Feb
28
Questions on Moore and Berlant
February 28, 2015 | 1 Comment
Facebook and The Liberal Arts
We have talked in class about the important role that the audience plays in oversharing. We have discussed that an overshare becomes so based on the particular audience the information is shared with. For example, sharing detailed information about a health issue with a doctor may not be considered oversharing, while sharing the same information with a co-worker may be considered oversharing.
If it is true that “Facebook collapses discrete social networks – co-workers, family members, classmates – into one homogenous mass of Facebook friends,” how do we determine what is sharing and what is oversharing on Facebook?
Faceless Book
In Faceless book Berlant asserts that Facebook has created a new type of intimacy characterized by “play, of having a light impact, of being ordinary, of being acknowledged, of echoing and noodling.” The type of intimacy found on Facebook is safer, “it is a relief from the other kind, which tips you over.” If it is true that Facebook has introduced a “lighter” form of intimacy, how has it impacted the way in which we value our face to face intimate relationships?
Life Writing and Intimate Publics: A Conversation with Lauren Berlant
How does Berlant view “having a life”? How are intimate publics used to broaden the idea of “having a life”?
What social media trends (hashtags, viral videos, memes etc.) support or deny Berlant’s assertion that “ we are stuck in an imaginary impasse, living on while not knowing what to do, and developing accounts and practices of how to live”?
– Melissa
Comments
1 Comment so far
1. Perhaps the shortest answer is this: If you are willing to share any particular information online to a group of people whom you can questionably call off on you fingers, then it wasn’t so private a piece of information in the first place.
That said, we haven’t had an opportunity to address privacy settings and the practice of multiple social media accounts for different groups, nor have we addressed the concept of permissible friending (when we cannot communicate with someone on social media until after a certain point in time/relationship). These details may shift how we answer the question.
2. The “we” in this question is extremely general here. As a group, I would argue for us to be very hesitant when answering this question in the general.
3. I will address this question after thinking more on the matter.