Abstract
This article brings a sociological perspective to bear on the increasing use of social networking sites and offers a neo-structural approach to analyses of user profiles. It lays particular emphasis on social comparison and the “status game” as one of the dimensions of contemporary rationalisation in the management of interdependencies in social networking sites. This rationalisation is added to increasing labour market flexibility and weakening universalist solidarity. Sociological analysis of these networks brings out the relational and symbolic work accomplished by those involved, as they seek to manage their relational capital. The social rationality that guides them enables them to cross-coordinate and the relational workings of a complex social discipline, which they see as legitimate and is also a component of the collective social capital. We suggest, finally, that advances in research on social and organisational networks could help to identify forms of social discipline that are emerging from the new practice of constructing on-line presence.
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