14 thoughts on “Week 12 – New Media Collectivities (T3)”
Chua Xiu Juan
Boyd sees social network sites as a mediator between individuals across space and time. Individuals are constantly shaping their own identity through identity performance in the virtual world. This externalized self allows for greater control in the impression management of individuals. Paradoxically, while we have greater control over the kind of image we hope to portray in social networking sites, we do not have any control over who our audiences are, nor have any control to prevent the possible misunderstandings that arise from decontextualisation. This signifies the complexities of impression management and identity performance in the era of a networked public.
Studies on how youths utilised social networking sites to establish and express a LGBTQ identity for instance, revealed the complex nature of impression management in the virtual world. Studies have shown that individuals who have disclosed their LGBTQ identity to all contacts still have difficulty tailoring performances of being the minority and experience misinterpretation of their identity. Context collapse due to decontextualisation affects most individuals regardless of their approaches to identity display, especially for those who have differentially disclosed their sexual orientation across online audiences.
Edwin Lee Xian Ming
The opinion on proprioception that Thompson advances is particularly interesting to me, as he postulates that we now change the way we look at relationships – by looking at Facebook profiles we are able to have a general idea of how our friends are living their lives, based on the way they present themselves online.
Using the example of “falling on the street” to illustrate the differences between the network public vs. other public, Boyd goes on to show that social networks such as Facebook are a type of network public, and that such locations are characterised by the attributes of persistence, searchability and replicability of content, as well as the presence of an invisible audience – the law of physics are being defined – you don’t know the scale of the audience nor the specific recipients of you uploaded media.
Elix Lee
This week’s readings focus on relations of membership in a community and what happens to interaction when things go online/virtual — New Media.
Rheingold talks about two facets of virtual community: human feelings and discussions. Community is being forged as all humans require others to discuss with and feel empathy for others. Virtual community allows for communication between many members of a community rather than a one-to-one communication. However, this form of community offers a challenge to boundaries as it becomes increasingly unclear in distinguishing the insiders and outsiders. Relations become messy.
Boyd’s main concept is network public. Social networks are a type of network public based on persistence, searchability, replicability, and invisible audience. Individuals are profiles, a means of writing one self into being. It allows us to have greater but not total control over what people’s ideas of us are about. Public for Boyd takes on a very specific meaning that is rooted in integration. For Boyd, public is more integrated than society. Boyd uses the example of falling on the street to distinguish network public vs other public.
Koh Hui Yi
Rheingold in his reading, ” The virtual community: homesteading on the electronic frontier “suggests that computer-based communication has introduced a new form of human social life called “virtual communities”. This virtual community has changed how we live, how we interact with another and how we retrieve information. Now, if there are information which we are not clear on, we would consult these forums online, similar to Rheingold’s idea of consulting in the WELL (the virtual community he belonged to) for his child’s illness. As Rheingold talked about how “the idea of a community accessible only via my computer screen sounded cold to me at first, but I learned quickly that people can feel passionately about e-mail and computer conferences” ,”I care about these people I met through my computer, and I care deeply about the future of the medium that enables us to assemble”, the idea that he wanted to convey was that virtual community is not as fake as we think it is. Instead, it consists of the voices of real people and communication and interaction will affect how we think and how we feel regarding a topic or an issue. Virtual community is similar to physical community but there are certain differences in terms of no face-to-face contact, time and physical constraints.
The virtual communities we witnessed online are decentralized, informal and self-governing. In fact, Rheingold said that “there is no such thing as a single, monolithic, online subculture; it is more like an ecosystem of subcultures, some frivolous, others serious.” However, one commonality that is distinctive in online communities is the idea of a ‘public sphere’ which can be compared to physical public spheres that we have. Rheingold also studied how there are widening spheres in the cyberspace which he referred to as “electronic frontier” and how online activists and pioneers have been using it to counter the attempts of control that governments and corporations tried to enforce online. WikiLeaks is a recent example of how activists counter these growing pressure and top-down control.
