On March 30, 2010, Joline Blais and Jon Ippolito present “Beyond Facebook: From Cliques to Kinship” as part of the University of Maine’s Women in the Curriculum and Women’s Studies Program.
In the interactive presentation “Beyond Facebook: From Cliques to Kinship,” Joline Blais and Jon Ippolito lead a discussion on the benefits and limits of electronically mediated social networks. They examine Facebook as an example of social porn, an attempt to meet deep needs of emerging adolescents and young adults for connection and sociality with a ‘mediated’ substitute that generates information (and thus power and money) for a corporation.
They contrast the superficial networking of Facebook with other virtual alternatives as well as with the dense networking in face-to-face kinship situations. They will be seeking audience stories, experiences, and responses.
Projects featured include RFC (Request for Ceremony), the Distant Neighbor Protocol, and the Cross-Cultural Partnership.