The Pedagogy of Regret: Facebook, Binge Drinking and Young Women more

Forthcoming  in  ‘Mediated  Youth  Cultures’,  Special  issue  of  Continuum:  Journal  of  Media  &  Cultural  Studies.  Brady  Robards  &  Andrew  Bennett  (eds).   The  pedagogy  of  regret:  Facebook,  binge  drinking  and  young  women   Rebecca  Browna  and  Melissa  Greggb   a Department  of  Gender  and  Cultural  Studies,  University  of  Sydney,  Sydney,  Australia;   Department  of  Gender  and  Cultural  Studies,  University  of  Sydney,  Sydney,  Australia   b   This   article   introduces   the   idea   of   a   “pedagogy   of   regret”   to   illustrate   some   of   the   inadequacies  in  recent  government  policy  initiatives  which  target  young  women’s  drinking   practices.   In   the   Australian   context,   the   National   Binge   Drinking   Campaign   warned   young   women:   “Don’t   turn   a   night   out   into   a   nightmare”.   A   similar   British   campaign   advised   individualized   drinkers   to   “know   their   limits”.   The   rhetorical   appeal   of   these   campaigns   hinges   on   the   notion   of   regret:   young   women   will   lament   the   excesses   of   hedonistic   indulgence   the   morning   after   given   the   inevitable   consequences   of   risky   behaviour.   This   paper   shows   the   limitations   of   such   an   appeal   through   a   “sympathetic   online   cultural   studies”   approach   (Driscoll   and   Gregg,   2008a,   2008b,   2010),   which   we   use   to   explore   the   nexus   between   contemporary   drinking   cultures   and   the   social   networking   site   Facebook.     Ordinary   and   mundane   uses   of   Facebook—status   updates   anticipating   the   weekend,   mobile   posts   in   the   midst   of   intoxication,   photo   uploading   and   album   dissemination   the   morning   after—reveal   the   anticipatory   pleasures,   everyday   preparations   and   retrospective   bonding   involved  in  hedonistic  and  risky  alcohol  consumption.      This  demonstrates  the  fundamentally   social   dimensions   accompanying   young   women’s   drinking.   The   enjoyment   derived   from   sharing  the  “risky”  and  “regrettable”  experience  on  Facebook  is  part  of  an  ongoing  “drunken   narrative”   between   girls   (Griffin   et   al   2009).     Such   pleasures,   which   are   increasingly   mediated  by  social  networking  sites,  confound  the  notion  that  young  women  are  haunted   by  inevitable  regret  and  remorse.     This  paper  introduces  the  idea  of  a  “pedagogy  of  regret”  to  illustrate  some  of  the  limitations  in   current  policy  discourse  targeted  at  young  people1,  particularly  young  women.  In  two  separate   and  recent  examples  –  British  and  Australian  Government  campaigns  to  address  the   problematic  rise  of  “binge  drinking”,2  and  ongoing  concerns  over  use  of  the  social  networking   site  Facebook  –  a  similar  tendency  can  be  seen  to  depict  each  activity  in  terms  of  risk.  The        additional  assumption  is  that  mobilising  an  appropriate  level  of  regret  among  individuals  will   lead  to  greater  mindfulness  and  responsible  behaviour.  Building  on  recent  research  into  binge   drinking  and  the  night-­‐time  economy  in  both  Australia  and  the  UK,3  this  paper  develops  a   cultural  studies  approach  to  understand  young  women’s  leisure  activities,  drawing  attention  to   popular  representations,  lived  experiences  and  their  interplay.  Acknowledging  the  significant   pleasures  to  be  found  in  social  networking  online  (boyd  2007;  Driscoll  and  Gregg  2008a;  Kelly,   Pomerantz  and  Currie  2006;  Willet  2008)  and  in  practices  of  hedonistic  drug  and  alcohol   consumption  (Guise  and  Gill  2007;  Moore  2010;  Race  2009),  we  suggest  that  both  situations   offer  spaces  of  relief  and  respite  for  marginal  identities,  namely  young,  working  class  women.     In  this  article  we  draw  on  our  own  experience  of  using  Facebook  to  outline  some  of  the  new   pleasures  that  exist  in  the  nexus  between  drinking  cultures  and  online  media.    This  is  the  latest   in  a  series  of  publications  (Driscoll  and  Gregg  2008a,  2008b,  2010;  Gregg  2009)  seeking  to   develop  examples  of  “sympathetic  online  cultural  studies”.4    Such  a  methodology  acknowledges   that  as  researchers  we  are  also  active  participants  in  online  cultures  and  have  personal   investments  in  these  sites  no  less  than  the  “native  users”  we  seek  to  understand.    To  engage   sympathetically  is  to  recognize  an  engagement  in  the  spaces  with  which  we  are  already   intimate  and  as  such  allows  for  “reflexive  insider  knowledge”  (Measham  and  Moore  2006).         We  had  “gone  native”  on  Facebook  long  before  writing  this  article,  in  fact,  it  was  this  very   nativeness  which  gave  rise  to  the  argument  we  present  here.      This  challenges  the  assumption   that  a  valid  understanding  of  online  cultures  can  only  be  derived  from  an  objective  and  distant   appraisal  of  “real”  users  thereby  disturbing  the  researcher/researched  binary.    For  example,   when  Rebecca  logs  onto  Facebook  on  a  Sunday  morning  in  Australia  and  enjoys  bearing  witness     2      to  and  commenting  on  the  peak  of  Saturday  night  revelry  in  the  UK,  is  she  researcher,  Facebook   member,  or  absent  friend?     We  argue  that  this  sympathetic  reading  of  young  women’s  Facebook  use  provides  a  more   useful  and  engaged  account  than  studies  which  isolate  a  conveniently  accessible  sample  in   order  to  give  an  authoritative  account  of  their  social  networking  activity.  Such  a  methodological   approach  demands  that  any  personal  involvement  or  investment  in  online  cultures  is  written   out  and  thus  rendered  invisible  or  deemed  “invalid”.    In  contrast,  this  sympathetic  engagement   with  the  preferred  activities  of  young  people  can  identify  the  practices  of  care  and  concern   already  at  play  among  participants  in  apparently  risky  behaviour.    These  peer-­‐to-­‐peer  models  of   performance  and  witnessing  that  can  be  gleaned  through  alternative  economies  of  online   culture  offer  useful  parameters  to  inform  safety  messages  for  young  people  in  future.       Nightmare  visions   In  2008,  the  Australian  Labor  government  launched  the  “National  Binge  Drinking  Strategy”   (Department  of  Health  and  Aging,  National  Binge  Drinking  Strategy,  2008)  as  part  of  a  five  year   National  Alcohol  Strategy  running  from  2006-­‐2011  (Ministerial  Council  on  Drug  Strategy  2006).   Pitched  as  a  “community  level  initiative”,  the  strategy  aimed  to  “address  binge  drinking  among   young  people”.    Key  objectives  of  the  campaign  were  to  “confront  the  culture  of  binge   drinking”,  ensuring  that  young  people  take  “personal  responsibility”  for  their  behaviour  and     3      recognize  its  “costs  and  consequences”.  In  these  ways  the  approach  echoed  the  British  Labour   party’s  Alcohol  Harm  Reduction  Strategy  which  began  operation  in  2004  (Prime  Minister’s   Strategy  Unit  2004).  