A blog post, by Nicole Clark-University of Canberra, Australia
Privacy is the state that one is observed by another.
Jurgensen & Rey (2012), believe privacy is a complex dialectic between revealing and concealing
personal information. The degree, to
which an individual reveals information in a public and private context, is
linked to the notion of self-presentation
and how that individual wishes to be perceived from an outside perspective. Jurgensen
and Rey (2012), attain, privacy is not mutually exclusive- that is, a private
matter not discussed in some contexts does not inherently mean the matter is
secret. For what is secret to one has a private flexibility to another. In the
digital technological world, privacy is considered temporal in nature, where
the line that is said to be drawn between obscene and scene is blurred
(Jurgensen and Rey, 2012). Digital technology provides
individuals with the tools to create meaningful social connections; it assists
in unique communication processes and allows for management of individual
socially observed
performances (O’Keeffe et al. 2011).
In the digital social world, through social media disclosure is adjusted by the user;
according to the level of disclosure a user wishes to display to the outside
world. Social media such as Facebook
and Twitter,
provide individuals with the choice to decide which information they will keep
public, which information they will reveal to certain individuals and which
information will be kept secret (above). For instance, a social media user might choose
to display photos of themselves that only their closest friends will see but
wish to conceal this from the public eye. Jones and Soltren (2005), attain individuals have the choice to manage the level of
information revealed to the public eye- through control of their privacy settings-
for the intent to keep aspects of themselves secret which is likely implicit
of a low self-presentation ( Jurgensen and Rey, 2012).
Through low
self- presentation, Gleman (2009) attains, is likely how and where the
line can become blurred and information that is deliberately kept private can
be altered by outside stimuli and through no fault of the users own, private
information can be unintentionally revealed.
Jurgensen and Rey (2012) consider the process of reveal and
conceal in the digital world to be one of constant change, however withholding
from disclosure can allow for cracks in the disclosure core. Annie- Jin, (2013) states, with the privacy
of users, the social media Disclosure Onion where information is viewed by the public-will begin to unfold in
an unintentional manner, allowing for the line between public and private to
become blurred.
For example, a user who does not wish to display photographs to the public, has a photo taken of themselves with their friends- as the friend doesn’t have the same self-presentation intent, Facebook matches a name to a face and reveals the photograph to the public through the public settings of their friends profile (above). Zheleva and Getoor (2009) explain, this is attributed to a third party information leak, where information is influenced by outside stimuli and despite a private profile, friendships and affiliations leak surprisingly large amounts of information that are unintentionally revealed.
In conclusion: digital technology, influences the degree to which
information is both concealed and revealed and there are varying complexities
involved in the concealment process- as outside stimuli can alter a users’
privacy. However, in social media the self-presentation of users, influences
the observable information revealed and users with a low self-presentation rather than a high are less likely to experience leakage from third party
sources. That is, users likely considered to have a low self- presentation, inadvertently cause the line between obscene and scene to become blurred and
the user becomes more susceptible to outside stimuli. Therefore, this negatively
alters the intended privacy of a user.
Gelman, L. (2009). Privacy, free speech,
and'blurry-edged'social networks.Boston College Law Review, 50(5).
Jones, H., & Soltren, J. H. (2005).
Facebook: Threats to privacy.Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Jurgenson, N., & Rey, P.J. 2013. The Fan Dance: How
Privacy Thrives in an Age of Hyper-Publicity. In Unlike Us Reader: Social
Media Monopolies and their Alternatives. Lovink, G. and Ratsch, M. (eds.). Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures. 62-75.
O'Keeffe, Gwenn Schurgin, and Kathleen
Clarke-Pearson. "The impact of social media on children, adolescents, and
families." Pediatrics 127.4 (2011): 800-804.
Zheleva, E., & Getoor, L. (2009, April). To join or not to join: the illusion of privacy in social networks with mixed public and private user profiles. InProceedings of the 18th international conference on World wide web (pp. 531-540). ACM.
