Danah boyd. (2010). "Social Network Sites as Networked Publics: Affordances, Dynamics, and Implications." In Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites (ed. Zizi Papacharissi), pp. 39-58.

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According to boyd, networked media technologies enable a type of publics that are both virtual technological environments and imagined collectives. As she explains, "networked publics" are "simultaneously (1) the space constructed through networked technologies and (2) the imagined collective that emerges as a result of the intersection of people, technology, and practice."(39) As she explains, "I contend that networked publics are publics that are restructured by networked technologies; they are simultaneously a space and a collection of people."(41)

Thanks to being structured by digital computer technology, "networked publics" have affordances that shape they ways in which users interact, engage, and participate in them. boyd elaborates a conceptualization of networked publics by explaining how their dynamics, properties, and affordances of shape participation and engagement.


Talking about "networking publics" implies that there are multiple publics that allow people to gather for different purposes and practices such as civic actions, cultural and social exchanges, and connecting with strangers. Public is a contested term used across many disciplines.

One approach, from communication and social sciences, understands publics as collection of people who share an identity, a consensus regarding the collective interest, a common understanding of the world, or an imagined community (Anderson, 2006). Publics could be small or big collection of people, group of friends or the members of a nation. "The Public," in singular form, usually refers to a big collection of people, the wide audience of a nation. Similarly, Habermas (1991) public sphere refers to a space accessible to a big group of people.

Other approach, from cultural and media studies, understands publics as audiences that gather around media. In this case, the group of people is bounded by a shared text, a world view or a performance. (Livingstone, 2005) This publics/audiences can be active and productive consumers, and articulate identities in relation to media texts. Publics can also be “arenas for the formation and enactment of social identities” (Fraser, 1992). Identities and interests are formed not only in private space but also in public.

boyd recognizes two major theoretical approaches but doesn't try to resolve the messyness of the term, instead, it argues that she focuses on how networking technologies "extend and complicate publics in all of their forms."(41) According to boyd, it is the structure provided by digital networked technologies what distinguishes networked publics. As she explains, "Networked technologies reorganize how information flows and how people interact with information and each other. In essence, the architecture of networked publics differentiates them from more traditional notions of publics." (41)

Following Lessig (2006), Mitchel (1995),and Negroponte (1995) boyd argues that digital architectures made out of bits are structural forces, that they define the types of interactions that are possible in a space, and shape the way people engage in a particular environment. According to here, bits are the building blocks of networked publics. Media that is made out of bits circulates faster and easily. In the city of bits that Mitchell describes peoples' everyday lives are shaped not only by the physical environment but also by their networks.

According to boyd, "Networked publics are not just publics networked together, but they are publics that have been transformed by networked media, its properties, and its potential. The properties of bits regulate the structure of networked publics, which, in turn, introduces new possible practices and shapes the interactions that take place. These can be seen in the architecture of all networked publics, including social network sites." (42)

Computer-mediated communication allows the creation and maintenance of online communities via forums, boletin boards, blogs, tumblrs. SNSs are a particular category of websites that have the following features:

"allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system." (42)


Features of Social Network Sites

"Together, profiles, Friends lists, and various public communication channels set the stage for the ways in which social network sites can be understood as publics. In short, social network sites are publics both because of the ways in which they connect people en masse and because of the space they provide for interactions and information. They are networked publics because of the ways in which networked technologies shape and configure them."

According to boyd the most important features that construct SNSs as networked publics are:

  • profiles :

"Profiles both represent the individual and serve as the locus of interaction. Because of the inherent social – and often public or semi-public – nature of profiles, participants actively and consciously craft their profiles to be seen by others. Profile generation is an explicit act of writing oneself into being in a digital environment (boyd, 2006) and participants must determine how they want to present themselves to those who may view their self- representation or those who they wish might. Because of this, issues of fashion and style play a central role in participants’ approach to their profiles." "profiles are a place where people gather to converse and share. Conversations happen on profiles and a person’s profile reflects their engagement with the site. As a result, participants do not have complete control over their self-representation." "Profiles are also a site of control, allowing participants to determine who can see what and how. While social network site profiles can be accessible to anyone – “truly public” – it is common for participants to limit the visibility of their profiles, making them “semi- public.”

  • Friends lists

"participants articulate who they wish to connect with and confirm ties to those who wish to connect with them. Most social network sites require connections to be mutually confirmed before being displayed. Each individual’s Friends list is visible to anyone who has permission to view that person’s profile." "the listing of Friends is both political and social. In choosing who to include as Friends, participants more frequently consider the implications of excluding or explicitly rejecting a person as opposed to the benefits of including them."

"the majority of participants simply include all who they consider a part of their social world. "

"One way of interpreting the public articulation of connections on social networks is to see it as the articulation of a public. These Friends are the people with whom the participants see themselves connecting en masse. For some participants, it is important to make certain that these individuals are all part of the same social context; for others, mixing different social contexts is acceptable and desirable. How a participant approaches the issue of social contexts shapes who they may or may not include as Friends."

"On social network sites, people’s imagined – or at least intended – audience is the list of Friends that they have chosen to connect with on the site. This is who participants expect to be accessing their content and interacting with them. And these are the people to whom a participant is directing their expressions. By serving as the imagined audience, the list of Friends serves as the intended public. Of course, just because this collection of people is the intended public does not mean that it is the actual public. Yet, the value of imagining the audience or public is to adjust one’s behavior and self-presentation to fit the intended norms of that collective."


  • public commenting tools

"various tools to support public or semi-public interactions between participants. Group features allow participants to gather around shared interests. A more commonly used tool for public encounters are the commenting features that display conversations on a person’s profile (a.k.a. “The Wall” on Facebook and “Comments” on MySpace)."

Comments are visible to anyone who has access to that person’s profile and participants use this space to interact with individuals and cohorts.

"While this typed conversation may appear to have little communicative efficacy, the ritual of checking in is a form of social grooming. Through mundane comments, participants are acknowledging one another in a public setting, similar to the way in which they may greet each other if they were to bump into one another on the street. Comments are not simply a dialogue between two interlocutors, but a performance of social connection before a broader audience."

  • stream-based updates

"features that allow participants to broadcast content to Friends on the sites. MySpace initially did this with a feature called “bulletins” which allowed for blog-esque messages to be distributed. After Facebook implemented “status updates” to encourage the sharing of pithy messages, MySpace introduced a similar feature. All of these features allow individuals to contribute content, which is then broadcast to Friends primarily via a stream of updates from all of their Friends."

"While individual updates are arguably mundane, the running stream of content gives participants a general sense of those around them. In doing so, participants get the sense of the public constructed by those with whom they connect."


Features and functionality vary across different social network sites providing different public and private communication channels. In general, they

"allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system (boyd and Ellison, 2007)."


According to boyd, networked publics have affordances that differentiate them from other types of publics. Those affordances are:

  • persistence
  • replicability,
  • searchability, and
  • scalability

Networked publics affordances allow new social dynamics and require people to manage invisible audiences, collapsed contexts, and a blurring between the public and private.