The  “Safe,  Sensible,  Social”  policy  launched  in  2007  sought  to  deal  with  the   UK’s  “alcohol  problem”,  classifying  binge  drinkers  as  being  between  the  ages  of  18  and  24   (Department  of  Health  2007,  6).  The  British  policy  aimed  to  promote  a  “sensible”  drinking   culture  for  which  all  citizens  must  take  personal  responsibility.   Both  the  Australian  and  British  strategies  devote  particular  attention  to  young  people  as  the   main  perpetrators  of  problematic  drinking.  Analysis  of  the  marketing  campaigns  attached  to  the   strategies  makes  this  clear.  In  the  Australian  context,  $20  million  worth  of  television,  radio  and   poster  materials  advised  young  people  not  to  “turn  a  night  out  into  a  nightmare”  (Department   of  Health  and  Aging  2008,  Don’t  turn  a  Night  Out  into  a  Nightmare).5    Filmed  from  the   perspective  of  a  young  drinker,  TV  advertisements  depicted  a  range  of  worst-­‐case  scenarios  for   drinking  excessively  –  and  they  did  so  according  to  gender.  The  first  30  seconds  of  one  such   promotion6  shows  a  group  of  female  friends  arriving  at  a  house  party.  The  initially  friendly   atmosphere  quickly  gives  way  to  a  far  more  sinister  scene,  as  a  young  woman  is  seen  relocating   to  the  garden  with  a  boy.  Standing  over  her  as  he  undoes  his  zip,  she  lies  on  the  grass  removing   her  underwear.  A  sudden  flash  signals  a  digital  photo  being  taken  of  the  pair  from  somewhere   nearby.  Bystanders  observing  the  scene  whisper  “that’s  hilarious”  and  “Oh  my  God”  while  a   bleak  message  fills  the  screen:  “One  in  two  Australians  aged  15-­‐17  who  get  drunk  will  do   something  they  regret”.       4      The  second  half  of  the  same  advertisement  (which  sometimes  ran  separately)  follows  a  young   man  as  he  sneaks  a  backpack  of  booze  past  his  parents  in  the  family  home.  He  proceeds  to  a   park  to  consume  the  alcohol  with  other  male  friends.  The  mood  is  one  of  lighthearted   drunkenness  and  bonding  until  the  group  moves  to  another  destination.  On  the  way,  the   protagonist  is  caught  in  the  middle  of  the  street  and  hit  by  a  passing  car.  Screams  of  anguish   and  fear  are  audible  as  the  injured  boy’s  perilous  wheezing  gains  volume.  Onscreen,  viewers   are  informed:  “Four  Australians  under  25  die  due  to  alcohol  related  injuries  in  an  average   week”.   Both  vignettes  position  the  drinker  as  a  regretful  victim  and  perpetrator  of  lamentable   behaviour.  Each  demonstrates  a  failure  of  comportment  and  competence  without  the  requisite   responsibility  to  drink  sensibly.  In  the  first  “nightmare”  scenario,  girls  arrive  together  as  a   group,  and  the  house  party  is  a  source  of  freedom  and  opportunity.  By  the  ad’s  conclusion   however  the  encounter  between  boy  and  girl  is  notably  isolated.  This  lasting  image  of  an   apparently  private  seduction  is  placed  in  peril  by  the  hidden  camera.  The  particular  burden  of   responsibility  that  technology  places  upon  young  women  is  taken  for  granted  in  this  depiction.   The  ad’s  pedagogy  is  to  inform  young  girls  that  they  should  be  prepared  for  such  unfortunate   eventualities  from  their  intimate  actions,  and  conduct  themselves  accordingly.7  The  shifting  age   ranges  in  these  commercials  are  part  of  a  wider  set  of  issues  about  how  data  is  used   strategically  to  represent  the  risks  of  drinking  to  young  people.    The  younger  age  of  the  female   protagonist  in  this  ad  accords  with  the  age  range  that  is  the  source  of  moral  panic  in  relation  to   our  other  object  of  interest,  online  media  (Driscoll  and  Gregg  2008b).     5      In  contrast  to  the  young  gang  of  boys  who  take  off  in  to  the  night,  the  girl  is  rendered  passive.   Something  happens  to  her,  and  the  risky  outcome  is  an  embarrassing  photograph  potentially   going  viral.    The  ad  suggests  that  had  she  avoided  the  temptations  of  alcohol  she  would  not  be   with  the  young  man  in  the  bushes.  Regret  is  the  articulating  force  that  links  sexual  activity,   photo  documentation,  and  the  consumption  of  alcohol.  In  this  moral  economy,  the  motivations   of  the  photographer  are  rendered  irrelevant.  Responsibility  for  the  situation  falls  to  the  girl,  and   the  outcome  is  hers  alone  to  regret.  What  is  unthinkable  in  the  terms  set  by  the  representation   is  that  the  young  couple  may  have  enjoyed  a  pleasurable  encounter  had  they  been  left  to  their   own  devices.           The  “nightmare”  campaign  is  not  an  isolated  example  in  official  depictions  of  young  women’s   drinking.  A  similar  format  was  used  by  the  Queensland  Government’s  (2010)  “Every  Drink   Counts”  campaign.  The  televised  version  centres  on  a  group  of  attractive  young  women  on  a   night  out  in  licensed  premises.8  As  the  evening  rolls  on,  things  turn  sour  as  one  of  the  revelers   finds  herself  on  the  ground  in  an  alley.  Night  vision  blurs  the  scene  but  a  hand  is  shown  on  her   breast  and  men  kneel  over  her.    She  lies  on  the  ground  unconscious  as  a  voiceover  informs   viewers:  “Excessive  drinking  leads  to  your  chances  of  being  abused,  injured  or  assaulted…  don’t   go  too  far”.  Again  the  text  positions  women  as  responsible  for  actions  performed  by  men.  The   rhetoric  of  regret  absolves  any  consideration  of  the  ethics  or  legality  of  men’s  actions   independent  of  the  woman’s  alcohol  consumption.  In  these  worst-­‐case  scenarios,  young   women’s  regretful  behaviour  is  clearly  linked  to  sex;  women  render  themselves  available  by     6      drinking.    In  a  similar  vein,  a  current  New  South  Wales  Health  Department  (2009)  poster   displays  an  image  of  a  young  women  being  undressed  by  her  drunken  and  disheveled  alter  ego   while  a  dark  and  menacing  male  figure  looks  on.  The  intended  audience  is  informed:  “Your   choice  to  get  drunk.  Your  choice  to  go  home  with  him.  Your  regret  tomorrow”.    These  ads   appeal  to  the  notion  that  in  the  cold  light  of  day  the  women  will  regret  “letting  themselves  go”   and  “lowering  their  standards”.  Women’s  capacity  for  control  and  agency  is  forever  at  risk  in   these  drinking  scenes,  requiring  constant  practices  of  diligence.       Respectable  drinking  bodies   The  supposition  that  young  women  will  lament  their  drunken  actions  hinges  on  ideals  of   normative  femininity  and  heterosexuality,  in  which  young  women  strive  to  appear   “respectable”  to  their  peers  and  others  (Skeggs  1997).  The  pedagogy  of  regret  is  in  this  way   closely  tied  to  the  performance  of  ideal  femininity,  especially  as  this  manifests  in  established   standards  of  beauty  and  appearance.  An  example  of  this  in  the  British  context  is  the  2008   campaign  advising  young  drinkers  to  “know  their  limits”  (Department  of  Health  2008).  In  the   female  storyline  –  for  the  pedagogy  is  again  determined  by  gender  –  a  young  woman  is  shown   in  her  bedroom  preparing  to  go  out.9  As  with  the  Australian  campaigns,  the  character  in  the   British  plotline  is  young  and  white,  and  the  storyline  centres  on  wayward  individuals.    