We live in an age of diminishing privacy, but we are starting, as individuals and as a culture, to understand how to interact with our digital audiences in an age of context collapse. References to Erving Goffman, Marshall McLuhan, and danah boyd

1. Privacy and Self Presentation
in the Digital Age
Joan Vinall-Cox, Ph.D.

2. Who Are You?
• The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
– sociologist Erving Goffman
• social rituals involved in self-presentation
• = “impression management”
• Different in the digital environment
• The meaning of avatars

3. Presenting Your Image
• “Impression management online and off is not
just an individual act; it’s a social process.”
– danahboyd - It’s Complicated
• http://www.createdimage.com.au/blog/index.phpm=05&y=11&entry=entry110525-160007
Audience?
Message?
Social Norm?

4. “Social media has introduced a new dimension
to the well-worn fights over private space and
personal expression.” – danahboyd
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paparazzi

5. Cultural Changes
• We feel entitled to know other’s business
• “civil inattention” – politely ignoring
embarrassing moments or information – no
longer in vogue
• Scandals get attention in information-
saturated world
• Celebrity gossip more and more popular

7. Civil Inattention – Not Looking
even though you can see!
Saving yourself and others from embarrassment

8. Civil Inattention Needed,
(as well as context awareness)
A metaphor for social media “drama”

9. Paparazzi and Celebrity Gossip
Have Increased Greatly in Our Culture

10. Do Media Portrayals of Out-of-Control
Behavior Affect Social Media Bullying?
Is the Cause Cultural or Technical?

11. In the Social Media Age
• “Four affordances, in particular, shape many of
the mediated environments that are created by
social media
– persistence
• *It doesn’t disappear+
– visibility
• [For anyone with a computer and URL]
– Spreadability
• [Extremely easy to forward / share]
– searchability”
• [Just google it!]
– danahboyd – It’s Complicated

12. We are Living in the Panopticon
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon

13. The Concept of Privacy is Changing
in the Digital Age

14. danahboyd:
• “Privacy … is a process by which people seek
to have control over a social situation by
managing
– impressions,
– information flows, and
– context.”
• “Privacy is valuable because it is critical for
personal development.”

15. Who Are You, Really?
• If you are always “managing impressions” of
yourself because you are always watched, if
you have no privacy, you can’t find out who
you truly are.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mask

16. When You Know Who / Where You Are
You Know How to Behave
• “Based on their understanding of the social
situation—including the context and the
audience—people make decisions about what to
share in order to act appropriately for the
situation and to be perceived in the best light.”
• But when you don’t know the context …
• “Contexts don’t just collapse accidentally; they
collapse because individuals have a different
sense of where the boundaries exist and how
their decisions affect others.”
– danahboyd – It’s Complicated

17. It FEELS Private and Safe to Reveal
Yourself or Attack Anonymously But …

18. Context Collapse
• Context collapse is our new reality
• "...Social media technologies
collapse multiple audiences
into single contexts,
making it difficult for people to use the same
techniques online that they do to handle
multiplicity in face-to-face conversation...”
– (Marwick & Boyd, 2011)

19. Excerpt:
http://hlwiki.slais.ubc.ca/index.php/Context_collapse_in_social_media
• According to [Michael] Wesch, in face-to-face
communication
• we assess the context of our interactions
• in order to decide
– how we will act,
– what we will say, and
– how we will construct (and present) ourselves.

20. Excerpt:
http://hlwiki.slais.ubc.ca/index.php/Context_collapse_in_social_media
As [Erving] Goffmansays,
• we continuously, unconsciously take note of our
surroundings,
• those present, and
• the overall tone and temperature of the scene
– to move through it.
• As social beings, we have become adept at
• sussingout and performing micro-calculations
• in the micro-second gaps of conversation
• in order to move through those situations.
When engaged in social interactions, we evaluate situations
and people as well as ourselves and how we fit into them

21. Excerpt:
http://hlwiki.slais.ubc.ca/index.php/Context_collapse_in_social_media
In social media,
• face work does not have the same currency or
value
• because we don't see the expressions of those
with whom we are communicating.
• Further, there is context collapse, or
homogenization of context,
• because all of the micro-calculations we used to
make by evaluating a situation are gone,
• removed and collapsed in social media.

