FROM ANONYMITY TO SELF-DISCLOSURE; RECONTEXTUALISATION OF COMMUNICATION IN NEW MEDIA

• Main Author: Tadej Praprotnik
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: CEOs Ltd. 2015-02-01
• Series: Innovative Issues and Approaches in Social Sciences
• Subjects: Social Web; self-disclosure; privacy paradox
• Online Access: http://www.iiass.com/pdf/IIASS-2015-no1-art08.pdf

Social Web applications are becoming an important communication tool for managing diverse personal and other information among users. The so-called participative culture is a brand new setting calling for intense interactivity. Well-informed citizens with ideas for collaboration is welcomed. The collaboration and sharing of ideas, information and opinions are well documented even in more personal Social Web applications, such as Facebook. Here we are confronting with the problem of privacy and potential harmful or risky behavior. Multimedia production with multimedia convergence of different online communication tools (Social web, forums, online chat, digital photography) has unified communication channels and converged different communication setting. Once strongly separate divisions among different communication setting (private-public) has disappeared. The so-called »privacy paradox« states that while internet users are concerned about privacy, their behavior do not reflect these concerns. Additionally, the divisions between different social groups (friends, parents, employers) are blurring, primary because of interconnectivity of different Social Web applications. Facebook users hardly guess who are their exact audience. The transmission of information intended for one group can be transferred into other context. It has to be mentioned that Facebook users are highly diverse and so are diverse their attitudes toward privacy concerns and willingness to self-disclose. Research indicate that users are to some extent aware of privacy problems, but researches also indicate that general social relevance of particular Social Web applications and personal aspects of general willingness to self-disclose are the major contextual factors influencing users how to communicate in social networking sites such as Facebook.