What I related to in today's text
(Girls' Websites: A Virtual Room of One's Own) is that girls can have
a space where they can control the messages they send and create a
comfortable environment for themselves even if it is virtual place.
As the text points out, “Web sites constructed or designed by girls
are one of the few spaces under their control... We consider these
websites to be semiprivate places of creativity and sociality, and
sites of “virtual bedroom culture” (174).” With this space
girls do get the opportunity to create new messages and content that
could be helpful to not only themselves but other girls as well. I'm
not saying these spaces would be a perfect utopia. I don't know how
you get rid of the rigidity that comes with social constructions and
advertising techniques that prey on tweens and teens. But, that said
there is a chance with these spaces to take back some rope in the
tug-of-war between girlhood and advertisers via young adult freedom
and creativity to think outside the box.
I think there's a real difference between having a space in a website and having a cookie-cutter space on a social media site. There's something to do with the actual crafting, the producing of a website that changes the identity of the girl behind it. In places like FB I think it is really more an act of consumption.
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