The question of privacy in a digital era, and in particular, in the Social Web
realm, resurfaces as the structural affordances of networked spaces remediate the
texture of publicity, sociality, and privacy. People digitally record and archive their
performances of self, enacted via social media. The self (and others) can further
edit, duplicate, and remix these performances, which, accessible via a variety of
search protocols, reach a variety of networked audiences and publics. boyd (2010a)
theorizes these properties as the four affordances of networked publics: persistence,
replicability, scalability, and searchability. The self traverses from privacy to
publicity and back by cultivating a variety of social behaviors or performances.
These affordances complicate the circumstances under which the self may do so,
and are augmented in architectures that emphasize sharing information by default
(Papacharissi 2010; Raynes-Goldie 2010). The challenge for individuals is to
manage the persistence, replicability, scalability, and searchability of their
performances fluently in environments that prompt (and in some instances reward)
sharing.