22. Government and Businesses:
Attitudes Toward Privacy
• Privacy is pretty well non-existent in the wired
world
• Governments access ‘private’ communications
– American NSA, Canadian CSIS
– Edward Snowden -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden

23. Our Vulnerable Computers
• Not just government agencies can invade our
privacy
• Agencies and hackers can invade our
computers and phones to learn our secrets
• Online businesses can delete what we bought
and paid for
• Business that we trust with our financial
information might not encrypt it securely
enough to prevent hacking

24. Your Stuff
• Cookies – your computer history doesn’t
disappear
• Most cloud email and storage is on servers in
the U.S. – Canadian gov’t trying to change that
for gov’t materials
– http://www.thestar.com/business/2014/03/07/ti
me_for_consumers_to_think_local_for_cloud_co
mputing_geist.html

25. Digital Rights Management
://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/05/how-internet-encryption-
works

26. Encryption and Your Data
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/05/how-internet-
encryption-works

27. Commercial Hacking
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-13/target-missed-alarms-in-
epic-hack-of-credit-card-data

28. Our Privacy and Identities –
VERY Limited
• http://www.abine.com/blog/2013/9-easy-ways-to-beat-identity-
thieves/
• Pay close attention to your bank account.
• Ultra-personalize your credit card.
• Lock down your privacy settings on social
networks.
• Remove your information from data mining
websites that publicly post and sell it.
• Etc. … and not so easy

29. The New Public Square &Panopticon

30. You are Being Watched!
• In our digital culture, we now have audiences
– Mostly unknown by us
– Invisible to us
– From many different places and cultures
– From future times; (our information doesn’t
disappear)
• We are trying to learn how to behave in our
panoptic world

31. Growing Awareness

32. Sophisticated Tactics
• Different personas for different
sites/media, for example, Tumblr
• Controlling who gets to see what posts on
Facebook, using their tools
• Making Instagram private, and only allowing
people you actually know to follow
• On LinkedIn, networking with posts and
endorsements
• Understanding Twitter, especially Lists

33. Are You the Same Person on
All Your Social Media Sites?
• “*She (or he)+ represent[s] herself in different
ways on different sites with the expectation of
different audiences and different norms” –
danahboydIt’s Complicated
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jack_Lemmon_-_1968.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/andys93integra/6114180062/

34. Serious Journalist; Flippant Twitterer
Andrew Coyne, National Post, CBC

35. The Dark Entrepreneurial Side -
Retweeted by @socialnerdia

36. Social Media is Increasingly Being
‘Managed’

37. Designing for Attention
http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2014/03/21/snapchat-
attention.html
• Developers are working to design apps that
make use of our current digital habits
• To combat multitasking, lack of attention, and
spreadability,
• Snapchat demands attention by the time limit
• And provides some privacy

38. The Printing Press Changed the World
• The internet and web are just beginning
• Profound impacts already on
– Communication – email, Skype, social media
– Politics – political messages, fund raising
– Relationships – Facebook, dating
– Education – Classroom content, MOOCs
– Publishing – decline of newspapers, rise of
ebooks, blogs
• Etcetera ad infinitum

39. Highly Recommended
http://www.openculture.com/2014/03/download-a-free-copy-of-danah-boyds-book-
its-complicated-the-social-lives-of-networked-teens.html

40. Works Cited
Images from Google Images /Search tools / Usage rights / Labeled for noncommercial reuse
9 easy ways to beat identity thieves. (n.d.). Online Privacy Abine RSS. Retrieved March 27, 2014, from
http://www.abine.com/blog/2013/9-easy-ways-to-beat-identity-thieves/
Arthur, C. (2013, September 6). How internet encryption works. The Guardian. Retrieved March 27, 2014, from
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/05/how-internet-encryption-works
boyd, d. (2014). It's complicated: the social lives of networked teens. Boston: Yale University Press.
danahboyd | apophenia. (n.d.). danahboydapophenia RSS. Retrieved March 27, 2014, from
http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2014/03/21/snapchat-attention.html
Contreras, E. [@socialnerdia] (2014, March 26). $3,000 "social media wedding concierge" will come up with a #hashtag for you.
please stop. pic.twitter.com/EttzK0L8Vk [Retweet of Bosker, B. (@bbosker)] Retrieved from
https://twitter.com/bbosker/status/448468488898637824
Context collapse in social media. (n.d.). HLWIKI Canada. Retrieved March 27, 2014, from
http://hlwiki.slais.ubc.ca/index.php/Context_
Coyne, A. [@acoyne] (2014a, March 26). Ukraine had planned "to train the dolphins to attack enemy swimmers with knives or
pistols fixed to their heads." http://www.nationaljournal.com/defense/russia-has-taken-ukraine-s-fleet-of-dolphins-
20140326 … [Tweet]. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/448874825759461376
Coyne, A. [@acoyne] (2014b, March 26). "Enemy swimmers?" [Tweet]. Retrieved from
https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/448874884072878080
Geist, M. (n.d.). Time for consumers to think local for cloud computing: Geist. thestar.com. Retrieved March 27, 2014, from
http://www.thestar.com/business/2014/03/
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday.
Marwick, A. E., & Boyd, D. (2011). I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined
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Riley, M., Elgin, B., Lawrence, D., &Matlack, C. (2014, March 13). Missed Alarms and 40 Million Stolen Credit Card Numbers: How
Target Blew It. Bloomberg Business Week. Retrieved March 26, 2014, from http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-
13/target-missed-alarms-in-epic-hack-of-credit-card-data