Age and Media Audiences

Postings for 6/10/09

Bortree responses:

1) One of the main reasons this study was conducted was to find the "challenges and hazards of conducting interpersonal communication in a mas medium," (pg. 25,). In one instance, Bortree found a girl had abandoned her blog after being sent a disturbing email where a user threatened to 'cyber rate' her friends, (pg. 32,). I would consider this to be a hazard when trying to communicate in this medium, but for some reason Bortree assumes many bloggers after abandoning their blog will start a new one in a different location. If this is true, why do the users of this medium continue to post when disgusting, attention thrivers post such nonsense? No doubt this will happen again. If this particular study wanted to focus on the hazards of communication, why is this assumption not followed up with study? How has blogging become so addictive that teenage girls will continue even after being sexually assaulted, and how do they interpret these types of messages?

2) Bortree states in the beginning of this article that the most used type of self-presentation is Ingratiation, (pg. 26,). Later in the article Bortree argues the best way to understand the blogging community is to focus on sub-groups. Because sub-groups are a connection of well known participants towards each other, why is ingratiation used to present oneself if who your blogging with you already know? How are we to understand the interpersonal relationships in the blogging community if its participants put on a mask for all to interpret, but confide and post towards people they already know and have personal relationships with?

Clark responses:

1) Clark found that girls when describing their physical appearance, "described their looks in such a way to appear more attractive to the males," (pg. 166). He state this maneuver gives the girls more power in the cyber relationship because they do not set themselves up for rejection based solely on the assumption that attractive girls are found more interesting to males. Thus, the relationship can focus on other things besides the physical appearance. Because self-presentation on the Internet can be altered in any way, how do girls overcome this false-truth once dating in the physical world becomes a priority? Does this type of interaction give impressionable and immature girls and boys a false sense of reality on how physical interactions occur?

2) A section in Clarks article explains how the girls who participate in online dating think their parents would react to this situation. This section gives specific examples from their girls' reactions. Because our class focused many discussions on parents thoughts of their children using television, what are the reactions towards the Internet? There are less ways to monitor children's actions on the Internet because it is such a wide and varied source of interaction. Is this reason a main source for why kids enjoy online dating?