Context collapse: theorizing context collusions and collisions
The collapsing of social contexts together has emerged as an important topic with the rise of social media that so often blurs the public and private, professional and personal, and the many different selves and situations in which individuals find themselves. Academic literature is
starting to address how the meshing of social contexts online has many potentially beneficial as well as problematic consequences. In an effort to further theorize context collapse, we draw on this literature to consider the conditions under which context collapse occurs, offering key conceptual
tools with which to address these conditions. Specifically, we distinguish two different types of context collapse, splitting collapse into context collusions and context collisions. The former is an intentional collapsing of contexts, while the latter is unintentional. We further
examine the ways in which both technological architectures and agentic user practices combine to facilitate and mitigate the various effects of collapsing contexts.
Keywords: computer-mediated-communication; identity; social networking; social theory; sociology
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: 1: Department of Sociology, James Madison University, MSC 7501, Harrisonburg, USA 2: Department of Sociology, University of Maryland, College Park, 20742, USA
Publication date: 21 April 2014
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