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Davis Mirrors of contemporary individualism /AA7AB/<B327B=@(Kristine Harmon >C0:71/B7=<AB/44(Emily Raudenbush /@B27@31B7=<( 5 /;07D/:3<B/<B7/;3@71/<7A; Branner Graphic Design The ironies of exported culture 1cZbc`SWa^cPZWaVSRbeWQSgSO`ZgPgbVS7\abWbcbS T]`/RdO\QSRAbcRWSaW\1cZbc`S>=0]f"&$ 1VO`Z]bbSadWZZSD/ '""&$BSZS^V]\S( 7<B3@D73EA "!"' "%%#3[OWZ(WOaQ.dW`UW\WOSRcESPaWbS( eeedW`UW\WOSRcWOaQ &PgbVS7\abWbcbST]` /RdO\QSRAbcRWSaW\1cZbc`S/ZZ`WUVba`SaS`dSR<] @7D/:AB=@73A=4/;3@71/ ^O`b]TbVWa^cPZWQObW]\[OgPS`S^`]RcQSReWbV]cb 12 bVSe`WbbS\Q]\aS\b]TbVS3RWb]`BVS]^W\W]\a An interview with IASC Fellow Shannon Anderson Sf^`SaaSRPgbVSOcbV]`aR]\]b\SQSaaO`WZg`SÀSQb bV]aS]TbVS7\abWbcbST]`/RdO\QSRAbcRWSaW\1cZbc`S 16 =<=0831B7D7BG 1VO\US]T/RR`Saa(S[OWZWOaQ.dW`UW\WOSRc]`\]bWTg A short interview with Allan Megill 1cZbc`SObOP]dSORR`Saa BVS7\abWbcbST]`/RdO\QSRAbcRWSaW\1cZbc`SWaO\ W\bS`RWaQW^ZW\O`g`SaSO`QVQS\bS`O\RW\bSZZSQbcOZ @3D73EA Q][[c\WbgObbVSC\WdS`aWbg]TDW`UW\WOQ][[WbbSRb] c\RS`abO\RW\UQ]\bS[^]`O`gQcZbc`OZQVO\USO\RWba W\RWdWRcOZO\Ra]QWOZQ]\aS_cS\QSa 8 ;=@/:1=<A3<ACA7</A31C:/@/53 A judicious reading of secularity and religion 14 B631C:BC@3=4B63<3E1/>7B/:7A; By Richard Sennett 7<B63<3EA 15 D/43AB7D/:=4B630==9 43::=EA/B:/@53 47:;/E/@2 8=</B6/<8C2/93< <3EE=@97<55@=C> B63:/ABE=@2 17 ;=@/:=@23@ B]^(9ObVSR`OZS71>`W\bPg/\R`SOa5c`aYg %/\R`SOa5c`aYgD50WZR9c\ab 0]bb][(5Sbbg7[OUSa@]PS`b6]Z[U`S\ A]QWOZ<Sbe]`YW\UAWbSa Mirrors of contemporary individualism Felicia Wu Song 7<AB7BCB34=@/2D/<132ABC273A7<1C:BC@3 U S\PS` OcT : O\R]\ /<G=<3 >/G7<5 /BB3<B7=< to the lives of teenagers ]0` or college students knows that being on MySpace or Facebook ]QY^V]b b is almost essential to their everyday experience. MySpace and A W Facebook are social-networking sites on the Internet that are part-yearbook, part-Rolodex, part-Little Black Book, and part- answering machine, with the advantage of being perpetually updated—by the second. !ey allow users to publicly develop and display their social connections and exchange messages within larger, overlapping, and intersecting networks. Many college students admit to being “addicted” to Facebook and leave the site permanently open on their computers. !ey check it right after they roll out of bed in the morning, while they study, and even in the middle of lectures on wireless campuses. !e sudden ubiquity of social-networking sites has left some parents of teenagers feeling worried and helpless. !ese virtual hangouts seem beyond parental control and adult surveillance. While the broader impact of social-networking sites is yet to be seen, it is possible that their significance will be short-lived. Facebook and MySpace could fizzle out and wind up as another of the “has-beens” among the short-term business failures of the Internet. However, there are good reasons to believe that social-networking sites are here to stay. !ey neatly “fit” key cultural realities of contemporary life in ways that few institu- tions do. Consider the social-networking practice of “friending.” Users who join a social-networking site create personal profiles where they can express their interests and values. Users then browse the site, inviting others to their Friends list, and in the process gain access to their Friends’ networks of personal profiles as well. On a daily basis, users update their profiles, check for new information on their Friends’ profiles, and send messages to each other. Given the time involved in generating all this social information, it is not surprising that the most faithful and active users of social-networking sites are teen- agers and college students. While Friends lists often include actual friends from users’ lives, being a “Friend” in a social-networking site does not necessarily indicate a meaningful relationship. In fact, the value of a Friend connection is often merely symbolic and in many cases, relationally negligible. With a click of a button, one can just as easily add Hollywood celebrities, indie bands, or presidential candidates to one’s Friends list as one might 1C:BC@3A^`W\U &! add a roommate, girlfriend, or cousin. While most The success of social-networking sites observers marvel over the relational cornucopia that these sites create, what is more striking is the fact also suggests that young Americans are that celebrities, rock stars, and one’s social intimates comfortable approaching their personal can exist side-by-side on a Friends list with little or no dissonance. A banality of friendship is designed relationships in the mode of consumer. into the functions of these sites. Its easy acceptance suggests that young Americans are both amenable to a “thinning out” of personal relationships and a “thickening” of core of each. People understand “community” in terms of mul- ties to public figures conventionally encountered through the tiple systems of friends, contacts, and acquaintances that span mass media. In this way, Friends lists publicly articulate and time and place—but are oriented around each independent reinforce the contemporary experience of “pseudo-communi- self. Uses of other technologies, such as cell phones, reinforce ty,” the illusion of relationship that media audiences feel with this dynamic. People make more and more calls not to places television talk-show hosts, movie stars, and other celebrities. or households, but to individuals, quite apart from their physi- cal location. !e success of social-networking sites also suggests that young Americans are comfortable approaching their personal rela- In Sources of the Self, the philosopher Charles Taylor meticu- tionships in the mode of consumer. Facebook’s “News Feed” lously documents the transformation of personal identity feature, for example, keeps users up-to-date on each of their in Western civilization over the past two hundred years. He Friends’ online behaviors: who has posted on whose page, argues that the sources of self-identity have shifted from who has removed whom from their Friends list, and who has external and transcendent referents to the internal and subjec- joined which group.