-tribe’, although limited, offers a more effective theoretical model than subculture to make sense of the belongings that play out in the ‘networked publics’ (boyd, 2011) of MySpace and Facebook (Robards and Bennett, 2011). Here, I set this discussion aside to focus instead on the aforementioned emergence of a vernacular understanding of subculture. I argue that this is distinct and operates separately from the theoretical understanding of subculture that I have previously critiqued with Bennett (Robards and Bennett, 2011). To explore this notion of vernacular subculture, out of a pool of 40 participants I will draw out extracts from interviews with just four, who most clearly mobilise a vernacular understanding of subculture. In demonstrating how each participant implicates vernacular understandings of subculture in their reflections on belonging (as mediated online), I will argue for the usefulness of a vernacular understanding of subculture for everyday identity work that accounts for multiple systems of belonging not complicated by the ongoing debate about the theoretical viability of the term. Rather than serving to advance a particular theoretical debate, I intend that this chapter will instead attend to the function and usage of the term in an everyday, popular (although not necessarily atheoretical) setting.
Social network sites such as MySpace and Facebook play an important role in mediating the everyday social and cultural lives of many internet users. Young internet users were among the first to incorporate these sites into their everyday lives, and many young people continue to use them to connect and share with their networks, forging conventions and strategies for ‘being’ in online social spaces. For some of these young people, participation in these social spaces has become central for inclusion among peer groups. These sites offer a platform of mediated sociality that is distinct, while also manifesting in forms of interaction that are familiar and embedded in the everyday, blurring distinctions between online and offline, and troubling notions of public and private.
Drawing on qualitative data collected between mid-2009 and late-2010, this thesis charts the role of the two most dominant social network sites, MySpace and Facebook, in the social lives of thirty-three young people in Australia. Fieldwork was conducted in two phases: first, through gaining access to the profiles of my participants, observing interactions and exchanges on these profiles, and analysing content; and second, drawing on these observations to frame semi-structured, in-depth, in-person interviews. At the centre of the analysis of my findings is a focus on questions of identity and self-presentation online, and how the performance of identity in online social spaces represents a reflexive ordering of self-narratives that manifest in a ‘digital trace’. I explore friending strategies, notions of integrity and authenticity, and challenge dominant conceptualisations of belonging that do not adequately encompass the systems of belonging made visible by my participants on social network sites.
The implications of this research are broad. Early on in the thesis, I establish a theoretical framework for the empirical work that follows, drawing in particular on Goffman’s (1959) dramaturgical framework and more recent applications of the dramaturgical framework to online social spaces. Through the challenges I have encountered in this empirical work that informs this project, I call on future research that explores young people’s use of social network sites to attend closely to the blurring of public and private in these spaces. I challenge researchers and institutional ethics committees or review boards to recruit appropriate expertise and literacies to the design and ethically reflexive execution of research projects involving social network sites.
In the chapters that draw directly on my empirical work, I describe a complex, dynamic and heavily strategic set of practices for ‘being’ in online social spaces that develop out of and work alongside the conventions that govern everyday life. I advance a ‘systems of belonging’ approach to better explain the mediated belongings described by my participants. This approach recruits existing theoretical models of belonging and combines them to make sense of broad, multiplicitous, coherent and reflexively ordered narratives of affinity and belonging. Throughout this thesis, I work to resist the online/offline binary by asserting the everyday, enmeshed nature of sociality in online social spaces. I conclude by again drawing attention to this argument, and by suggesting several trajectories for future research from this project.
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Texts that claim to deal with contemporary digital culture tend to date notoriously quickly, often due to an overly descriptive nature and a pre-occupation with the ‘new’. This collection of 16 essays, edited by and featuring work from Joe Karaganis amongst a diverse array of scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds and geographical locations, bucks this trend to provide the reader with a truly fascinating and insightful look at participation in digital culture at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The scope of this collection is clearly focussed on investigating trajectories of participation occurring in contemporary media saturated environments: from the illegal media piracy infrastructures in India (Sundaram, Chapter 4) and Nigeria (Larkin, Chapter 5) through to the rise of Friendster (boyd, Chapter 8), an antecedent to the social network site titans of 2010 such as MySpace and Facebook. However, the collection goes beyond conceptualising the individual as an active consumer to consider how everyday practices of engagement and consumption are truly generating structures of cultural production. While much of the research being reported by the authors is from the late 90s through to 2004, many of the issues raised and the questions asked are even more crucial now than they were when the research was being conducted. There is also a strong sense of history being deployed here (Bowker, Chapter 1) alongside fantastic engagements with cultural theory (Sundaram, Chapter 4). These multiple and yet coherently collected and organised accounts of participation in digital culture investigate beyond the shiny ‘new’ surface of ‘new’ communication technologies and ‘new’ media forms, to actually realise and frame everyday acts of participation as complex, highly engaged and productive.
2010, Nordicom, Gothenberg, ISBN 978-91-89471-87-0.
Edited by Tobias Olsson and Peter Dahlgren, this collection of twelve chapters provides a generally optimistic, empirically driven European contribution to a terrain of scholarly research that exists at the intersection between youth studies and internet studies. Young People, ICTs and Democracy is divided into four sections: theories, policies, identities and websites. The synthesis that emerges between these sections and across the chapters is due in part to its genesis at a 2007 symposium. At its core, the book is concerned primarily with understanding the late modern context of young people – often characterised as being saturated by technologies of communication – and the interplay between that context and political and civic roles. The contributors document the potential of contemporary communication technologies and begin to locate limitations in relation to political engagement.
This paper seeks to approach these questions through empirical research conducted in Australia with forty young users of MySpace and Facebook from 2007 to 2010, including semi-structured interviews and discourse analyses of profiles. I will argue that while conceptualisations of space and the conventions that surround these spaces on the internet have undergone considerable revision and re-theorisation in the last two decades, discourses that align multiplicity with incoherence and a lack of integrity persist.
Brady's talk will consider the construction of identity and integrity on social network sites, based on a two-part qualitative study of Gold Coast youth who use a mixture of MySpace and Facebook.
The proposed book will bring together perspectives drawn from scholars from a range of disciplines who are conducting research into the applications of neo-tribal theory. Our aim is to critically explore the concepts that underpin neo-tribal theory, using an interdisciplinary lens, through a series of theoretically informed and empirically rich chapters. The collection will be of global appeal and will be uniquely cross-disciplinary in nature.
In this themed issue ‘10 years of Facebook’ we wish to explore the current ‘state of play’ with regards to the social, cultural and political significance of Facebook. Our aim is to bring together current academic debates surrounding this ubiquitous social networking site to assess how, after ten years in existence, Facebook has made its mark on contemporary society as a space for social, cultural and political interactions. In addition, we wish to explore new and emerging approaches to the study of Facebook that interrogate the often complex relationships between the site, its users and everyday contexts.
We welcome short 250 word abstracts that reflect on ‘10 years of Facebook’, taking stock of the impact the site has had on contemporary social life. While attending to this broad aim, proposed articles will also need to address a more specific theme. Potential themes include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Identity
- Performance and representation
- Youth cultures and subcultures
- Privacy
- Friendship
- Relationships
- Fandom
- Age/ageing
- Before life and after life
- Political activism
- Social movements
- Regulation and control
- Trolling
Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be submitted to Siân Lincoln (s.lincoln@ljmu.ac.uk) by Wednesday 10th April 2013. On the basis of these short abstracts, invitations to submit full papers (of no more than 8000 words) will then be sent out in late April. Full papers will be due by August 31, and will undergo the usual New Media & Society peer review procedure. Invitation to submit a full paper in no way guarantees acceptance into the issue.