Social networking sites afford people the chance to create profiles that offer a personal perspective on who they feel they are. Sites such as MySpace allow people to express themselves and share photos with whomever is interested. However, once the thoughts and images of a person's private life go public, they take on a new dynamic. Any recent college graduate knows that potential employers often surf the web to find out information that is not presented on a candidate's resume. Now, it is not unusual for many young people entering the job market to their delete MySpace and Facebook profiles before a job search.
Recently, Carmen Kontur-Gronquist, the 42-year-old mayor of Arlington, Ore., found this out the hard way when she posted pictures of herself on her MySpace profile clad in black lingerie while posing on a fire truck. Kontur-Gronquist insists that the have nothing to do with her abilities as mayor. Maybe not, but that not what this town of 600 is thinking. The general assumption is that Kontur-Gronquist's exposure (pun intended) draws negative attention to the community. Today, it appears easier to become a celebrity whether you intend to be or not. Anyone with an ax to grind can dig around on the web and probably find something to complain about.
We are living in a time where the line between public and private selves seems to be vanishing. More than that, what seems to be changing is how we define "public" when considering the socio-cultural relationship between social networking and the larger public sphere. Social networking sites fall within the public domain, but when images are appropriated to ridicule an elected official or humiliate someone in the media, a fuzzy line gets crossed.
This happened last year when a local newspaper appropriated a picture without permission of high school students posing for a dance. The newspaper lifted the picture from the student's MySpace profile in order to illustrate a story they were running on teenage drinking and sexual promiscuity. Never mind that the pictures and the story had no direct connection. During the following weeks, a great deal of negative attention was directed at the students, even though they had little to do its usage. Taking the image out of context seemed inappropriate and harmful, but not illegal.
One of the primary social behaviors we find with the Internet is that it caters to our attention-seeking nature. People like to feel good about themselves and find ways to separate themselves from others in any number of ways. The culture of social networking enables and encourages attention-seeking behaviors in ways never before experienced in culture. In Victorian times, a fancy hat might suffice, but in an age of instant communication people differentiate themselves through public disclosures that are far-reaching and sometimes perilous.
