National intimacy and post-socialist networking

Abstract

Social networking sites have become a part of everyday life in post-Soviet cultures. 'International Who is Who' (Iwiw) is unparalleled in its popularity. Modelled after Friendster, Iwiw had 1.5 million registered users in Hungary (a country of 10 million) by 2006, when it was purchased by Deutsche Telecom. The emergence, rapid growth and functioning of this predominantly language and location-based virtual public space provide valuable insight into the formation of a networked public in post-socialist cultures. The article discusses the political and economic context of Iwiw's emergence in comparison with popular social network sites of a global reach such as Facebook and MySpace. It introduces the notion of `national intimacy' to reflect on a specific post-communist tension between the democratic model of interaction presented by Iwiw and the national boundaries of this model; and between the global potential of the technology and its restricted, national use.