Lyndon Leong
In reality, sometimes people are misunderstood because of certain shortcomings that they are inherently disabled by. With the advent of media platforms such as Facebook and Myspace, people are now able to create an identity that people can recognise them by. It has become an extremely effective medium for representing oneself in accordance to the type of posts that one choses to put up on their profile or the type of information that one inputs into these accounts. With a unique notion of liberality that these online platforms provide, the internet has bred many cowards that perhaps feel ashamed to express their views in real life and hence, rant and post excessively cynical or irrationally judgemental remarks. What this leads to is a severe misrepresentation of the general sentiments of the society. It could be a possibility that as a result, people might develop split personalities even in their real life when they become too accustomed to leading a dual life in the virtual world and in reality. However, because of its sheer storage ability, these “profiles” that people create might haunt them in the future if ever their future employers or someone of particular significant searches for information through these profiles which they might not be entirely receptive to. Therefore, it is also important that we do not over-misrepresent ourselves on the internet or try to be too outstanding when we are at the mercy of the broader society that we have no control over.
Aloysius Teo
While I agree with Thompson’s proprioception view of Twitter, I also feel that twitter and its 140 characters has the ability to decontextualize situations. Not only that, I also feel that it dulls our criticality in the sense that it does not allow us to pursue a better understanding of certain things — we become lazy. For example @BBCNews, @NewsHeadlines give us all the news that we need in super bitesize. We know all the news but we do not exactly really know what is going on, it is almost as if you’re flipping through the Straits Times reading only the headlines. Some news agencies even employ clickbait headlines to attract more traffic, posting headlines which forces you to click, only to be disappointed. Perhaps they do not care too much about the news (or headline) that they are publishing but are more concerned with increasing their daily view count, for it could mean more money.
Muhammad Faisal Bin Zainal Abiden
I feel that Rheingold’s perspective on virtual communities is an overly optimistic one. His book was written in 1986 where only professionals had access to a computer and the internet. However today, the youth make up the largest portion of the online population. Most youth are, by nature, immature. As such many of the discussions which take place on public places become a cesspool of ranting, trolling and flaming.
However, I would to point out one website which has an ingenious way of regulating discussions. Reddit.com is social networking service and news website where registered community members can submit content, such as text posts or direct links. Only registered users can then vote submissions “up” or “down” to organize the posts and determine their position on the site’s pages. The comments themselves can be voted “up” or “down”. Thus, meaningless, trolling and flaming posts which has sufficient down-votes are removed from the thread. This allows for meaningful discussion and the comments themselves can be more interesting than the content. Dana Boyd’s online architecture is demonstrated here as the tools of control, in Reddit, are now in the hands of the users, instead of the admins.
Opposed to the common idea, that social network sites and communication over the Internet is a thing for people, who are socially incapable or isolated, the texts for this week point at the possibility of collectivity online. The given texts by Thompson about the social impact of Twitter, which is the most recent as well as Danah Boyd and her view on social network sites and Rheingold´s text from the 1990´s “New Media Collectives”, point us in the direction of collectivity, intimacy, the importance of identity formation, opposed to isolation or unsociability.
Thompson believes that Twitter, as well as other so-called constant-contact media, can create social proprioception, which means that social network sites result in an awareness for people surrounding us, without the necessity of actual social interaction. Even though, it is true that social network sides inform us constantly about what other people are eating, celebrating or socializing with and where, one should ask to which extend we really know about the person´s feelings.
Rheingold focuses mainly on human feelings and discussions, which can come about in online communities and can make up for the lack of public discussions in the offline world. She also explains that our relations change online because we manage our impression on others, on the basis of ,for example. profiles, “likes” or pictures, which is done on the basis of an imagined audience.
She takes this term from Erving Goffman who explains that every individual within society alters his behavior and thus, his impressions on others, which is an integral part of society.
