Publicly Private and Privately Public: Social Networking on YouTube

By Patricia G. Lange. J. Comput. Mediat. Commun., 2007

840 citations recorded by the source corpus.

YouTube is a public video-sharing website where people can experience varying degrees of engagement with videos, ranging from casual viewing to sharing videos in order to maintain social relationships. Based on a one-year ethnographic project, this article analyzes how YouTube participants developed and maintained social networks by manipulating physical and interpretive access to their videos. The analysis reveals how circulating and sharing videos reflects different social relationships among youth. It also identifies varying degrees of "publicness" in video sharing. Some participants exhibited "publicly private" behavior, in which video makers' identities were revealed, but content was relatively private because it was not widely accessed. In contrast, "privately public" behavior involved sharing widely accessible content with many viewers, while limiting access to detailed information about video producers' identities.

Subfields: Communication, Gender Studies, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e865658e91b9ef84d15835d1e7c8a17545787603

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Citations in the corpus

The virtual geographies of social networks: a comparative analysis of Facebook, LinkedIn and ASmallWorld (2009, background): “com) community, ‘publicly private’ (private behaviors, exhibited with the member’s true identity) and ‘privately public’ (sharing publicly accessible video without disclosing member’s true identity) behaviors were employed to signal different depths of relationships and communicate empathy, respect ”
Students' Facebook ‘friends’: public and private spheres (2009, background): “In a different context – that of YouTube – Lange ( 2007 ) has argued for different types of behaviours in relation to video sharing with varying degrees of ‘publicness’, with what she terms ‘publicly private’ and ‘privately public’ behaviour.”
Old Communication, New Literacies: Social Network Sites as Social Learning Resources (2009, background): “Similarly, Erstad, Gilje and de Lange (2007) discuss young people’s ‘‘remixing’’ practices, defined as selecting, cutting, pasting, and combining ‘‘semiotic Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 14 (2009) 1130–1161 © 2009 International Communication Association1137 resources’’ (downloaded and…”
Social Media and Loneliness (2019, neutral): “With its extensive variety of videos, it is considered to be the most used SNS, despite not having as many user accounts (Lange, 2008).”
Why do people watch others play video games? An empirical study on the motivations of Twitch users (2017, background): “Other forms of new media such as YouTube have already adopted practices common to social network sites (SNS) (Boyd & Ellison, 2007; Lange, 2007), however video game streaming services take these participatory aspects one step further as the interaction is taking place in real time.”
Ethnographic Approaches to Digital Media (2010, background): “…2005, Wesch 2009); personality, personal connection, and friendships (Baym 2010, boyd 2009, Humphrey 2009); the shifting lines between publicity and privacy (Lange 2007, Marwick & boyd 2010); affect and addiction (Chan 2008b, Golub & Lingley 2008, Schull 2011); and archive and memory (Bowker 2007).”
Unspeaking on Facebook? Testing network effects on self-censorship of political expressions in social network sites (2015, background): “…online discussion forums as “privately-public” spaces in which limited self-identity is accentuated more so than the act of publicizing opinions (Lange 2007; Papacharissi 2009).1 In other words, SOS effects online are contingent upon user perceptions regarding the level of private-ness (or…”
Factors affecting YouTube influencer marketing credibility: a heuristic-systematic model (2018, background): “When YouTube in ﬂ uencers become famous because of their unique personality or content, their in ﬂ uence can reach beyond the site of YouTube (Lange, 2007).”
Social media data for conservation science: A methodological overview (2019, background): “Personal profiles and posts can be either private or public, depending on the platform and the user's settings (Lange, 2007).”
Forming digital self and parasocial relationships on YouTube (2016, neutral): “Currently, YouTube is seen as an ideal setting for digital-self presentation and performances, providing rich sources of mediated experience for amateur individuals to show their lifestyles (Lange, 2007; Pace, 2008).”
Social media engagement: What motivates user participation and consumption on YouTube? (2017, background): “YouTube amongst various social media platforms has a strong social aspect to it, whereby users maintain connections with others via commenting (Lange, 2007).”