Mediated Intimacies

Abstract

The employment of the term friend’ to describe all social connections on social network sites is not a coincidence. A strong social drive already existed before the era of social media to identify new kinds of interpersonal relationships based on choice, agency and equality. This impetus corresponds with a particular set of tendencies involving changing interpersonal relationships during late modernity. Chapter 3 addressed the significance of the individualisation thesis advanced by late modern theory which implies a democratisation of intimacy, characterised by diversity and flexibility in emotional intimacy. Importantly, this process of detraditionalisation paves the way for a more fluid and transient notion of intimate connections, beyond the family to incorporate friendship and to acknowledge the social significance of looser, more flexible ties. The intention of this book has been to develop a theory of mediated intimacy in order to contribute to an understanding of the changes in today’s personal relationships in the context of social media. The task in this final chapter is threefold. The first is to draw together the key issues raised in previous chapters in order to identify and confirm the key features of digitally mediated intimacies. Focusing on the mediation of close and loose associations among youth, adults and families, we have seen that the concept of friendship’ emerges as a powerful tool in shaping contemporary meanings of social connectivity. How and why this ideal binds together all mediated connections as personalised networks in articulating digitally framed relationships is addressed.