Thus, Online users imagine an audience to adjust their online behavior to be “socially acceptable” within the virtual community. Here, one should also keep in mind the power of surveillance, self-monitoring and the problem of misinterpretation, that comes with the architecture of the online space, which is as Boyd explains defined by “persistence, searchability, replicability and an invisible audience.”
Overall, all of the above mentioned authors remind us of the possibility of online platforms to make up for a lack of relations, networking and community, which may arise in modern society. For them, social media allow for the creating of real feelings and meaningful relations. Nowadays, most news regarding social networking sites talk about the negative impacts of online platforms such as Facebook. They are often perceived as sites of distraction, isolation and disconnection from reality. Keeping the above readings in mind, if that is the case, is again up for debate.
Bryan Chia Yong Siang
The online sphere is structured openly where there is no secrets within each user – where anything form of personal information can be extracted from the internet and it has an impact not only in the online sphere but also spillover socio- cultural impacts on the reality.
One of the similarities which can be drawn from the three works is the need for self-discipline to be exercised within the online community. Rheingold warns about the damage which one can inflict others through the internet and requires self-discipline to be enforced towards the end of his essay. On the other hand, Boyd reminds users about the damage one can inflict on himself if he were not to be careful with the use of Internet due to the “searchability” for information. The examples given by him were how teenagers were using the security features as the primary defence against parents or other online users and how an applicant was judged when the judging panel found out about his doings online. It then enforces the idea that online users have to be careful of what they post online which will allow their parents or superior to track their actions. Lastly, Thompson used the example of Twitter where it is a tool for the standardisation of time, one will be able to know the actions of his friends despite not being in the same space. Such ability allows personal information to be accessible to not only our friends but also acquaintances to obtain these information and the need for self- discipline to be enforced.
Brandon Lye
In the article by Rheingold, he mentions that virtual communities hold stronger bonds since members usually have shared interests. Rheingold wrote this article at a time when those with access to the internet were those of a upper-class, usually esteemed professionals. Now that the internet is much more widely accessible, there can be arguments made that virtual communities have much more potential to cause trouble and disruption.
However, I believe that virtual communities today are still able to bring people together. For instance, I have noticed in recent months that during the broadcast of tv programmes, hashtags have popped up at the bottom of the screen to prompt viewers to tweet about their thoughts on twitter. While people can still find like-minded friends in the real world, virtual communities such as twitter offer convenience and ease of access, and allow for greater access to more views and thoughts.
Another instance I can think of would be live streams of music festivals such as Coachella online on sites such as youtube. This allows not only people all around the globe to watch the acts perform, it allows for a gathering of like-minded people which would not have been previously possible. The sheer ease of access and the relative anonymity of such virtual communities do however, tend to lead to the occasional presence of trolls.
Kelyn Phua
Boyd talks about how one can form an identity in ‘networked public’ through a profile, by blatantly stating one’s interests or through public comments. A profile gives a stranger an idea about the person. Especially since Facebook allows for tagging and people can view your pictures in recent events that you have participated in. An example is when employers search their potential employees on Facebook, or when your friend is talking about someone you don’t know, they will usually show you his or her Facebook profile. In Rheingold’s article, he talks about how he misunderstood Albert Mitchell, and how he initially thought he was fierce but later realized that he was actually quite sweet in real life. As compared to communicating solely through text, like Rheingold’s example, profiles create a better understanding of someone. Even without communicating personally, one can probably make a good guess of how the person will be like.
Is cyberspace the new ‘place we gather for conviviality’? Despite what Rheingold suggests about how cyberspace can be the informal public space that is missing, I think that the third place has not completely disappeared because we still spend most of our lives away from our computers. Cafes and hawker centres and other such places still available places for conviviality. Mere letters on the screen can never replace personal interaction that allows one to have eye contact, have a variation of tones in their voices and facial expressions. These are still important to create a sense of familiarity and close relations. Thus I think that cyberspace does not replace the third place, but rather, is an extension of it. Furthermore, the article states that online communities are communities ‘not of common location, but of common interest’. Although it is easier for people to create close relations when they share common interests, what happens if one person’s interest changes? He leaves his community and finds a new one. I feel that the ease of access cheapens the relations within online communities.
