On The Privacy Awareness In We Media Interpersonal Communication

As the widely use of Internet Technology, especially with the arrival of web2.0Era, the new media, different from traditional ones, has opened up new ways ofinformation spreading. The rise up of “we media” such as live chat and micro-bloghas promoted the Internet interpersonal communication. This is a brand new topic inthe field of interpersonal communication studies.Marshall Mcluban, a famous scholar of communication, has proposed an idea of “theMedia is the Message”, which can be understood as the Media itself is the mostimportant Message in its era. Based on this idea, the share of “we media” can befigured out by analyzing the number of theregistered users, the frequency of using it per capita, and duration of using it.“Wemedia” has become the most important measure of information spreading. In otherwords, it’s a very important message delivered by era. It is not only because “wemedia” has brought a new way of spreading, but also created a new society andlifestyle.However, as a new media, there is no doubt that “we media” has an “AchillesHeel”—“the obfuscation of bound between public and private sphere”. In theconventional sense, public sphere, for regulation between state and society, is basedon media like newspaper, magazine, radio, and TV. With the advent of electronic,digital, information era, and pushed forward by technology, Internet has provided“transference from public authority to private organization” with a new media. It isthe tendency of state socialization that bring the era, in which everyone can be areporter. Everyone can be the hero or spreader of a message, and can take part inpublic affairs. In order to attract others attention, someone disclose privacy of othersor even of his/her own. By contrast, the scope of private sphere is becoming less andless.Especially, micro-blog, which has the feature of we media, having been widelyused makes the phenomena of privacy revealing and onlooking become morefrequently. This essay adopts qualitative research–individual interview method andconstant comparative method-to explore the degree of users’ self-revealing and the awareness of privacy protection in the mode of Internet interpersonal communicationformed from “we media”. Thus, practical recommendations and measures could beproposed to seek the balance between public and private sphere in the process ofInternet interpersonal communication on we media platform.