Rather   than  applying  make  up  or  hairspray  however,  the  woman  rips  her  top,  vomits  in  the  bathroom   sink  and  smears  the  mess  over  herself.  Wiping  eye  makeup  and  lipstick  over  her  face,  she  then   pours  red  wine  over  her  clothes.  Heading  for  the  door  in  anticipation  of  the  night  out,  she     7      triumphantly  snaps  the  heel  off  her  shoe.  The  ad  concludes:  “You  wouldn’t  start  a  night  off  like   this,  so  why  end  it  that  way?”    Similar  tactics  underpin  another  British  health  authority   campaign  entitled  “Bloody  Mary”  (Derbyshire  Primary  Care  Trust  2009)  which  shows  a  group  of   boisterous  young  men  in  a  British  high  street  at  night.10  After  sizing  up  a  group  of  women  they   would  like  to  “tap”,  the  men  come  across  an  intoxicated  and  unkempt  young  woman  urinating   in  public.  She  is  emphatically  declared  “disgusting”  and  “gross”.  The  ad’s  message  –  that  the   night  has  been  ruined  by  alcohol  –  pivots  on  the  girl’s  lack  of  control.   These  narratives  respond  to  just  as  they  reinforce  perceptions  that  the  “public  face”  of  British   binge  drinking  is  a  young  woman.  This  is  despite  evidence  that  there  has  been  a  slight  decline  in   women’s  drinking  in  the  UK  since  2000  (Measham  and  Ostergaard  2009).  Measham  and   Ostergaard  reflect  on  the  now  familiar  image  of  an  intoxicated  young  working  class  woman  who   frequents  city  centre  bars  and  imposes  her  raucous  behaviour  on  the  civilized  general  public.  In   the  British  press,  women  bear  the  blame  for  a  binge  drinking  “culture”  due  to  wider   transformations  that  are  reconfiguring  gender  and  class  identity.  As  Skeggs  (2005)  argues,  white   working  class  women  have  been  refigured  as  the  “constitutive  limit”  to  public  morality.  This  is   due  to  neoliberal  styles  of  governance  and  “value”  predicated  on  notions  of  personal   responsibility,  investing  in  oneself  and  compulsory  individuality.  Displaying  characteristics  that   are  commonly  associated  with  the  working  class,  such  as  being  loud,  vulgar  and  excessively   drunk,  the  body  of  the  female  binge  drinker  signals  her  immorality.  She  is  a  threat  to  the  nation   and  also  a  threat  to  herself  (Skeggs  2005).     8      In  their  analysis  of  British  newspaper  representations  of  women’s  alcohol  consumption  Day,   Gough  and  McFadden  (2004)  find  further  evidence  that  problem  drinkers  are  female.   Journalists  were  found  to  draw  on  discourses  of  natural  femininity,  motherhood  and  sexuality   to  present  women  who  drink  as  transgressing  gender  norms  in  that  they  were  considered   unfeminine  or  overly  masculine.  At  the  same  time  however,  alcohol  consuming  women  were   simultaneously  portrayed  as  vulnerable  and  at  risk  in  the  context  of  the  act  itself,  since  drinking   rendered  them  susceptible  to  male  aggression  and  sexual  abuse.  Meyer’s  (2010)  analysis  of   rapes  reported  in  the  Daily  Mail,  a  notoriously  conservative  middle-­‐brow  British  newspaper,   shows  similar  patterns  of  hypocrisy  and  disapproval  in  describing  women’s  alcohol   consumption.    Clearly  then,  women’s  drinking  is  deemed  risky,  unfeminine  and  the  source  of   regret  –  either  in  itself,  or  in  relation  to  the  behaviour  that  will  inevitably  ensue.    Constant   interrogations  –  “Where  are  your  choices  taking  you?”  and  “What  are  you  doing  to  yourself?”  –   emphasize  that  binge  drinking  is  “all  about  you”  (Department  of  Health  and  Aging  2002;  New   South  Wales  Health  Department  2009).  Yet  this  personal  interpellation  contradicts  a  host  of   recent  research  showing  that  social  and  peer  interactions  are  central  influences  in  young   women’s  choice  to  engage  in  drinking.     Drinking  pleasures   For  young  people,  the  pleasures  of  drinking  tend  to  be  shared  ones.  In  their  ethnography  of   working  class  young  women  in  Wollongong,  a  regional  centre  on  the  south  coast  of  NSW,  Waitt,   Jessop  and  Gorman-­‐Murray  (2011)  find  that  women’s  experience  of  “going  out”  is  very  much     9      based  on  the  intimacy  of  bonding  with  friends.  Key  aspects  of  the  night  out  include  dressing  up   according  to  culturally  valued  norms  of  “sexiness”  –  with  protracted  group  preparations  leading   to  an  eventual  public  showing  in  local  bars  and  nightclubs.  For  these  women,  increased  sexual   assertiveness,  confidence,  singing,  fighting  and  even  defecating  in  public  are  enjoyable   dimensions  of  excessive  drinking.  They  are  not  experiences  to  be  regretted,  so  much  as   expected.  The  very  “best  nights”  for  these  young  women  are  those  that  generate  dramatic   stories  arising  out  of  excessive  drunkenness,  leading  to  further  pleasures  in  the  retelling.   Sheehan  and  Ridge  (2001)  also  demonstrate  the  meaningful  and  positive  role  alcohol   consumption  has  in  the  lives  of  Australian  teenage  girls.    They  describe  how  negative  incidents,   including  occasions  of  harm,  are  filtered  through  the  lens  of  the  “good  story”.  Alcohol   consumption  is  linked  to  tales  brimming  with  fun,  adventure  and  friendship.  So  while  vomiting   and  making  a  fool  of  oneself  may  be  a  part  of  the  experience,  a  “bad”  story  becomes  a  “good”   anecdote  when  it  can  be  recounted  later  amongst  friends.  This  reflects  the  notion  of  the   “drunken  narrative”  described  by  Griffin  et  al  (2009).    The  inherent  element  of  sociability  which   underpins  young  women’s  drinking  practices  has  also  been  highlighted  by  Guise  and  Gill  (2007),   Lyons  and  Willot  (2008)  and  Szmigin  et  al  (2008).  Van  Doorn’s  (2009)  study  of  social  networking   in  the  Netherlands  found  that  the  main  themes  in  young  people’s  online  conversations  were   the  hedonistic  activities  of  night  life,  sex  and  drugs.  Friendship  bonds  were  strengthened   through  the  shared  desire  for  deviance  and  transgressive  behaviour.       Before  moving  on  to  discuss  Facebook  in  particular,  we  should  first  note  the  anxieties  attending   this  emergent  social  practice  among  young  people  and  its  overlap  with  the  preceding   discussion.  The  pedagogy  of  regret  accompanying  binge  drinking,  with  its  insistence  on     10      preparedness,  propriety  and  foresight,  also  dominates  popular  and  political  discourse  centred   on  social  networking  sites.    One  such  concern  revolves  around  the  increasingly  commonplace   practice  of  employers  vetting  potential  employees’  profile  pages  (Brown  and  Vaughn  2011;   Rosen  2010).  It  is  assumed  young  people  will  therefore  regret  their  leisured  use  of  Facebook  in   the  future,  i.e.  once  they  reach  the  age  for  the  job  market.    A  recent  study  of  Australian   undergraduates’  portrayal  of  alcohol  consumption  on  their  Facebook  profiles  recommends   pointing  out  to  students  that  “it  predicts  consequences  inconsistent  with  their  aims  of   academic  and  future  success”  (Ridout,  Campbell  and  Ellis,  forthcoming).    