Negotiating identity and integrity on social network sites for educators

Discussion around the use of social network sites, especially amongst young people, is pervaded by sentiments heralding the decline of privacy. In this context, it is important for scholarship in this area to attend to the array of ways in which individuals are managing their information and identity-projects in these spaces in highly strategic ways, such as audience segregation. Drawing in part on empirical data collected through an ethnography of young Australian users of MySpace and Facebook, this article seeks to draw out the tension between authenticity and integrity that operates in these spaces. In doing so, I suggest that educators must be especially cognisant of the complexity occurring in the strategic management of these spaces, given the ongoing push for universities and agents within the university to engage with these spaces, along with the tension such engagement can bring to the teacher-student relationship.