Young Women’s Guerrilla Warfare on Facebook: An Analysis of Tactics for Coping with Surveillance

• Main Author: 周宜儒
• Other Authors: 方念萱
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/tjjns6

碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 新聞研究所 === 103 === Facebook is one of the most popular social tools among Taiwanese women these years. Facebook provides a new way of interaction, yet the hidden power relation has seriously hindered young women's Facebook use. This research studies the hindrance from the point of view of “impoliteness” and “silent surveillance.” Socializing is the main purpose for young women using Facebook, however, their seniors interact with them in the way scripted based on the norm offline. Young women are expected to respond accordingly, but they try hard to reclaim their sovereignty online. Following the concepts developed by de Certeau, the research found that young women still possess the capability of “micro-subversive” to change their situation on Facebook and to settle with the seniors by managing their Facebook pages strategically. In-depth interview is conducted to collect and gauge young women’s life experience on Facebook. The result shows that the legitimacy rooted in offline relationship-defined obligations does not melt away on Facebook. Hence, parents of young female users (most of the time, mothers are the ones who frequently “check" daughters' Facebook pages.) are likely to exert power to impose their ideas on young women’s Facebook. For example, these seniors may want to interfere young women' posts or the interaction with peers on the wall. The Facebook mechanism helps to put a facade on the heterogeneous relationships online. Facebook system defines the relationship online as “friends” by default, however, the relationship-defined obligations offline permeated Facebook, and young women are frightened of the seniors’ check-on. Instead of friending with them, the seniors act upon young women’s moves online and they are just like surveillance. To oppose frequent interaction and intensive check-on on Facebook, young women adopt various tactics to distance the seniors online. For instance, young women utilize their computer skills to put themselves in other relatively safe online space, such as Instagram; or to set boundaries in Facebook relationships to keep the seniors away. Although these tactics are not in effect permanently, those bargaining chips on hand along with flexible guerrilla warfare tactics are able to counter the imposing power relationship and therefore, young women can thus reclaim their ownership of their Facebook pages.