Orig. title: Friends, lovers, risk and intimacy: risk-taking as a socially meaningful practice
Engl. transl.: Friends, lovers, risk and intimacy: risk-taking as a socially meaningful practice
Keywords
Sexting
intimacy
risk
self-disclosure
Publication details
| Year: | 2020 |
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.7146/mediekultur.v36i67.116141 |
| Issued: | 2020 |
| Language: | English |
| Volume: | 36 |
| Issue: | 67 |
| Start Page: | 37 |
| End Page: | 54 |
| Editors: | Thorhauge A. M.; Demant J. J.; Gunder Strøm Krogager S.; Leer J. |
| Authors: | Thorhauge A. M.; Bonitz M. |
| Type: | Journal article |
| Book title: | INTIMACY AND VISUAL COMMUNICATION IN SOCIAL MEDIA |
| Journal: | MedieKultur: Journal of media and communication research |
| Publisher: | SMID. Society of Media researchers In Denmark |
| Place: | Copenhagen |
| Topics: | Internet usage, practices and engagement; Risks and harms; Access, inequalities and vulnerabilities; Wellbeing |
| Sample: | "Five focus group interviews with 21 German high school students aged 14 to 17" " The data described and analysed in this article were collected by Mareike Bonitz as part of a research project on photo-sharing practices among young people on Snapchat." "The empirical context is a German secondary school in a town with about 10,000 inhabitants, a so-called Realschule containing students aged 16 to 17" "a mixed-methods approach with an emphasis on the qualitative part" "an initial survey was conducted in order to identify general patterns of use among the school’s students and to recruit participants for the focus group interviews on this basis. Five segmented samples were created, including only females, only males and a mixed group. Moreover, the focus groups included students from the ninth (age 14–15) and tenth grades (age 16–17). Altogether, five focus group interviews with four to five students were conducted, involving 21 students in total." "Each interview lasted about 30 minutes and took place in a conference room at the school during school hours." "the students were asked to categorise several images depicting different forms of self-disclosure" "Th e interview data were subsequently transcribed and anonymised and then coded and analysed in accordance with Miles and Huberman’s (1994) guidelines and principles from conversation analysis (Grønkjær, Curtis, de Crespigny, & Delmar, 2011). Th e coding strategy was abductive" |
Abstract
In this article we aim to analyse and discuss the notion of risk in photo-sharing practices and the purposes risk serves in the development of intimate relationships. We will argue that risk in the form of self-disclosure is an inseparable aspect of intimate photo-sharing rather than an undesirable side-effect, and that a broader analytical perspective on the role of risk in the development of intimate relationships allows us to understand risky photo-sharing as socially meaningful practice. We will unfold and elaborate this theoretical perspective on the basis of five focus-group interviews with 21 German high schools students aged 14 to 17. The interviews focus on the participants’ sharing practices, and the role risk plays in relation to these practices. The data indicates that risk does indeed serve a social purpose as a way of ‘proving friendship’. Yet, it also indicates that the young people in question are more willing to accept risk related to ‘friendly intimacy’ as compared to ‘romantic intimacy’. We will discuss the possible background for this difference as well as its wider methodological and theoretical implications.
Outcome
"risk taking can be seen as a socially meaningful and productive act in the (re)productio n of intimate relationships. However, to the young people in our study, it was deemed more acceptable in the case of friendly intimacy practices as compared to romantic intimacy practices."
"A rather surprising observation was the way the female participants in the focus groups were simultaneously the most likely victims of slut-shaming and moral judgement following image-based sexual abuse, while at the same time the most active victim blamers."
"While risk may very well be a purpose in its own right, it might also serve extrinsic pur-poses such as the establishment of intimate relationships beyond the context of the family"
"risk taking in the form of intimate photo sharing may in fact be a very rational and purposeful act and the consequences of avoiding it entirely may entail other types of social distress, such as a lack of social connection and genuine intimacy"