Aporeticity of Privacy in New Media Environment

Abstract

New media organizations provide their users with tools to manage access to the content and functionalities that are published in the digital space. However, such protection is only of apparent nature. For their users, corporations that operate in the new media environment create their own images as passive non-participants who hold some mythologized, auto-created competences to bring people together in the world without barriers. At the same time, focusing on the analysis of users' behavior, corporations are able to predict certain activities of their users. Considering such a context, a research question has been posed: who is more interested in new media users' privacy – users or new media organizations? In order to answer such a question and in accordance to the interpretative paradigm, an analysis of the economic policy of two new media organizations (Facebook social network, and Google corporation) is provided, including some tools they provide to their users. The study also presents the results of some previous research.