Grounded In Reality

Recently, a Danish Ph.D. student, Malene Charlotte Larsen, made a list of perspectives on youngster’s online social networking. The list is extensive and contains 35 perspectives all in all. The perspectives differ a lot from the materialistic perspective to the democratic perspective.

Below I have listed a few of them:

1. The Consumer Perspective
Social networking sites are money-making machines creating a need for added value among young people causing them to spend all their pocket money on extra features such as VIP profiles, widgets, gifts for friends and so on.

10. The Branding Perspective
Social networking sites are places where young people learn the mechanism of branding and learn to sell and brand themselves in a positive manner.

11. The Network Perspective
Social networking sites are places where young people learn the crucial importance of being able to network which they can benefit from in their future professional life.

I like the idea of a list like this. I like (and dislike) a lot of the perspectives. Some of them are real and some are simply opinion. But I’m wondering - are they specifically Danish perspectives? Some of the perspectives are generic, but how about no. 21 The Time Consuming Perspectives or no. 22 The Anti-social Perspective? Are they culturally bound? Does an American and South African teenager or teenage parent share these perspectives?

I must admit that I don’t know the answer to this. But from a communication and marketing point-of-view, it would be valuable knowledge when determining target audience outreach.  With this knowledge viral campaigns and other forms of online communication could be optimized to fit the (global) market they are aiming for.

And I’m sure that with so many social networking sites – there MUST be a lot more perspectives than only 35. When I know them, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, feel free to help.

Kristian Levring Madsen
GCI Mannov, Copenhagen