SHARING IS THE NEW PRIVATE: CONCEPTUALIZING SHARING AND PRIVACY THROUGH READER COMMENTS TO ONLINE NEWS

Abstract

Sharing, as a counterposition to privacy as a normative state, is under-theorized and under-conceptualized. Reader comments to online news accounts offer a space for public deliberation, and provide insight into how the users think and relate to the topic of a story. Leveraging this participatory space, we use semantic network analysis as a starting point to map the conceptualization of sharing as it relates to information online. In doing so, we attempt to further conversations about sharing as it relates to privacy, and demonstrate how these concepts might relate to one another, if at all.