While  this  recruitment   practice  may  be  a  growing  trend,  the  insistence  that  social  networking  sites  must  be  read  in   terms  of  privacy  concerns  and  other  middle  class  anxieties  is  precisely  the  point  of  contention   that  this  article’s  “pedagogy  of  regret”  is  intended  to  highlight.  Impression  management  is   often  important  for  those  entering  the  market  for  white  collar  jobs  (Gregg  2011)  yet  it  is  less   significant  for  the  wider  demographic  of  Facebook  users  who  may  not  hold  the  same  desires  or   have  access  to  the  same  cultural  capital  that  underpins  them.         Initiatives  like  the  Australian  Government’s  “NetAlert”  program  (complete  with  accompanying   software  with  the  telling  title  “My  Child  My  Values”)  have  been  quick  to  remind  young  people   of  the  dangers  of  online  networking  with  strangers  (Gregg  2007).  Indeed  by  2009,  the  US   President  felt  the  need  to  petition  high  school  students  of  the  risks  of  posting  “stupid  stuff”  on   the  internet  (AFP  2009).    A  welter  of  research  is  devoted  to  understanding  the  motivations  for   young  peoples’  practices  of  online  self-­‐presentation.    The  literature  in  this  field  is  now     11      staggering,  but  samples  from  a  range  of  disciplines  include  Manago  et  al  (2008),  Walther  et  al   (2008),  Buffardi  and  Campbell  (2008),  Bortree  (2005),  Walker  (2000),  Schau  and  Gilly  (2003),   Dominick  (1999)  and  Livingstone  (2008),  who  specifically  focuses  on  “risk”.    This  has  done  little   to  overcome  the  default  assumption  that  posting  identifying  information  online  poses  explicit   risk.  And  yet,  young  people  continue  to  do  it.  With  over  500  million  users,  and  a  Hollywood  film   mythologizing  its  world  domination  (Fincher  2010),  Facebook  continues  to  triumph  over  these   and  many  other  threats  premised  on  the  notion  of  privacy.  As  with  binge  drinking,  the   pleasures  of  using  Facebook  are  seen  to  outweigh  the  risks,  since  it  is  one  of  the  reliable  ways   to  access  shared  intimacies  between  friends.       You  have  been  tagged  in  a  photo:  The  pleasures  of  drinking  on  Facebook   Any  Facebook  user  acquainted  with  young  women  who  enjoy  going  out  drinking  will  recognize   the  register  of  activity  that  precedes,  enhances  and  memorializes  weekend  “binges”.  In  keeping   with  our  objective  of  providing  a  sympathetic  reading  of  online  culture,  here  we  include  a   sample  of  updates  collected  from  our  own  Facebook  “friends”  while  writing  this  paper  to   illustrate  these  registers  of  mediated  online  drinking:11   Ah  god  am  never  drinking  again  -­‐  Until  tonight  haha   had  a  fucking  crackin  night  last  night..  Suffering  today  though..   is  out  with  the  wifey  and  i  can  see  it  been  a  messy  one...   bout  to  get  ready  to  have  total  carnage  with  the  girls,errr  i  mean  social  drinks..  hahaha..       12      cocktails,  shots  and  friends  =  good  times   was  only  out  for  3  hrs  was  mortal....  bombs,  buca’s,  sourz,  wine  to  name  a  few  I  done   you  proud!   There’s  no  chance  you  go  a  weekend  without  drinkies!!  It’s  like  a  sin!  I’m  up  for   jägerbuca’s    Il  carry  you  if  you  carry  me  haha!     Decided  earlier  I  was  going  to  be  a  good  girl  and  not  have  a  drink  tonight......That  lasted   all  of  1hour!!!!!  Hellloo  Mr  Blossom  Hill  :)   is,  in  the  words  of  Calvin  Harris,  Ready  for  the  Weekend!!   ive  got  that  friday  feeling!   Thank  god  -­‐  my  weekend  starts  now  :)   vodka  jelly  shots  in  the  fridge  girls,  fingers  crossed  they  work  x   is  off  out  with  the  girls  tonight.   Me  +  vodka  equals  messy!  I  should  not  be  allowed  to  take  my  phone  out  with  me!   Girls  Gone  Wild  starting.......NOW!   The  anticipatory  pleasures  of  drinking  on  Facebook  pivot  on  the  use  of  status  updates  to  signify   the  intent  towards  mischievous  adventure.  As  the  weekend  arrives,  and  preparations  for  the   night  out  commence,  updates  are  used  to  share  the  excitement  for  a  wider  audience  –  an   audience  which  may  also  include  others  that  will  be  joining  in  later  at  pre-­‐publicized  venues.     13      This  mix  of  absent  and  potentially  physically  present  “friends”  online  makes  the  performance  of   the  night  out  part  of  the  experience.  The  comments,  feedback  and  encouragement  received   from  online  connections  is  one  of  the  additional  pleasures  of  the  event.     The  “peak”  of  the  night  out  is  also  routinely  documented  by  the  live  post  or  photo  update,  as   mobile  devices  allow  a  narrative  thread  to  be  maintained  for  onlookers.  One  of  the   amusements  for  the  Facebook  audience  is  in  discerning  the  moment  of  intoxication,  either   during  or  after  the  event.  Tell  tale  signs  are  when  words  which  may  have  been  chosen  carefully   just  hours  earlier  become  careless,  provocative  or  even  incoherent.  These  insider  jokes  extend   to  being  privy  to  a  friend’s  suffering  the  next  day,  when  they  are  “dying”.  Facebook  and   drinking  are  thus  a  twinned  entertainment,  in  that  the  experience  of  each  is  mutually  enhanced   in  combination.     With  their  documentary  trail  prior  to  and  following  a  night  out,  social  media  updates,  photos   and  commentary  are  evidence  that  question  the  figure  of  the  isolated  drinker  left  to  arbitrate   personal  choices  alone.  Rather  than  being  “all  about  you”,  binge  drinking  on  Facebook  is  a   highly  public  display  shared  with  a  multitude  of  known  and  unknown  participants  and   observers.  Here  new  media  platforms  bear  witness  to  the  temporalities  of  preparation,   anticipation  and  revision  that  accompany  nights  out,  and  they  do  this  in  an  unprecedented  way.   Over  time,  Facebook  reveals  the  mundane  and  routine  place  drinking  occupies  in  the   imagination  of  young  people  through  the  weekday  and  leading  into  the  weekend.  For  young   women  in  particular,  Facebook’s  mode  of  witnessing  allows  an  appreciation  of  the  extent  to   which  young  women  carefully  organize  the  routes  and  the  itineraries  for  hedonistic     14      consumption.  Using  social  media  to  indicate  the  location  of  the  night’s  activities  bears   comparison  with  the  way  other  minority  groups  ensure  the  safety  of  venues  in  advance.12   Mobile  media  devices  allow  updates  to  spread  beyond  the  site  of  consumption.  They  offer  a   layer  of  surveillance  and  protection  for  young  women  who  may  not  regard  their  position  as  one   of  vulnerability  when  drinking.  These  are  just  some  of  the  ways  that  Facebook  can  be   understood  as  a  “security  blanket”  for  mobile  youth  (Gregg  2011).   This  context  helps  to  explain  that  the  ritual  of  uploading  photos  in  the  midst  of  and  following   drinking  sessions  is  a  further  dimension  to  the  pleasure  of  telling  “a  good  story”  (Sheehan  and   Ridge  2001)  and  the  “drunken  narrative”  (Griffin  et  al  2009).  