Lastly, I feel that the point about online activity stirring real emotions is very true. For example, a friend’s post on twitter may cause you to make guesses at the person’s intentions. There are people who express their unhappiness on twitter about ‘that particular person’ and in certain contexts, you wonder if ‘that person’ is you. This may strain relationships and create unwanted tension. Twitter is a place where people express their extreme emotions, especially while watching soccer. I get live updates from my real friends, instead of a commentator, even when I am not watching the game and it serves as a form of entertainment. Thompson talks about how Twitter is collectivist, but I think that it works both ways. You can only have a shared understanding if people are narcissistic and want to publicize their opinions and activities.
Poh Yang Ann
Howard Rheingold, in discussing how individuals find support and security in the virtual community, has addressed how human interaction has changed. Rheingold to a large extent is a proponent of virtual communication for he makes a claim that some individuals are not proficient in vocal communication; most individuals, as he argues, “have valuable contributions to make in a conversation in which they have time to think about what to say”. More importantly, Rheingold asserts that virtual community is essentially more bonded since it is established based on common interest as opposed to the default locality in which one is situated within a specific setting and context or as he puts it “by accidents of proximity”. This changes fundamentally how individuals meet. To be explicit, previously individuals first meet others before knowing them. Now, individuals know others and then decide whether or not to establish the bond and to maintain it. Moreover, one might not and never “meet” the people he talks to online. The virtual community is akin to Oldenburg’s “third place”, a place for conviviality. According to Oldenburg, the third place is a social leveling ground dispelled of social inequality. It is a place where “conversation is the primary activity and the major vehicle for the display and appreciation of human personality and individuality”. It is further argued that the third place is especially important in the capitalistic and materialistic modern context where there is a “deficient informal public life”.
Danah Boyd proposes that social network sites like MySpace are what he coins as networked publics. He is particularly concerned with how technological networks have contracted the spaces and audiences. Put differently, such social network sites serve as a mediator between individuals dispersed across spatial and temporal boundaries. Juxtaposed with unmediated publics, mediated publics have an amplified scale where sensory information is no longer constricted by physics. Audience, rather than being contained by the presence within a particular physical space at a given time, has included those who “might witness a reproduction of” a particular event or action; “the bounding forces of networked publics are less constrained by geography and temporal collocation than unmediated publics” (p.9). In this light, networked publics take on four characteristics: persistence; searchability; replicability; and invisible audience (p.9). Another aspect in which Boyd delves into is the idea of identity performance in the virtual world or social network sites e.g. MySpace. Identity performance, as Boyd argues, is conditioned by the desire to be “cool” (p.13). Profile is an example of how individuals write their digital body into being, the self that one seeks to portray and to be validated by others. An integral part of identity performance henceforth hinges on the friend network, or the “public displays of connections” – “You are who you know” (p.13). But who exactly are the individuals trying to impress? According to Boyd, the individuals are taking reference from an “imaged audience” (p.14). As Boyd continues to explain, the imagined audience helps individuals construct a socially acceptable self even though the “audience online may not be who they think it is” (p.15).
Lim Zheng Wei
I find that Thompson’s article, though the shortest, also led to the greatest alteration in how I viewed social networks. Rheingold and Boyd’s article about the WELL (an online forum) and Friendster was well-written, but as digital natives, they merely reinforced what we already know about the various online networking options. On the other hand, Thompson’s article changed how I viewed Twitter. As he says, oftentimes we see Twitter as the epitome of narcissism in which we post banal updates regardless of whether anyone is actually reading the tweets. But he argues that that is not the primary function of Twitter. Rather, he talks about social proprioception – where we accumulate an almost sub-conscious sense of what our friends are doing through the small but constant updates of their lives. In this, he terms it as being collectivism, in the sense that we are concerned not of ourselves, but for our friends. Hence, tweeting is merely a reciprocal activity to ensure the longevity of Twitter. I will argue that Instagram is Twitter in pictorial form. Again, selfies, food photos and other seemingly pointless photograph is not an arrogant, individualistic activity. The grandeur it adds to our life is epiphenomenal, and we all benefit from having a better sense of our friends’ lives through all the posts even if we may not have time to meet up. Perhaps then, we should stop being so critical of these useless social networking site and accept that it is equivalent to gossiping or the third places of yesteryear.
