ABSTRACT
In our view, the authenticity of the “hybrid environments” of social networking sites (Ruhleder, 2000) on campus can best be presented by listening to the voices of students. Th e nature of online campus culture is such that any investigation of these spaces really demands an ethnographic presentation of their meaning to students as interpreted by the students themselves. Students’ explanations of text and images, and their understanding of the purposes and functions of social networking provide us with a more extensive view of student online behavior, and more importantly, the signifi cance that online social networking has for students’ college experience. In many ways, the following ethnographic portraits of four residential college students-Kris, Matthew, Teresa, and Jordan1-are representative of the sociology of social networking among young, collegiate adults. Th eir accounts of online campus culture are vetted through epistemological positions informed by their race and ethnicity, gender identifi cation, sexuality, class year, and other individual and group characteristics. Illustrative of the ways in which online campus culture is developed, enacted, and resisted, these young women and men talk about the diff erences between men’s and women’s uses of Facebook; how they understand racial consciousness enacted online; how they engage in online impression management; and what meaning they make of their online voyeurism.
