News and News...What is News? Or...Pitfalls of "Wondering" on the Web

Have you been paying attention today? I got my first inkling from the Chronicle of Higher Ed in the Wired Campus Blog of the Chronicle of Higher Education: there may be a digitial divide in social networking sites -- Facebook is for the well-to-do, upper middle class while MySpace is for the lower income, immigrants and non-college bound.

The observations actually come from danah boyd, a PhD student who is studying the implications of social networking and she dropped this little social/class bomb in a posting on her blog on the 24th of June. (she blogged today about the reactions that's she's received -- both good and bad).

It's an interesting observation that she makes here but as she says, it is but an observation and her blog essay about it shows that she's still trying to understand if there is something there or not. She provides a brief history and really more of a discussion about the evolution of the two social networking sites. Interesting that in the military, soldiers on on MySpace and officers are on Facebook -- hmm....but actually...this isn't my point about posting this information here.

Rather, I'm really interested in how information gets picked up and spread around on the web and what is NEWS. Where Danah is looking at Social Networking and Teens, my marketing interest is really about "getting the word out".

Two days ago she posts this thoughtful, questioning observation piece, which is more of a "Wondering" than anything else...and she even writes in her blog from the 24th that:

Over the last six months, i've noticed an increasing number of press articles about how high school teens are leaving MySpace for Facebook. That's only partially true. There is indeed a change taking place, but it's not a shift so much as a fragmentation. Until recently, American teenagers were flocking to MySpace. The picture is now being blurred. Some teens are flocking to MySpace. And some teens are flocking to Facebook. Which go where gets kinda sticky, because it seems to primarily have to do with socio-economic class.

In the blog essay she further points out:

I have been reticent about writing about this dynamic even though I've been tracking it for a good six months now. I don't have the language for what I'm seeing and I'm concerned about how it's going to be interpreted. I can just see the logic: if society's "good" kids are going to Facebook and the "bad" kids are going to MySpace, clearly MySpace is the devil, right? ::shudder:: It's so not that easy. Given a lack of language for talking about this, my choice of "hegemonic" and "subaltern" was intended to at least insinuate a different way of looking at this split.

And today, June 26th ...well here are just some of the news sources who have picked this one up -- and they are referencing her research. Interesting. She says herself this is but an observation and a question and she's trying to figure it out. So here's the listing, and some of the quotes from what they are writing about...I expect we'll see this on the nightly news very soon...

• Information Week: "MySpace and Facebook have come to reflect class divisions in American society, according to an informal research project. Since Facebook opened up last September, ongoing press coverage of MySpace as a dangerous place and Facebook's positioning as a home for those with elite aspirations have help create a socioeconomic divide between the two sites, argues Danah Boyd, a Ph.D. student at the School of Information Sciences at University of California at Berkeley. " <-- a least they got it close to right!
• TechNews World, e-Commerce Times: "Social networking sites MySpace and Facebook may seem fairly similar from the outside, but the two sites are increasingly splitting along class lines, according to a new report."
  
• Hindu News, The Age in Australia, The Guardian: "In a paper this week, Ms Boyd said typical Facebook users "tend to come from families who emphasise education and going to college. They are primarily white, but not exclusively". MySpace, meanwhile, "is still home for Latino and Hispanic teens, immigrant teens" as well as "other kids who didn't play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm".
  
• GameShout: "MySpace and Facebook are more and more splitting along class lines according to some U.S. academics. ... Boyd submitted a paper this week ..."
  
• CRN Channel Web: "New research into social networking sites claims to have uncovered sharp online class divisions. The college educated turn more to Facebook, according to the report, while MySpace caters largely for those who leave school early. A preliminary report from a six-month research project by the School of Information Sciences at UC Berkeley carried out by PhD student Danah Boyd found the class divide between popular social networking sites MySpace and Facebook.
  
• BBC News: "Fans of MySpace and Facebook are divided by much more than which music they like, suggests a study. A six-month research project has revealed a sharp division along class lines among the American teenagers flocking to the social network sites.
  The research suggests those using Facebook come from wealthier homes and are more likely to attend college. "

These are just some of them...of course the headlines range from the sublime to the ridiculous such as:

• Facebook for "goodie two shoes", MySpace for "burnouts"
• Still using MySpace? You low-rent good for nothing loser...
• Are Facebook Members Higher Achievers?
• MySpace is Las Vegas, Facebook is IKEA
• Why MySpace is for freaks and Facebook is for preps
• Class war hits social networking sites
• MySpace Is Bart, Facebook Is Lisa

So how does one go from posting a simple observational paper meant to provoke conversation -- and possibly insight among a fairly small group of people to a "published paper" that is a "preliminary report of research findings" or the "result of a 6 month study". Well I guess you start by being a prolific blogger who is seen as an "expert" and then you post your thoughts...sit back and wait... Then watch and see as this is picked up...not just in your backyard but all over the country! and...the World. From New York, to California, to the UK, Australia and India, from websites and blogs to news sites. Of course these stories are also being DUGG....

Does ANYONE check the original source anymore? Do people who are writing actually COMPREHEND what they are reading BEFORE they post?

Danah...good luck. I think this is but the begining of the tide.