Facebook  extends  the  “drama”  of   the  night  out  for  a  longer  period.  Depending  on  the  moment  of  upload,  it  offers  a  little  slice  of   the  weekend,  an  indefinite  extension  of  its  pleasures.  These  traces  linger  in  spaces  and  times   following  the  singular  “night  out”,  counteracting  the  banality  of  everyday  life.  This  is  especially   the  case  for  young  women  whose  9-­‐to-­‐5  experience  –  or  whose  multiple  commitments  to  work,   childcare  and  study  –  prevent  access  to  other  kinds  of  fun  and  excitement.     Postfeminism  and  the  limits  of  working  class  women’s  pleasure     If  the  pedagogy  of  regret  captures  the  lessons  to  be  learned  about  “the  propriety  of   consumption”  (Race  2009,  17),  in  this  final  section  we  suggest  that  binge  drinking  can  also  be   understood  as  a  response  to  circumstances  affecting  women’s  participation  in  other  sectors  of   the  public  sphere,  not  the  least  of  which  is  paid  work.  The  rise  of  public  drinking  among  women   –  and  its  official  interpretation  as  a  problem  –  comes  in  tandem  with  their  greater  participation     15      in  the  paid  labour  market,  which  also  explains  why  women  now  have  the  apparent  “freedom”   to  drink  in  public.  What  is  of  interest  here  is  the  extent  to  which  young  women  with  the  least   financial  capital  have  become  the  primary  targets  for  discourses  of  concern  over  alcohol.  It  is   young  working  class  women  that  are  identified  as  problem  drinkers,  despite  the  fact  that   professional  women  are  the  highest  alcohol  consumers  across  this  demographic  (Measham  and   Ostergaard  2009).     Within  the  current  “postfeminist”  climate,  young  women  are  constituted  as  subjects  of   “capacity”  in  terms  of  their  educational  and  occupational  attainment  (McRobbie  2007).   Education  and  employment  are  the  privileged  routes  to  female  success  and  mobilization  and   can  only  be  capitalized  upon  by  those  positioned  to  do  so.  Not  all  young  women  benefit  equally   in  these  hierarchies  of  ability  and  attainment.  Those  from  middle  class  families  are  more  likely   to  become  part  of  the  new  competitive  “career”  elite,  whereas  working  class  girls  are  resigned   to  more  routine  work  and  have  “jobs”.  Yet  these  young  women  are  still  expected  to  get  a   degree  and  show  flexibility,  capacity  and  individualism  in  a  labour  market  which  otherwise   deems  them  as  occupational  and  educational  failures.       McRobbie  argues  that  within  this  reconfigured  sexual  contract,  the  “phallic  girl”  emerges  as  the   embodiment  of  the  independent,  successful  neoliberal  citizen  (McRobbie  2007).  This  economic   sensibility  is  embedded  at  the  level  of  both  governmental  discourse  and  popular  culture,  and   while  relying  on  the  language  of  feminism  and  liberation,  it  works  subtly  to  re-­‐stabilize  gender   inequity  and  structures  of  patriarchy.  On  the  premise  that  she  delays  motherhood  and  is   economically  viable,  the  young  phallic  girl  can  assume  the  subject  position  of  the  pleasure     16      seeker,  one  who  is  assertive  and  independent.    In  this  gender  regime,  young  women  must   present  themselves  as  fun  and  spontaneous  rather  than  sensible  and  sober.  Postfeminist   consumer  culture  invites  young  women  to  be  hedonistic  and  “free”,  with  alcohol  playing  a   major  part  in  defining  the  terms  of  pleasurable  liberation  (Griffin  2005).     For  young  women  who  are  uninterested  or  unable  to  access  the  marketable  characteristics  of   entrepreneurialism  and  enterprise,  but  who  are  still  implicated  within  these  neoliberal   discourses,  projecting  a  good  time,  sexualized  persona  on  Facebook  is  a  way  of  enacting  social   capital  when  the  avenues  for  economic  and  cultural  capital  are  not  equally  open  to  them  (see   Schwarz  2010).  In  contrast  to  popular  culture  examples  –  which  so  often  focus  on  women  “in   high-­‐paying,  high-­‐status  professions”    (Leonard  2007,  104)  –  these  performances  of  “fun”  are  a   way  of  inhabiting  and  escaping  day-­‐to-­‐day  mundanity.  Weekend  antics  are  acknowledged  as   the  key  opportunities  for  pleasure  and  hedonism  available,  even  when  these  practices  directly   contravene  the  middle  class  imperative  for  sobriety  and  comportment.  Whether  it  is  uploading   drunken  photos  or  using  status  updates  to  show  mocking  regretfulness  about  a  hangover  or   loss  of  memory,  young  women  demonstrate  their  sassy  and  spontaneous  nature,  all  the  while   allowing  them  enough  time  to  recover  before  being  back  at  work  on  Monday  morning.           Conclusion:  Mediated  ecologies  of  care   The  pedagogy  of  regret  underpinning  binge  drinking  campaigns  targeted  at  youth   underestimates  the  cultural  dynamics  of  leisure  practices,  including  the  longer  “drunken   narrative”  (Griffin  et  al  2009)  that  surrounds  a  night  out.  Rather  than  deterring  young  women     17      from  heavy  drinking,  the  depictions  typical  of  official  awareness  campaigns  may  actually   glamorize  the  practice  –  acting  as  advertisements  for  alcohol  rather  than  deterrents  (Waitt  et   al,  2011).  Noting  the  interplay  between  intoxication,  its  accompanying  experience  of  pleasure,   and  the  further  pleasures  to  be  gained  through  its  witnessing  on  sites  like  Facebook,  is  to   realize  the  wider  dimensions  accompanying  young  people’s  drinking  habits.  Isolated  from  social   and  cultural  contexts,  a  number  of  which  this  paper  has  outlined,  anti-­‐binge  drinking  campaigns   presume  that  a  rational  calculating  agent  can  be  sufficiently  schooled  to  recognize  danger  signs   and  prepare  to  avoid  them  in  advance.  The  pedagogy  of  regret  takes  it  as  read  that  binge   behaviour  will  be  subject  to  subsequent  revision  and  remorse,  and  that  nightmare  scenarios  are   a  matter  of  one  right  or  wrong  choice.  We  make  no  claim  regarding  the  success  of  such   campaigns  (for  a  recent  discussion  on  this  see  Hutton,  forthcoming),  nor  suggest  that  feelings  of   regret  will  not  ever  appear  the  next  morning  –  but  argue  that  Facebook  provides  a  lens  for   understanding  the  pleasures  which  are  to  be  found  in  risky  and  liminal  drinking  practices.     Enjoyment  derived  from  sharing  one’s  intoxicated  antics  and  killer  hangovers  confounds  the   notion  that  regret  is  inevitable  or  solely  a  negative  experience.       In  a  wider  cultural  and  policy  environment  dominated  by  risk  management,  enjoyment  of   intoxication  cannot  be  admitted  as  a  legitimate  “benefit”  of  alcohol  consumption  (Keane  2009).   Policies  which  espouse  the  rhetoric  of  “sensible”  and  “moderate”  consumption  take  the   drinking  practices  of  an  older  (and,  we  would  argue,  wealthier)  audience  to  be  the  “normal”   and  “good”  way  to  use  alcohol  (Hackley  et  al  2008).13    Locating  the  alcohol  problem  at  the  level   of  youth  is  a  significant  ideological  achievement.  