This paper aims to analyze the uses of mobile social network services (mSNS) during daily commutes on the basis of a video ethnography conducted with 35 users of the Facebook app. This method is based on the combination of context-oriented recordings made with user-worn camera glasses and mobile screen video capture. These data reveal the way smartphone usage patterns tend to be organized according to notification functions (mSNS, SMS), a specific set of technical cues that mediatize social demand and promote social connectedness. Users manage these cues through a recurrent trend composed of a three-step sequence: they often start by using applications displaying notifications; they favor those that display social demands; and, among them, they prioritize these relational solicitations in accordance with social status or types of relationships. By examining the distribution of users' attention between urban environments and smartphone applications, this video-ethnography also highlights how these "checking habits" are organized according to a set of spatial cues and some daily commute characteristics, such as visual coordination with passengers in public transport. These technical cues mediatize a growing number of social demands that encourage users to keep their eyes focused on their smartphone's screen in public spaces. We argue that these technical cues create a temporary bubble effect and social isolation at a proximal scale, which mostly operate at the beginning of smartphone usage patterns.

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This study examines how social media and information-sharing behavior can influence young adults’ perceptions of changes in tie strength within their own personal networks. By focusing on the extended personal networks (27.56 relationships) of young adults, we show that social media leads them to feel closer to their “friends” whom they think of as exhibiting online behaviors similar to their own. This behavioral homophily mainly stems from frequent reactions between friends, when they like or comment upon each other’s posts. Such homophily is also related to the sharing of political news and entertaining content, which constitute a salient affordance in the “pervasive awareness” of social media and lead users to feel closer to those exhibiting similar content-sharing behavior. This similarity reveals how social media platforms help to shape personal networks over time, particularly by influencing user relationships with weak ties who share similar online behavior.

Comment s'opère la distribution des pratiques d'information autour des usages successifs de différents supports médiatiques ? Dans cet article, nous développons l'hypothèse selon laquelle la sélection des sources d'information ne peut pas être uniquement expliquée à partir de leur légitimité culturelle et des profils sociodémographiques des individus. Nous avançons l'idée que cette sélection des supports d'information, et les usages qui en sont faits, prennent également appui sur des opportunités puisées dans les situations quotidiennes. A travers plusieurs exemples paradigmatiques, nous tentons de décrire comment ces opportunités répondent à des prises situées localement : que ce soit l'environnement ambiant, formé notamment par les médias et les TIC à disposition, ou que ce soit la possibilité d'utiliser un support en présence d'autres personnes et en conduisant d'autres activités.

International audienceBased on an online ethnography study of 274 YouTube videos posted during the Virginia Tech or the Newtown massacres, this article discusses how users resort to participatory media during such mediatized events to create a digital spontaneous shrine. The assemblage of this sanctuary on a website hosting billions of user-generated contents is made possible by means of folksonomy and website architecture, and a two-fold social dynamic based on participatory commitment and the institutionalization of a collective entity. Unlike “physical” spontaneous shrines erected in public spaces, these digital shrines connect the bereaved with provocative or outrageous contributions, notably tributes from school shooting fans using participatory media to commemorate the killer’s memory. This side effect, generated by the technical properties of the platform, compromises the tranquility of the memorial and muddles the boundaries and the contents of such sanctuaries