Division Between Public And Private Writing Media Essay

Division Between Public And Private Writing Media studyRettberg states that the spread of lit termcy, circulation of written materials and the common practice of silent breeding saw the emergence of the closed-door argonna and practice of private report as early as the 1500s. The private sphere fostered a solitary and private relationship mingled with reader and book and established a clear divide among the inner individualized life and humanity life in the community. Rettberg (2008) believes this altered relation to the written battle cry helped to create a new private place for individuals to seek refuge. harmonize to Schement Curtis (1995) private authorship git be described as a own(prenominal) narrative and is typically written as a form of self-expression to be read only by the author. Early forms of private piece include person-to-person journals and diaries where authors recorded personal jazzs and reflections without an audience in mind. This clear divisi on between private and public writing began to shift as authors began approaching publicly accessible platforms to record stories. This presented opportunities to reach broader audiences and invited dialogue within the community, effectively contributing to the public sphere.The public sphere is a concept introduced by Jurgen Habermas that describes an ideal democratic berth for rational debate among informed and engaged citizens and extends to include written public materials intended for mass audiences (cited in Kellner, 2000). Originally public writing was non a personal narrative but informative parole that would attract audiences and stimulate community debate. Early forms of public writing included printed newspaper articles and community newsletters. Today, magazines, shop catalogues, academic papers and online web logs are all widely acknowledged as forms of public writing. Boeder (2005) argues that the global public sphere of today is largely influenced by the technol ogy that underpins itThe technological infra twist of communication networks is influencing the loving structure of society its development is closely related to the development of social structures in a process of leaf and mutual dependenceThese technologies and the more upstart emergence of social media networks have aided the breakdown of the boundaries between private and public that were clear in the mid- and late twentieth century. tender networks much(prenominal) as Facebook and chitter are fostering new forms of engagement which encourage dialogue and collaboration in public forums, decrease the clear detachment between public and private writing. The Internet has facilitated constant, instantaneous and global communications (Boyd Ellison, 2007). Social networking services are not just allowing Internet users access to immediate information, social media is serving us access to the lives of friends or colleagues and encouraging users to contribute to online discussion s and share private information. Social media sites are transforming online user conduct and in the process Barnes (2012) believes social media is actively changing users expectations of what constitutes private and public writing. Social media functions by relying on its users to share personal information and data, therefore users personal contributions are fuelling the growth in private communion of information over the Internet in a new era of public participation.The chief characteristics of democratic and social media is the breakdown in the division between producers and audience (Barna, 2009). This division was particularly clear in traditional mass media and has been largely erased, fostering a new cultivation built upon public participation. According to Barna (2009), advances in technology have allowed anyone with access to the Internet to be a producer of content. Participatory culture encourages people to share experiences and information for the purpose of news int ended for mass audiences (public writing) or as a form of self-expression (traditionally termed private writing). Despite users still writing for both public and private outcomes, the division becomes glaze over on the Internet given its public, indexed and network infrastructure. The uptake of social media paired with the emergence of a democratic culture means it is now realisticly impossible to differentiate public and private writing (Lders, 2008). Debatin (2006) believes we are witnessing the dawn of a tightly woven global infosphere, a digitized networked panoptic sphere that leaves little situation for unmonitored privacy.In the early modern era, the public sphere was a constitutive corollary of the private sphere. In the era of the info sphere, the public and private spheres become amalgamated, which results in public exploitation of private lives, increasing onslaught of privacy, and continual diminishment of unmonitored privacy (Debatin (2006).The explosion of the inf o sphere lav be seen through and through the sheer deal of uncensored and unmonitored content available today on any given topic. Similar to the paramount importance of print and literacy in the development and understanding of a public and private sphere as highlighted by Rettberg (2008), the development of an info sphere is underpinned by participatory media and networked technologies.The development of online social networks for traditional private writing such as a diary or journal, have facilitated a phenomenon known as blogging. Blogging is an drill that requires both reading and writing to an extent not present in earlier forms of writing (Rettberg, 2008). Rettberg (2008) states that blogging is deduction of the possibility of a form of literacy that is both private and public simultaneouslyBloggers read and write in the same space. You read other blogs and write comments. You write in your own blog, and read comments to your posts. The immediacy is level more apparent in instant messaging and micro media formats like Twitter. (Rettberg, 2008).The motivations of users writing a blog today may differ dramatically with blogs being used by businesses, organisations as well as individuals for a variety of purposes and audiences (McCullagh, 2008). According to Technorati (cited on Lomborg, 2009), blogs evolved as a platform