Tiara Robyn Chew
I really enjoyed reading Danah Boyd’s “Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life”. One of the points in the article that stood out to me was that with the advent of social networking sites, social relations that were once considered ‘private’ have now been thrust into the public sphere. This raises the question of whether anything is really secure anymore, even with ‘privatised’ features. The recent controversy surrounding James Franco is testament to this. On April 3 2014, Franco reportedly tried to “hook up” with a 17 year old girl via Instagram, inspiring a “flurry of outrage” (Huffington Post) from the masses who considered the whole supposedly-private exchange “creepy” (some have argued that it was a publicity stunt for his upcoming movie, “Palo Alto”, but whether or not this is true is, I suppose, a different issue altogether) but it still goes to show how social networking sites are essentially open to the public eye, however hard you try to restrict access.
Boyd also says that because people using social networking sites now have the ability to create their own identities through the construction of their profile pages (“write themselves into being”), they, in some sense, have “more control online”. But do they really have control? What about hackers who have the ability to break into accounts and manipulate information online? Or could information be taken out of context, which takes ‘control’ away from the creator?
(Anyway, there’s a joke video by comedian/vlogger David So which mocks the whole James Franco controversy. He mentions how there are now rules to social networking, because social media has the potential to ‘blow things up’. Its a bit crude, but some parts are quite relevant so take it as entertainment! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZzgh8H050g&list=UUt8OnQ7ztuLrPrehlj8ZuuQ)
Boyd sees social network sites as a mediator between individuals across space and time. Individuals are constantly shaping their own identity through identity performance in the virtual world. This externalized self allows for greater control in the impression management of individuals. Paradoxically, while we have greater control over the kind of image we hope to portray in social networking sites, we do not have any control over who our audiences are, nor have any control to prevent the possible misunderstandings that arise from decontextualisation. This signifies the complexities of impression management and identity performance in the era of a networked public.
Studies on how youths utilised social networking sites to establish and express a LGBTQ identity for instance, revealed the complex nature of impression management in the virtual world. Studies have shown that individuals who have disclosed their LGBTQ identity to all contacts still have difficulty tailoring performances of being the minority and experience misinterpretation of their identity. Context collapse due to decontextualisation affects most individuals regardless of their approaches to identity display, especially for those who have differentially disclosed their sexual orientation across online audiences.
The opinion on proprioception that Thompson advances is particularly interesting to me, as he postulates that we now change the way we look at relationships – by looking at Facebook profiles we are able to have a general idea of how our friends are living their lives, based on the way they present themselves online.
Using the example of “falling on the street” to illustrate the differences between the network public vs. other public, Boyd goes on to show that social networks such as Facebook are a type of network public, and that such locations are characterised by the attributes of persistence, searchability and replicability of content, as well as the presence of an invisible audience – the law of physics are being defined – you don’t know the scale of the audience nor the specific recipients of you uploaded media.
This week’s readings focus on relations of membership in a community and what happens to interaction when things go online/virtual — New Media.
Rheingold talks about two facets of virtual community: human feelings and discussions. Community is being forged as all humans require others to discuss with and feel empathy for others. Virtual community allows for communication between many members of a community rather than a one-to-one communication. However, this form of community offers a challenge to boundaries as it becomes increasingly unclear in distinguishing the insiders and outsiders. Relations become messy.
