Facebook: Social network site or privacy-invading, surveillance-enabling data harvester?

Abstract: Facebook has become an apparatus for a performative and competitive collection of ‘friends’, a tool that facilitates both state and corporate surveillance, and interpersonal surveillance between friends, (ex) romantic partners and (potential) employers whilst users simultaneously watch and are watched. Given currently unfolding events embroiling Facebook, this paper will provide ample evidence that Facebook should be treated with extreme caution if one cannot completely avoid it.   Keywords: Facebook, Read more [...]

#community: Hashtags generate a sense of belonging

Download: Hashtags generate a sense of belonging Abstract This paper explores how hashtags are used on social media as a kind of textual signpost signifying aspects of our identity. Through these signposts users alert others to their emotions, thoughts and affiliations, all of which help generate a sense of belonging to something online. From its beginnings as a searchable piece of metadata, hashtags help others find others beyond their own circle of friends to discover a collective of similar Read more [...]

Seizing the Memes of Production: The Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Facebook

Abstract Facebook is one of the biggest social networks and is pervasive throughout much of the word with billions of users. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat is a state of government proposed, in much communist literature, as a transitional state from revolution to communism. What do these have in common and why compare a political theory with a social network? These are the questions this paper aims to answer and discuss. By examining the structures of Facebook set out for managing community Read more [...]

The anti-social network: Facebook has negative implications on the friendships of young adults

Abstract           This essay explores the negative impact that Facebook has had on the relationships that young adults share with friends and colleagues. Examining such scholarly resources as Kaliarna (2016) to classify online relationships, Young (2013) to study adult friendships in the Facebook era and Bevan, Pfyl and Barclay (2012) to highlight the ramifications of Facebook friend deletion, I will highlight the characteristics of friendship and how they compare when applied to online and Read more [...]

Using Facebook to Better Engage Customers and Strengthen Brand Identity

ABSTRACT With traditional means of marketing, such as banner advertisements, becoming increasingly unavailing, businesses have begun to seek out alternative methods of soliciting custom from consumers. The ubiquity of social networking sites and other Internet-enabled platforms introduces new opportunities for businesses, but in return ask for a radical alteration in their business strategy. This paper attempts to analyse how one such social networking site in particular, Facebook, has allowed businesses Read more [...]

Using Manufactured Identities in Online Social Media

Abstract The use of pseudonyms and personas when creating profiles within online social media serves to provide many vulnerable people with a way to safely have an online presence without the fear of harassment or real world threats. The rise in the number of hacking incidents involving identity theft combined with a growing number of reports of fake online identities being used for malicious and criminal intent, has led to companies such as Facebook implementing security measures such as the Read more [...]