In Danah Boyd’s online post, she defines the term “super publics”. She begins by explaining that publics are the intersecting spheres we exist in. There is not necessarily one public, but multiple depending on the situation. Public could refer to a park or even a city. The definition of what public becomes completely different when something is posted online. Boyd explains that this information is now so accessible, the word public can’t even encompass it. Henceforth she refers to the digital world as “super publics”. There are still multiple spheres of the public, but there are less and they are much broader. This post reminded me of the readings in week three from Boyd’s book about teenagers posting online only to an intended audience. Because people cannot know who will be viewing what is posted, they can only aim it towards a certain public.
Although we had already addressed the broadness of the super publics in a negative light, I decided to look at what she was saying in a more positive light. We already know that the Internet has made our world even smaller and this idea of super publics helps to illustrate how easily information can be shared in a space even more than public. With the web browser Google Chrome, even language is no longer a barrier in the super publics. Google Chrome allows you to translate any webpage to your preferred language in seconds. In the example given by Danah Boyd in the post, she mentioned how a farmer in Kenya with access to the internet and knowledge of English could read the article in the New York Tjmes, but now the Kenyan farmer just needs access to the internet (with Google Chrome) and the ability to speak any language. Any person in the world can read any article or blog that is posted in any language, as long as they have access to the Internet. When pictured like this, it is obvious that the super in “super publics” is necessary.