It  dilutes  and  obscures  a  range  of  structural   influences,  such  as  the  responsibility  of  governments  and  the  liquor  industry  to  provide     18      adequate  security  for  participants  in  the  profitable  night-­‐time  economy  (Hackley  et  al  2008;   Hayward  and  Hobbs  2007).  Tax-­‐payer  funded  advertising  interpellates  young  drinkers  as  if  they   have  sole  discretion  in  amending  their  consumption  levels  when  industry  deregulation  and   alcohol  marketing  directly  address  this  same  demographic.  Drunkenness  and  excess  are  the   obvious  externalities  of  legislated  policies  that  otherwise  welcome  the  mass  expansion  of  the   after  dark  leisure  industry  (Measham  and  Brain  2005;  Zadjow  2008).       In  this  context,  drinking  alcohol  and  maintaining  a  Facebook  page  can  be  considered  similar  in   the  sense  that  they  are  “necessarily  re-­‐creational”  (Race  2009,  9).  Race’s  hyphenated  phrasing   emphasizes  the  double  meaning  and  function  of  leisure  practices:  they  are  fun,  creative,  and   also  potentially  transformative  events.  For  young  working  class  women,  drinking  and  online   social  networking  provides  experimentation  and  temporary  relief  from  seemingly  fixed  selves   and  relationships  at  a  time  when  actual  opportunities  for  liberation  may  be  limited.  Both   experiences  offer  a  chance  to  escape  the  confines  of  inherited,  embodied  identity,  and  that  is   their  pleasure.     By  contrast,  if  there  is  anything  that  shows  cause  for  regret  in  this  complex  and  contradictory   landscape  it  is  the  amount  of  pressure  placed  upon  young  people  to  limit  their  few  avenues  for   excitement  and  enjoyment.  It  is  surely  lamentable  when  governments  are  compelled  to  inflect   scenes  of  youthful  hedonism  with  the  spectre  of  threat,  physical  violence  and  exposure.  In  the   case  of  young  women,  the  dominant  prerogative  in  postfeminist  cultures  appears  to  be   developing  strategies  of  resilience  in  the  face  of  equity  citizenship’s  chronic  disappointments   (Berlant  2009).  If  binge  drinking  is  one  such  strategy,  we  must  wonder  at  its  long-­‐term     19      sustainability  as  an  expression  of  discontent.  And  we  must  certainly  focus  efforts  on  widening   the  number  of  outlets  through  which  alternative  hopes  and  aspirations  can  be  expressed.   Governments  show  a  failure  of  imagination  and  compassion  when  they  place  the  shortcomings   of  wider  society  on  the  shoulders  of  young  people  (Grossberg  2005).  The  growing  popularity  of   social  media  platforms  provides  new  insights  on  youthful  re-­‐creational  activity,  demonstrating   the  cultures  of  care  that  are  emerging  to  compensate  for  the  sometimes  risky  spaces  of  public   leisure.    If  future  policy  makers  are  genuinely  concerned  to  improve  the  safety  of  their  young,   they  would  do  well  to  better  understand  these  peer-­‐to-­‐peer  networks  that  have  developed  in   recent  years  that  are  central  to  the  pleasures  of  online  and  offline  consumption.  It  is  these   communities  that  will  continue  long  after  the  night  before,  and  the  morning  after.                                                                                                                                 1  While  we  are  conscious  of  the  complexities  surrounding  the  terms  “youth”  and  “young   people”,  we  use  them  broadly  in  the  spirit  of  this  special  issue.   2  Despite  driving  alcohol  policy  in  both  Britain  and  Australia,  “binge  drinking”  is  a  vague  and   ambiguous  concept  that  is  widely  contested.  In  the  public  imagination,  binge  drinking  is   associated  with  risky  and  hedonistic  drinking  styles  linked  to  violence,  disorder  and  excessive   intoxication,  predominantly  within  the  licensed  precincts  of  night-­‐time  economies.  Official   definitions  of  binge  drinking  are  typically  numerical  and  vary  across  nation-­‐states  but  the  term   is  also  used  interchangeably  with  descriptive  definitions  such  as  heavy  drinking,  episodic   drinking,  sessional  drinking  and,  more  simply,  drinking  to  get  drunk  (see  Gill,  Murdoch  and     20                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    O’May  2009).  Binge  drinking  has  therefore  been  described  as  a  “confused  concept”  (Herring,   Berridge  and  Thom  2008).    Critics  of  this  emotive  and  negative  label  have  described  how  binge   drinking  rhetoric  is  used  in  political  manoeuvres  which  unfairly  target  the  drinking  practices  of   the  young,  thereby  obscuring  the  state’s  responsibility  in  regard  to  the  deregulation  of  the   alcohol  industry  (see  Hayward  and  Hobbs  2007;  Measham  and  Brain  2005).    For  these  reasons,   Martinic  and  Measham  (2008)  suggest  replacing  the  unhelpful  and  pejorative  “binge  drinking”   with  the  more  positive  and  productive  “extreme  drinking”.    While  acknowledging  these  wider   debates,  we  use  the  term  binge  drinking  throughout  this  paper  to  refer  to  contemporary   drinking  styles  which  policy  discourse  deems  problematic.     3  The  British  and  Australian  examples  in  this  paper  emerge  from  the  current  doctoral  project  of   one  of  the  authors.  As  a  British  citizen  completing  her  PhD  in  Australia,  Rebecca  is  conducting   empirical  research  in  both  countries  to  investigate  the  drinking  practices  of  young  women  in   post-­‐industrial  night-­‐time  economies.  While  there  are  sociocultural  and  political  differences  to   be  expected  between  the  UK  and  Australia,  similarities  link  alcohol  discourse  in  both  locations,   specifically  to  the  extent  that  the  respective  governments  locate  the  problem  of  binge  drinking   as  one  of  young  people  getting  excessively  drunk.  Debate  on  both  sides  of  the  globe  revolves   around  themes  of  moderation  and  responsibility.  While  there  is  a  more  developed  history  of   public  and  academic  discourse  on  binge  drinking  in  the  UK,  for  example  regarding  the   relationship  with  violence,  urban  regeneration,  concerns  over  licensing  hours  and  gendered   media  representations  (Hayward  and  Hobbs  2007;  Measham  and  Brain  2005;  Plant  and  Plant   2006;  Day,  Gough  and  McFadden  2004),  similar  concerns  emerge  in  the  Australian  literature     21                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    (see  Bavinton  2010;  Kypri  et  al  2011;  Lindsay  2005;  Moore  2010;  Tomsen  1997;Waitt,  Jessop   and  Gorman-­‐Murray  2011;  Zadjow  2008).   4  Here  we  draw  on  the  notion  of  “sympathetic  criticism”  as  outlined  by  Morris  (1988).   5    At  the  time  of  writing  the  campaign  was  live  and  was  hosted  at  an  official  site  which  no  longer   exists.  It  is  archived  at:   http://www.drinkingnightmare.gov.au/internet/DrinkingNightmare/publishing.nsf.  Accessed   December  18  2011.   6  Available  at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkScHtrowM8.  Accessed  December  18  2011.      A  similar  tendency  appears  to  be  colouring  recent  debates  about  “sexting”,  as  discussed  by   7 Albury,  Funnell  and  Noonan  (2010).   