Boyd’s main concept is network public. Social networks are a type of network public based on persistence, searchability, replicability, and invisible audience. Individuals are profiles, a means of writing one self into being. It allows us to have greater but not total control over what people’s ideas of us are about. Public for Boyd takes on a very specific meaning that is rooted in integration. For Boyd, public is more integrated than society. Boyd uses the example of falling on the street to distinguish network public vs other public.
Rheingold in his reading, ” The virtual community: homesteading on the electronic frontier “suggests that computer-based communication has introduced a new form of human social life called “virtual communities”. This virtual community has changed how we live, how we interact with another and how we retrieve information. Now, if there are information which we are not clear on, we would consult these forums online, similar to Rheingold’s idea of consulting in the WELL (the virtual community he belonged to) for his child’s illness. As Rheingold talked about how “the idea of a community accessible only via my computer screen sounded cold to me at first, but I learned quickly that people can feel passionately about e-mail and computer conferences” ,”I care about these people I met through my computer, and I care deeply about the future of the medium that enables us to assemble”, the idea that he wanted to convey was that virtual community is not as fake as we think it is. Instead, it consists of the voices of real people and communication and interaction will affect how we think and how we feel regarding a topic or an issue. Virtual community is similar to physical community but there are certain differences in terms of no face-to-face contact, time and physical constraints.
The virtual communities we witnessed online are decentralized, informal and self-governing. In fact, Rheingold said that “there is no such thing as a single, monolithic, online subculture; it is more like an ecosystem of subcultures, some frivolous, others serious.” However, one commonality that is distinctive in online communities is the idea of a ‘public sphere’ which can be compared to physical public spheres that we have. Rheingold also studied how there are widening spheres in the cyberspace which he referred to as “electronic frontier” and how online activists and pioneers have been using it to counter the attempts of control that governments and corporations tried to enforce online. WikiLeaks is a recent example of how activists counter these growing pressure and top-down control.
In reality, sometimes people are misunderstood because of certain shortcomings that they are inherently disabled by. With the advent of media platforms such as Facebook and Myspace, people are now able to create an identity that people can recognise them by. It has become an extremely effective medium for representing oneself in accordance to the type of posts that one choses to put up on their profile or the type of information that one inputs into these accounts. With a unique notion of liberality that these online platforms provide, the internet has bred many cowards that perhaps feel ashamed to express their views in real life and hence, rant and post excessively cynical or irrationally judgemental remarks. What this leads to is a severe misrepresentation of the general sentiments of the society. It could be a possibility that as a result, people might develop split personalities even in their real life when they become too accustomed to leading a dual life in the virtual world and in reality. However, because of its sheer storage ability, these “profiles” that people create might haunt them in the future if ever their future employers or someone of particular significant searches for information through these profiles which they might not be entirely receptive to. Therefore, it is also important that we do not over-misrepresent ourselves on the internet or try to be too outstanding when we are at the mercy of the broader society that we have no control over.
While I agree with Thompson’s proprioception view of Twitter, I also feel that twitter and its 140 characters has the ability to decontextualize situations. Not only that, I also feel that it dulls our criticality in the sense that it does not allow us to pursue a better understanding of certain things — we become lazy. For example @BBCNews, @NewsHeadlines give us all the news that we need in super bitesize. We know all the news but we do not exactly really know what is going on, it is almost as if you’re flipping through the Straits Times reading only the headlines. Some news agencies even employ clickbait headlines to attract more traffic, posting headlines which forces you to click, only to be disappointed. Perhaps they do not care too much about the news (or headline) that they are publishing but are more concerned with increasing their daily view count, for it could mean more money.
I feel that Rheingold’s perspective on virtual communities is an overly optimistic one. His book was written in 1986 where only professionals had access to a computer and the internet. However today, the youth make up the largest portion of the online population. Most youth are, by nature, immature. As such many of the discussions which take place on public places become a cesspool of ranting, trolling and flaming.
