On-line journals as virtual bedrooms?
22 November 2007
Sian Lincoln, LJMU
This presentation is based on my forthcoming paper, ‘Online journals as Virtual Bedrooms? Young People, Identity and Personal Space’ (with Paul Hodkinson), Young: The Nordic Journal of Youth, January 2008.
Drawing on research into online spaces (Hodkinson) and teenage bedroom culture (Lincoln), this paper considers the importance of personal and individualised spaces for young people both online and offline. One of the central contentions here is that interactive web logs (blogs) are increasingly becoming a highly significant site through which young people record everyday experiences and that the ways in which these experiences are recorded online are comparable to the ways in which a young person manages and controls the physical space of the teenage bedroom. We argue that online spaces take on the symbolic and practical properties of individually owned and controlled space.
By comparing two sets of ethnographic data (Hodkinson’s research on Livejournal and Lincoln’s research on teenage bedroom culture) this paper explores the ways in which the teenage bedroom can be seen as a useful model through which to make sense of online teenage life and to further illuminate the significance and complexities for young people of having a personal and private spaces through which to do this.
