THE ETHICS OF PRIVACY IN SHARING CULTURE: NEW CONCEPTS AND PRACTICESDr Zoetanya Sujon, Regent’s University LondonDr Lisette Johnston, City UniversityNovember 12, 2016

6th European Communication Conference

Mediated (Dis)Continuities: Contesting Pasts, Presents and Futures, Prague

Overview • Privacy and sharing culture

• Methods

• Findings

– Privacy matters

– Public “persona”

– Private sharing and depersonalization

• Conclusions

The ethics of privacy in

sharing culture

• Ethics of privacy

• From privacy as protection and control of information

– Photography in late 1800s/early 1900s

– Pushing boundaries around public/private

– Mass communication of new quantities of details (Warren

and Brandeis 1890; Fornaciari 2014)

• Networked privacy (Marwick and boyd 2014; Lambert

2013; Fuchs 2014)

• Studies on privacy and youth

– Privacy matters

– Young people care most about social privacy and exercise

sophisticated privacy strategies

Methods • 7 respondents keeping diaries over 1 week + in-depth interviews

• Survey of 18-36 London residents (N=292)

– 252 eligible entrants, 192 complete

– Completion rate 76.9%

• Snowball sampling and social media promotion / advertising

Age range Female Male

18-19 Diarist 6 (18) --

20-29 Diarist 1 (22), Diarist 3 (25) Diarist 5 (27), Diarist 7 (24)

30-37 Diarist 2 (36) Diarist 4 (37)

Total 4 3

Themes from diarists:

“The big three”

• 1. Privacy matters

– Control and choice dominant metaphors

– Social rather than institutional

• 2. Persona or public facing self

– “Most interesting” and “best self” (18-19 year olds)

– “I wanted people to see that about me” (18 year old

female)

– “It feels like they are having to reaffirm who they are…

or who they want to be” (27 year old male)

• 3. Privacy / sharing strategies

– Private sharing and “public friends”

– Depersonalization

1. Privacy matters: “Privacy builds an individual. Privacy plays a major role in differentiating your individuality from the society. I think, today privacy means staying safe” (respondent 24,

aged 20-24).

How important is privacy is to you?

Privacy means "having your own space to think or act without judgement“ (respondent 142, aged 30-34).

7 3 1327 23

56

16

61

99

Number of mentions in answer to the question "What is privacy to you?" (N = 194)

“Privacy is the freedom to decide to share information, data, movements, conversations, images etc. relating to oneself” (respondent 116, 30-34).

“Privacy is the right to choose which personal information is disclosed and which you prefer to keep to yourself” (respondent 32, 20-24).

2. Persona: “My best self”

Do you present a public side of yourself on social media that is different from how you

are in person? (N = 206)

“Well, we all try to look more

attractive, more interesting, more...

happy than we actually are don't we?” (respondent 189, 20-24).

3. Sharing strategies

• Private sharing

– Rise of Snapchat

– Sharing videos, images, selfies, articles via private channels

(Messenger, WhatsApp, SnapChat etc.)

– “When I do share stuff, it’s privately as I don’t feel

comfortable sharing to public friends” (18 year old female

diarist)

• Depersonalization

– 27 year old male diarist, only mention of a personal

relationship was as context in the diary – not content

– 25 year old female diarist, who shared an article on “single-

shaming in the 20s” – “I realized after sharing this, that

basically I had broadcast my relationship status to all of my

Facebook friends”

– “I do not share things that I feel are personal” (respondent

192, 30-34)

3.61%

10.82%

34.02% 33.51%

18.04%

0.00%

5.00%

10.00%

15.00%

20.00%

25.00%

30.00%

35.00%

40.00%

Always Often Sometimes Rarely Never

Do you share your personal thoughts or feelings on social media?

3

12

35

55

83

5

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Always Often Sometimes Rarely Never Not applicable

Do you share details of your romantic relationships on social media? (N=194)

Conclusion: Ethics of

privacy in sharing

culture?

• Strong support for existing research on youth and privacy

– “Social” privacy matters most

– Exercise privacy strategies around sharing behaviour

– Control and restricted access oriented understandings of privacy dominate

• Networked privacy may accurately outline shifts around ideas of privacy but respondents do not think of privacy in these terms

• Public “persona”, depersonalization and private sharing

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THANK-YOUsujonz@regents.ac.uk lisette.johnston@bbc.co.uk

@jetsumgerl @LisetteJohnston