The MySpace Phenomenon

Paper Summary:

This paper explores the Internet service, MySpace, as primarily a ritualistic medium and secondarily as a transmissive medium. The paper further loooks at how MySpace and its imitators and competitors function as a medium of social and cultural re-tribalization. Lastly, the paper relates the ways that the unique qualities of MySpace tend to blur the traditional old-media distinction between audience and producer.

From the Paper:

"Social networking on the Internet, by its very nature, is a ritualistic model of communication. The purpose of the social networking is first and foremost to bring people together into a common environment to discover and to share their common values and interests, rather than merely transmit a given packet of information. That this environment is a virtual one rather than a physical one (such as a community center, for example) is part of the uniqueness of Internet-based social networking technologies such as MySpace."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Howe, Jeff. "The Hit Factory." Wired Magazine 13.11, November 2005.http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.11/myspace_pr.html.
• Stafford, Rob. "Why Parents Must Mind MySpace." MSNBC.com. 5 April 2006. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11064451/
• "The MySpace Generation." Business Week. 12 December 2005. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_50/b3963001.htm

More papers on The MySpace Phenomenon:

• Analytical Essay # 133837 : "The MySpace Phenomenon: Ritualistic Social Networking"
• Research Paper # 115463 : "MySpace"
• Persuasive Essay # 146368 : "The Jeffree Star Project: A Mockery of the Digital Self"

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