Valerie Steeves

Negotiating With Gender Stereotypes on Social Networking Sites

Research indicates that stereotypical representations of girls as sexualized objects seeking male attention are commonly found in social networking sites. This article presents the results of a qualitative study that examined how young women “read” these stereotypes. Our participants understood Social networking sites (SNS) as a commoditized environment in which stereotypical kinds of self-exposure by girls are markers of social success and popularity. As such, these images are “socially facilitative” for young women. However, the gendered risks of judgment according to familiar stereotypical norms are heightened by the intense surveillance enabled by SNS. While our participants indicated that a mediatized celebrity culture inculcates girls with messages that they must be attractive, have a boyfriend, and be part of the party scene, girls are much more likely than boys to be harshly judged for emphasizing these elements in their online profiles. Girls are also open to harsh criticism for their degree of publicness. The risk of being called a “slut” for having an open profile, too many friends, or posting too much information suggests that continuing discriminatory standards around public participation may effectively police girls’ capacity to fully participate online and complicate their ability to participate in defiant gender performances.

Closing the Barn Door: The Effect of Parental Supervision on Canadian Children's Online Privacy.

Empirical data from a large sample of Canadian youth aged 13 to 17 years suggest that, although the current privacy policy framework is having a positive effect on the extent to which young people are complying with the types of behavior promoted by adults as privacy protective, its primary focus on parental supervision is inadequate to fully protect childrens online privacy. Respondents with high levels of either social interaction or identity play are more likely than those with lower levels to divulge personal identifiers and display privacy-risky behavior, independent of their level of parental supervision. High levels of parental supervision, therefore, do not eliminate but merely reduce privacy-risky behaviors associated with social uses of the Internet. As such, parental supervision cannot adequately protect children who have integrated the Net most fully into their social lives, especially given the high premium that children place on the use of the Net to talk to friends and explore social roles.

Fixing Broken Doors: Strategies for Drafting Privacy Policies Young People Can Understand

The goal of this project is to identify guidelines for privacy policies that children and teens can accurately interpret with relative ease. A three-pronged strategy was used to achieve this goal. First, an analysis of the relevant literature on reading was undertaken to identify the document features that affect comprehension. Second, focus groups were conducted to examine their experience and practices in the interpretation of privacy policies found on sites that have been identified as favorite kids’ sites. Based on the results of the literature review and focus groups, a set of potential guidelines were identified. Finally, the efficacy of these guidelines was tested in the final phase of the research project. The result of this work is a set of 14 guidelines for the drafting of privacy policies that make a difference, by improving the comprehensibility of privacy policies encountered by Canadian children and teens as they surf the Net.

Young people online and the social value of privacy

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework to contextualize young people’s lived experiences of privacy and invasion online. Social negotiations in the construction of privacy boundaries are theorized to be dependent on individual preferences, abilities and context-dependent social meanings. Design/methodology/approach – Empirical findings of three related Ottawa-based studies dealing with young people’s online privacy are used to examine the benefits of online publicity, what online privacy means to young people and the social importance of privacy. Earlier philosophical discussions of privacy and identity, as well as current scholarship, are drawn on to suggest that privacy is an inherently social practice that enables social actors to navigate the boundary between self/other and between being closed/open to social interaction. Findings – Four understandings of privacy’s value are developed in concordance with recent privacy literature and our own empirical data: privacy as...

Digital Surveillance in the Networked Classroom

This chapter examines the ways in which digital surveillance has disrupted experiences of, and relationships between, students and teachers in the networked classroom. We then explore the impact of what Zuboff calls ‘surveillance capitalism’ on schools, through the lens of two emerging trends: the use of commercial software to police students on social media and the collection of students’ personal information by educational software companies. We argue that the current escalation of big data programmes and analytics in schools for the purposes of tracking academic progress and for monitoring their social media communication to ensure safety creates an unnecessary incursion into student’s lives that threatens their rights, as well as those of parents and teachers.