Neighbourhood Belonging, Social Class and Social Media—Providing Ladders to the Cloud

Abstract

The growth of social media over the past decade has transformed how we have interacted with the World Wide Web. This paper presents data from a research project coproduced with community organisations that had created an online archive through a Facebook site of a deprived neighbourhood in Edinburgh, Scotland. Framing the data from this site in the literature on class, place, stigma and belonging, the paper presents further evidence of the ‘we-being' of working-class residence as opposed to the elective belonging of middle class people, and the stigma towards working-class neighbourhoods from wider society. The paper concludes by highlighting the benefits of social media in producing a natural discussion about neighbourhoods and residence and the importance of creating ladders to the cloud for working-class neighbourhoods.