Vitak, Jessica. "The Impact of Context Collapse and Privacy on Social Network Site Disclosures." Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 56:4 (2012), p. 451–470.
context collapse (p. 451): The present study presents a model including network composition, disclosures, privacy-based strategies,and social capital. Results indicate that (1) audience size and diversity impacts disclosures and use of advanced privacy settings, (2) privacy concerns and privacy settings impact disclosures in varying ways; and (3) audience and disclosure characteristics predict bridging social capital. (†1857)
context collapse (p. 451): Social network sites (SNSs) are an increasingly ubiquitous part of Americans’ daily lives; recent data show 65% of Internet-using U.S. adults maintain a profile on an SNS (Madden & Zickhur, 2011). Consequently, a number of questions have been raised regarding privacy, disclosures, and outcomes of use. Many of these discussions explicitly or implicitly center on the concept of context collapse: the flattening out of multiple distinct audiences in one’s social network, suchthat people from different contexts become part of a singular group of message recipients.Because of context collapse, users can quickly diffuse information across their entire network and facilitate interaction across diverse groups of individuals who would otherwise be unlikely to communicate (†1858)
