Siibak, Andra, juhendajaOolo, EgleTartu Ülikool. Sotsiaal- ja haridusteaduskondTartu Ülikool. Ajakirjanduse ja kommunikatsiooni instituut2012-06-122012-06-122012http://hdl.handle.net/10062/25787Despite the fact that the online practices of children and teens constitute a hot topic among social scientists, there remains a lack of research of the more complex privacy strategies teens implement on various platforms of social media. Hence, the purpose of the present Master’s thesis „Privacy Strategies of Estonian Teens on Networked Publics“ was to analyze the perceptions Estonian 13-16 year olds have about privacy and the imagined audiences on SNS, blogs and Instant Messenger and to explore the various privacy strategies teens implement in order to manage their extended audience. The topic is important because, as a result of inefficient online privacy protection, teens may easily be confronted with negative consequences offline. The main results of the study are introduced in the article “Performing for one’s imagined audience: social steganography and other privacy strategies of Estonian teens on networked publics“ (2012) written by Egle Oolo and Andra Siibak. The article focuses on presenting an overview of the perceptions teens have about their online audience and the privacy strategies they prefer to use in order to safeguard private information. To study the case of Estonian teens, 15 semi-structured online interviews with 13-16 year old secondary school students were conducted in 2011. The interviews were supplemented with the observation of the respondents’ personal blog posts, tweets and SNS messages, mainly to detect the potential usage of social steganography. The results of the interviews indicate that the teens’ attitude towards their online audience is rather shallow. Although none of the interviewees were sure of the size or the composition of their audience, they sensed the possibility of random acquaintances, parents or teachers occasionally following them on social media. Rather than keeping the latter fact in mind, they preferred to concentrate on their “ideal audience” i.e friends and classmates when creating posts. However, it was evident from the interviews and observations that subconsciously, Estonian teens implement different kinds of privacy techniques to protect their personal sphere. For instance, self-censorship and social steganography i.e secret messages hidden in plain sight were used to maintain popularity and being a visible participant on social media, whereas tightening privacy settings and publishing false information were used moderately. We had a special interest in the practices of secret messages, therefore, the article largely concentrates on the principles of creating them. We found out that posting lyrics or quotes is one of the most common social steganographic tricks among teens because they are fluent in pop culture in a way adults are not. Also, inside jokes were used a lot to keep the real meaning of the posted messages inside the circle of friends it was meant for. In the discussion, we challenge the populistic conviction that today’s youth do not care about privacy. On the basis of the interviews we claim that teens share the same value judgements concerning privacy as adults but they have their own complex social techniques for realising their privacy goals. However, we agree that the social complexity of online audience, the participatory surveillance, the persistence and cross-indexability of data may pose threats to teens, the inexperienced young Internet users. Falling victim to the illusion of anonymity may be prevented by compulsory relevant digital literacy education provided by schools.etlapsednooredInternetvõrgusuhtlussotsiaalmeediaajaveebidprivaatsusriskauditooriumauditooriumiuuringudmagistritöödThesis