The links between reality TV and youth’s embrace of social networking sites

The relationship between reality television and SSN sites center around the need for attention.The similar characteristics are that the people are always performing for an audience. Like in reality television, and why some people refrain from watching it, SSN's alter the behavior of the subjects. When comparing SSN's to reality television it is easy to look at the demise of friendster as an example of a sort of media hoaxing. Friendster took a downward spiral after fake accounts were being created "Faksters" to bolster the popularity of a particular account by having the fake accounts friend you. Friendster responded to this by deleting these accounts, but many users embraced the fake accounts as a joke and something to laugh at. Many people left friendster because of the lack of trust between the company and the users. Genuity became an important concept to look at in SSN's after this.


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