for individuals writing for self-expression, sharing expertise and experiences and connecting with likeminded people, challenging the notion of traditional communities. Brake (cited in Lomborg, 2009), identified several key themes of weblogs communication one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-many and a communicative. The last pattern of communication (a communicative) is the type of blog Brake (cited in Lomborg, 2009) categorised as personal/lifeblog. In this instance, the intention of bloggers is strictly for their own enjoyment and therapy not intended for audiences. However when personal writing is published on a blog platform it i s instantly accessible to a global audience, basically resulting in non-deliberate public writing.The private versus public boundaries of social media spaces are unclear for users raising privacy and asylum concerns for current and future generations. Vigas (2005) research on teenagers on social media suggests there is a disconnect between the way users say they feel al nigh the privacy settings of their blogs and how they react once they experience unanticipated consequences from a breach of privacy (section 4, para.15 ). Lenhart (2005) reports that 81 percent of parents and 79 percent of online teens report that teens are not cautious enough when giving out their personal information online. Some of the confusion about the public versus private space nature of social networks is associated with the sign-up and registration procedure. Sullivan (2005) believes sites such as Facebook who ask for personal details and set up requirements for membership tend to make young adopters of these technologies think it is safe to give away private information online to a public networked audience. Boeder (2005) reiterates that social networking sites are creating new forms of social behaviour that fuzz the distinctions between public and private interactions and writing, causing confusion. Consequently users may use the update function on Facebook to write a very private update, as a form of self expression purely for their own intent and perhaps for that of close friends, without considering the far reaching global accessibility of their update. The update is indeed macroscopic online not only to their network, but to the network of those who may comment or interact with the status, and indexed online infinitely. Facebook excessively quietens the reality during the sign up process that they offer the platform as a free pecker for users by selling users personal information to advertisers (Horton, 2012).The future of writing in web based communications give ultim ately result in the near total collapse of the division between private and public writing. The publicised aims of leading social media companies coupled with an increasing spread of network literacy globally will aid in the continued breakdown of this once well asserted division. Participatory media reposition, writing and reading will become more and more a social activity pursued in cooperative environments rather than solitary endeavours (Rheingold, 2007). This can already be seen in areas such as online education, with students collaborating through virtual communities and social networks, and education facilitators using platforms such as blogs and wikis for students to publish their work publicly on sort of of lodging an assignment privately to the instructor only. Leading social networks which have facilitated many communicative shifts such as Facebook and Google have already taken steps to further diminish the privacy of their networks. During an interview with TechCrunch , Facebook chief operating officer Zuckerberg revealed that he had taken an about face on privacy and argued that privacy was no longer a social norm (cited in Bosker, para.7). People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people, Zuckerberg said (cited in Bosker, para.7, 2010). That social norm is just something that has evolved over time (cited in Bosker, para. 8, 2010). Despite Zuckerbergs claims, others predict that social medias lack of extol for privacy boundaries may result in a backlash where users will disable their accounts to look for a more closed platform to connect with people they care about (Smith, 2012). In a recent school survey in the US (cited in Smith, 2012), it emerged that some students are opting out of Facebook of their own willing as a reaction against what they see as Face books privacy invasion and the problems Facebook use can cause for themselves and their peers (cited in Smi th, 2012).Despite talks of a mass Facebook exodus, participation on social networks continues to grow and shows no signs of slowing. The future will be characterised by the continuing bridging between private and public, which as discussed, is currently visible in journalism, traditional mass produced media, blogs and other forms of participatory and social media.In conclusion, we are living through a second wave of literacy which is globally networked and largely underpinned by digital technologies. Todays blogging and other participatory media requires readers to be writers and writers to be readers simultaneously. This paper has examined both the emergence and almost complete collapse of private and public writing facilitated through the emergence of the Internet and social media coupled with a significant shift in user behaviour. While there is still a large element of solitude in reading and writing online, this paper has demonstrated the conversational and social aspects of th is literacy increasing steadily and the implications for current and future generations. This is evident not only in online media such as blogging and social media, it is evident in all media and can excessively be seen in the way the general public participates in traditional media. This paper has highlighted writing on blogs and social media as particularly palpable symptoms of larger changes and discussed the risks involved with unclear boundaries around privacy on these platforms. Finally this paper has looked towards the future of web communications and the private and public sphere and suggested that whilst the collapse is most visible in online mainstream and social media, it will eventually occur across more and more convey as networked literacy spreads globally.