8  Available  at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYwu-­‐MPPwrU.  Accessed  December  18  2011.    Available  at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jftfU30xJgandfeature=related  Accessed   9 December  18  2011.   10  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuo5xrpEDCA  Accessed  December  18  2011.   11    These  status  updates  have  been  paraphrased  to  remove  the  names  of  individuals  and   locations  but  remain  true  to  their  original  form.   12  Race  (2011)  describes  this  in  the  context  of  queer  communities  in  Sydney.    This  lends  weight  to  the  idea  that  binge  drinking  campaigns  are  actually  designed  to  placate   13 the  concerns  of  parents  –  that  their  ideal  viewer  is  actually  an  adult.  Here  an  apt  analogy  is  the     22                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    anti-­‐piracy  ads  that  open  cinema  screenings,  which  can  only  ever  be  a  performance  for  the   benefit  of  viewers  who  remain  willing  to  pay  for  films.     23   Forthcoming  in  ‘Mediated  Youth  Cultures’,  Special  issue  of  Continuum:  Journal  of  Media  &  Cultural  Studies.  Brady  Robards  &  Andrew  Bennett  (eds).   References   AFP.  2009.  Obama’s  Facebook  warning:  watch  out  for  “stupid”  posts.  Sydney  Morning  Herald,   September  9.  Available  at  http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-­‐news/obamas-­‐ facebook-­‐warning-­‐watch-­‐out-­‐for-­‐stupid-­‐posts-­‐20090909-­‐fgfn.html.     Albury,  Kath.,  Funnell,  Nina.,  and  Noonan,  Estelle.  2010.  The  politics  of  sexting:  young  people,   self-­‐representation  and  citizenship.    Paper  presented  at  the  Australian  and  New  Zealand   Communication  Association  Conference:  Media,  Democracy  and  Change,  7-­‐9  July,  in  Old   Parliament  House,  Canberra.   Bavinton,  N.  2010.  Putting  leisure  to  work:  city  image  and  representations  of  nightlife.  Journal   of  Policy  Research  in  Tourism,  Leisure  and  Events  2,  no.  3:  236-­‐250.   Berlant,  Lauren.  2009.  The  Female  Complaint:  The  Unfinished  Business  of  Sentimentality  in   American  Culture.  Durham:  Duke  University  Press.   Bortree,  D.  2005.  Presentation  of  self  on  the  web:  An  ethnographic  study  of  teenage  girls’   weblogs.  Education,  Communication  and  Information  5,  no.  1:  25-­‐39.   boyd,  d.  2007.  Why  Youth  (Heart)  Social  Network  Sites:  The  Role  of  Networked  Publics  in   Teenage  Social  Life.  In  MacArthur  Foundation  Series  on  Digital  Learning  -­‐  Youth,  Identity,  and   Digital  Media  Volume,  ed.  D.  Buckingham,  119-­‐142.  Cambridge,  MA:  MIT  Press.     Brown,  V.R.,  and  Vaughn,  E.D.  2011.  The  Writing  on  the  (Facebook)  Wall:  The  Use  of  Social   Networking  Sites  in  Hiring  Decisions.  Journal  of  Business  and  Psychology  26,  no.  2:  219-­‐225.        Buffardi,  L.E.,  and  Campbell,  W.K.  2008.    Narcissism  and  social  networking  sites.  PSPB  34,  no.   10:  1303-­‐1314.   Day,  K.,  Gough,  B.  and  McFadden,  M.  2004.  Warning!  Alcohol  can  seriously  damage  your   feminine  health.  Feminist  Media  Studies  4,  no.  2:  165-­‐183.   Department  of  Health  and  Aging.  2002.  Where  Are  Your  Choices  Taking  You?  Canberra:   Commonwealth  of  Australia.  Archived  at  http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/32391/20030307-­‐ 0000/www.drinkingchoices.gov.au/index.html.   Department  of  Health  and  Aging.  2008.  Don’t  turn  a  Night  Out  into  a  Nightmare.  Canberra:   Commonwealth  of  Australia.    Archived  at  http://www.drinkingnightmare.gov.au.     Department  of  Health  and  Aging.  2008.  National  Binge  Drinking  Strategy.  Canberra:   Commonwealth  of  Australia.     http://www.alcohol.gov.au/internet/alcohol/publishing.nsf/Content/cli   Department  of  Health,  Home  Office,  Department  for  Education  and  Skills  and  Department  for   Culture,  Media  and  Sport,  2007.  Safe,  Sensible,  Social:  The  next  steps  in  the  National  Alcohol   Strategy.  London:  Department  of  Health.   Department  of  Health,  Home  Office.  2008.  Know  Your  Limits.  London:  Home  Office.   Derbyshire  County  Primary  Care  Trust.  2009.  Bloody  Mary.  Chesterfield:  Derbyshire  County   Primary  Care  Trust.       25      Dominick,  J.R.  1999.  Who  do  you  think  you  are?  Personal  home  pages  and  self-­‐presentation  on   the  world  wide  web.  Journalism  and  Mass  Communication  Quarterly  76,  no.  4:  646-­‐658.   Driscoll,  C.  and  Gregg,  M.  2008a.  Message  Me:  Temporality,  Location  and  Everyday   Technologies.  Media  International  Australia  Special  Issue  on  Digital  Literacy  128  (August):  128-­‐ 136.   Driscoll,  C.  and  Gregg,  M.  2008b.  The  YouTube  Generation:  Moral  Panic,  Youth  Culture  and   Internet  Studies.  In  Youth  and  Media  in  the  Asia-­‐Pacific  Region,  eds.  U.  Rodrigues  and  B.  Smaill,   71-­‐86.    Newcastle:  Cambridge  Scholars  Press.   Driscoll,  C.  and  Gregg,  M.  2010.  My  Profile:  The  ethics  of  virtual  ethnography.  Emotion,  Space   and  Society  3,  no.  1:  15-­‐20.   The  Social  Network.  Directed  by  David  Fincher.  Culver  City,  CA:  Sony  Pictures  Entertainment,   2010.   Gill,  J.,  Murdoch,  J.,  and  O”May,  F.  2009.  Binge  Drinking  -­‐  A  Commentary.  In  Binge  Drinking   Research  Progess,  ed.  K.  Diguarde,  125-­‐140.  New  York:  Nova  Science  Publishers.     Gregg,  M.  2007.  Thanks  For  The  Ad(d):  Neoliberalism’s  Compulsory  Friendship.  Online  Opinion,   21  September.  Available  at  http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6400     Gregg,  M.  2009.  Banal  Bohemia:  blogging  from  the  Ivory  Tower  Hot-­‐Desk,  Feature  Report,   Convergence:  The  Journal  of  Research  into  New  Media  Technologies  15,  no.  4:  470-­‐483.   Gregg,  Melissa.  2011.  Work’s  Intimacy.  Cambridge:  Polity  Press.     26      Griffin,  C.  2005.  Impossible  Spaces?  Femininity  as  an  Empty  Category.  Unpublished  Paper  from   ESRC  Seminar  Research  Series,  New  Femininities.     Griffin,  C.,  Bengry-­‐Howell,  A.,  Hackley,  C.,    Mistral,  W.,  and  Szmigin,  I.  2009.  "Everytime  I  do  it  I   absolutely  annihilate  myself":  Loss  of  (self-­‐)  consciousness  and  loss  of  memory  in  young   people’s  drinking  narratives.  Sociology  43,  no.  3:  457-­‐467.   Grossberg,  Lawerence.  2005.  Caught  in  the  Crossfire:  Kids,  politics  and  America’s  future.   Boulder:  Paradigm.   Guise,  J.,  and  Gill,  J.  (2007).  “Binge  drinking?  It’s  good,  it’s  harmless  fun”:  A  discourse  analysis  of   accounts  of  female  undergraduates  drinking  in  Scotland.  Health  Education  Research  22,  no.  6:   895-­‐9.   Hackley,  C.,  Bengry-­‐Howell,  A.,  Griffin,  C.,  Mistral,  W.  and  Szmigin,  I.  2008.  The  discursive   constitution  of  the  UK  alcohol  problem  in  Safe,  Sensible,  Social:  A  discussion  of  policy   implications.  Drugs:  Education,  Prevention  and  Policy  15,  no.  1:  61-­‐74.       Hayward,  K.,  and  Hobbs,  D.  2007.  Beyond  the  binge  in  “booze  Britain”:  market-­‐led  liminalization   and  the  spectacle  of  binge  drinking.  British  Journal  of  Sociology  58,  no.  3:  437-­‐456.   Herring,  R.,  Berridge,  V.,  and  Thom,  B.  2008.  Binge  drinking:  An  exploration  of  a  confused   concept.  Journal  of  Epidemiology  and  Community  Health,  62,  no.  6:  476-­‐479.   Hutton,  F.  (forthcoming).  Harm  Reduction,  students  and  pleasure:  An  examination  of  student   responses  to  a  binge  drinking  campaign.  International  Journal  of  Drug  Policy.       27      Keane,  H.  2009.  Intoxication,  harm  and  pleasure:  an  analysis  of  the  Australian  National  Alcohol   Strategy.  Critical  Public  Health  19,  no.  2:  135-­‐142.   Kelly,  D.M.,  Pomerantz,  S.  and  Currie,  D.  H.  2006.  “No  Boundaries?”:  Girls’  Interactive,  Online   Learning  About  Femininities.  Youth  and  Society  38,  no.  1:  3-­‐28.   Kypri,  K.,  Jones,  C.,  McElduff,  P.,  and  Barker,  D.  2011.  Effects  of  restricting  pub  closing  times  on   night-­‐time  assaults  in  an  Australian  city.  Addiction  106,  no.  2:  303-­‐310.     Leonard,  S.  2007.  “I  Hate  My  Job,  I  Hate  Everybody  Here”:  Adultery,  Boredom,  and  the   “Working  Girl”  in  Twenty-­‐First-­‐Century  American  Cinema.  In  Interrogating  Postfeminism:   Gender  and  the  Politics  of  Popular  Culture,  eds.  Y.  Tasker  and  D.  Negra,    100-­‐131.  Durham:  Duke   University  Press.   Livingstone,  S.  2008.  Taking  risky  opportunities  in  youthful  content  creation:  teenagers’  use  of   social  networking  sites  for  intimacy,  privacy  and  self-­‐expression.  New  Media  and  Society  10,  no.   3:  393-­‐411.     Lindsay,  J.  2005.    Drinking  in  Melbourne  pubs  and  clubs:  A  study  of  alcohol  consumption   contexts.  Clayton,  Australia:  School  of  Political  and  Social  Inquiry,  Monash  University.   Lyons,  A.C.,  and  Willot,  S.A.  2008.  Alcohol  consumption,  gender  identities  and  women’s   changing  social  positions.  Sex  Roles  59,  no.  9-­‐10:  694-­‐712.   McRobbie,  A.  2007.  Top  Girls?  Young  women  and  the  post-­‐feminist  sexual  contract.  Cultural   Studies  21,  no.  4-­‐5:  718-­‐737.     28      Manago,  A.M.,  Graham,  M.B.,  Greenfield,  P.M.,  and  Salimkhan,  G.  2008.  Self-­‐presentation  and   gender  on  MySpace.  Journal  of  Applied  Developmental  Psychology  29,  no.  6:  446-­‐458.       Martinic,  M.,  and  Measham,  F.  (2008).  Eds.  Swimming  with  Crocodiles:  The  Culture  of  Extreme   Drinking.  New  York:  Routledge.     Measham,  F.  and  Brain,  K.  2005.  “Binge”  drinking,  British  alcohol  policy  and  the  new  culture  of   intoxication.  Crime,  Media,  Culture  1,  no.  3:  262-­‐283.   Measham,  F.  and  Moore,  K.  2006.  Reluctant  Reflectivity,  Implicit  Insider  Knowledge  and  the   Development  of  Club  Studies.  In  Drugs,  Clubs  and  Young  People;  Sociological  and  Public  Health   Perspectives,  ed.  B.  Sanders,  13-­‐25.    Aldershot:    Ashgate.   Measham,  F.  and  Ostergaard,  J.  2009.  The  public  face  of  binge  drinking:  British  and  Danish   young  women,  recent  trends  in  alcohol  consumption  and  the  European  binge  drinking  debate.   Probation  Journal  56,  no.  4:  1-­‐20.   Meyer,  A.  2010.  Too  drunk  to  say  no.  Feminist  Media  Studies  10,  no.  1:  19-­‐34.     Ministerial  Council  on  Drug  Strategy.  2006.  National  Alcohol  Strategy  2006-­‐2009;  Towards  Safer   Drinking  Cultures.  Canberra:  Commonwealth  of  Australia.     Moore,  D.  2010.  Beyond  disorder,  danger,  incompetence  and  ignorance:  Rethinking  the   youthful  alcohol  subject  of  alcohol  and  other  drug  policy.  Contemporary  Drug  Problems  37,  no.   3:  475-­‐498.     Morris,  Meagan.  1988.  The  Pirate’s  Fiancée:  Feminism  Reading  Postmodernism.  London:  Verso.     29      New  South  Wales  Health  Department.  2009.  Binge  Drinking:  What  are  you  doing  to  yourself?   Sydney.  Available  at  http://www.whatareyoudoingtoyourself.com/           Plant,  Martin.,  and  Plant,  Moria.  2006.  Binge  Britain:  Alcohol  and  the  National  Response.   Oxford:  Oxford  University  Press.     Prime  Minister’s  Strategy  Unit.  2004.    Alcohol  harm  reduction  strategy  for  England.  London,   Prime  Minster’s  Strategy  Unit.       Queensland  Government,  Department  of  Employment,  Economic  Development  and  Innovation.   2010.  Every  Drink  Counts.  Brisbane.  Available  at   http://www.olgr.qld.gov.au/consumers/responsible_drinking/Every_drink_counts/index.shtml     Race,  Kane.  2009.  Pleasure  Consuming  Medicine:  The  Queer  Politics  of  Drugs.  Durham:  Duke   University  Press.     Race,  K.  2011.  Party  Animals:  The  significance  of  drug  practices  in  the  materialization  of  urban   gay  identity.  In  The  Drug  Effect;  Health  Crime  and  Society,  eds.  Suzanne  Fraser  and  David   Moore,  35-­‐56.  Cambridge:  Cambridge  University  Press.   Ridout,  B.,  Campbell,  A.,  and  Ellis,  L.  (forthcoming).  Off  your  Face(book):  Alcohol  in  online  social   identity  construction  and  its  relation  to  problem  drinking  in  university  students.  Drug  and   Alcohol  Review.     Rosen,  Jeffery.  2010.  The  End  of  Forgetting.  The  New  York  Times  Magazine,  July  25.     30      Schau,  H.J.  and  Gilly,  M.C.  2003.  We  are  what  we  post?  Self-­‐presentation  in  personal  web   space.  Journal  of  Consumer  Research  30,  December:  385-­‐404.   Schwarz,  O.  2010.  On  friendship,  boobs  and  the  logic  of  the  catalogue:  Online  self-­‐portraits  as  a   means  for  exchange  of  capital.  Convergence:  The  International  Journal  of  Research  into  New   Media  Technologies  16,  no.  2:  163-­‐183.     Sheehan,  M.  and  Ridge,  D.  2001.    “You  become  really  close…you  talk  about  the  silly  things  you   did,  and  we  laugh”:  The  role  of  binge  drinking  in  female  secondary  students’  lives.  Substance   Use  and  Misuse  36,  no.  3:  347-­‐372.   Skeggs,  Beverley.  1997.  Formations  of  Class  and  Gender:  Becoming  Respectable.  London:  Sage.     Skeggs,  B.  2005.  The  making  of  class  and  gender  through  vizualizing  moral  subject  formation.   Sociology  39,  no.  5:  965-­‐982.   Szmigin,  I.,  Griffin,  C.,  Mistral,  W.,  Bengry-­‐Howell,  A.,  Weale,  L.  and  Hackley.  C.  2008.  Re-­‐framing   “binge  drinking”  as  calculated  hedonism:  Empirical  evidence  from  the  UK.  International  Journal   of  Drug  Policy  19,  no.  5:  359-­‐366.   Tomsen,  S.  1997.  A  top  night.  British  Journal  of  Criminology  37,  no.  1:  90-­‐102.     Van  Doorn,  N.  2009.  The  ties  that  bind:  the  networked  performance  of  gender,  sexuality  and   friendship  on  My  Space.  New  Media  and  Society  11,  no.  8:  1-­‐22.     31      Waitt,  G.,  Jessop,  L.  and  Gorman-­‐Murray,  A.  2011.  “The  guys  in  there  just  expect  to  be  laid”:   embodied  and  gendered  socio-­‐spatial  practices  of  a  “night  out”  in  Wollongong,  Australia.   Gender,  Place  and  Culture  18,  no.  2:  255-­‐275.   Walker,  K.  2000.  “It’s  difficult  to  hide  it”:  The  presentation  of  self  on  internet  home  pages.   Qualitative  Sociology  23,  no.  1:  99-­‐120.   Walther,  J.B.,  Van  Der  Heide,  B.,  Kim,  S-­‐Y.,  Westerman,  D.,  and  Tom  Tong,  S.  2008.  The  role  of   friends’  appearance  and  behavior  on  evaluations  of  individuals  on  Facebook:  Are  we  known  by   the  company  we  keep?  Human  Communication  Research  34,  no.  1:  28-­‐49.   Willett,  R.  2008.  “What  you  wear  tells  a  lot  about  you”:  Girls  dress  up  online.  Gender  and   Education  20,  no.  5:  421-­‐434.   Zadjow,  Grazyna.  2008.  The  Free  Market  in  Alcohol.  Arena  Magazine.  Fitzroy:  Victoria.  June-­‐ July.           32