However, I would to point out one website which has an ingenious way of regulating discussions. Reddit.com is social networking service and news website where registered community members can submit content, such as text posts or direct links. Only registered users can then vote submissions “up” or “down” to organize the posts and determine their position on the site’s pages. The comments themselves can be voted “up” or “down”. Thus, meaningless, trolling and flaming posts which has sufficient down-votes are removed from the thread. This allows for meaningful discussion and the comments themselves can be more interesting than the content. Dana Boyd’s online architecture is demonstrated here as the tools of control, in Reddit, are now in the hands of the users, instead of the admins.
Opposed to the common idea, that social network sites and communication over the Internet is a thing for people, who are socially incapable or isolated, the texts for this week point at the possibility of collectivity online. The given texts by Thompson about the social impact of Twitter, which is the most recent as well as Danah Boyd and her view on social network sites and Rheingold´s text from the 1990´s “New Media Collectives”, point us in the direction of collectivity, intimacy, the importance of identity formation, opposed to isolation or unsociability.
Thompson believes that Twitter, as well as other so-called constant-contact media, can create social proprioception, which means that social network sites result in an awareness for people surrounding us, without the necessity of actual social interaction. Even though, it is true that social network sides inform us constantly about what other people are eating, celebrating or socializing with and where, one should ask to which extend we really know about the person´s feelings.
Rheingold focuses mainly on human feelings and discussions, which can come about in online communities and can make up for the lack of public discussions in the offline world. She also explains that our relations change online because we manage our impression on others, on the basis of ,for example. profiles, “likes” or pictures, which is done on the basis of an imagined audience.
She takes this term from Erving Goffman who explains that every individual within society alters his behavior and thus, his impressions on others, which is an integral part of society.
Thus, Online users imagine an audience to adjust their online behavior to be “socially acceptable” within the virtual community. Here, one should also keep in mind the power of surveillance, self-monitoring and the problem of misinterpretation, that comes with the architecture of the online space, which is as Boyd explains defined by “persistence, searchability, replicability and an invisible audience.”
Overall, all of the above mentioned authors remind us of the possibility of online platforms to make up for a lack of relations, networking and community, which may arise in modern society. For them, social media allow for the creating of real feelings and meaningful relations. Nowadays, most news regarding social networking sites talk about the negative impacts of online platforms such as Facebook. They are often perceived as sites of distraction, isolation and disconnection from reality. Keeping the above readings in mind, if that is the case, is again up for debate.
The online sphere is structured openly where there is no secrets within each user – where anything form of personal information can be extracted from the internet and it has an impact not only in the online sphere but also spillover socio- cultural impacts on the reality.
One of the similarities which can be drawn from the three works is the need for self-discipline to be exercised within the online community. Rheingold warns about the damage which one can inflict others through the internet and requires self-discipline to be enforced towards the end of his essay. On the other hand, Boyd reminds users about the damage one can inflict on himself if he were not to be careful with the use of Internet due to the “searchability” for information. The examples given by him were how teenagers were using the security features as the primary defence against parents or other online users and how an applicant was judged when the judging panel found out about his doings online. It then enforces the idea that online users have to be careful of what they post online which will allow their parents or superior to track their actions. Lastly, Thompson used the example of Twitter where it is a tool for the standardisation of time, one will be able to know the actions of his friends despite not being in the same space. Such ability allows personal information to be accessible to not only our friends but also acquaintances to obtain these information and the need for self- discipline to be enforced.
In the article by Rheingold, he mentions that virtual communities hold stronger bonds since members usually have shared interests. Rheingold wrote this article at a time when those with access to the internet were those of a upper-class, usually esteemed professionals. Now that the internet is much more widely accessible, there can be arguments made that virtual communities have much more potential to cause trouble and disruption.
However, I believe that virtual communities today are still able to bring people together. For instance, I have noticed in recent months that during the broadcast of tv programmes, hashtags have popped up at the bottom of the screen to prompt viewers to tweet about their thoughts on twitter. While people can still find like-minded friends in the real world, virtual communities such as twitter offer convenience and ease of access, and allow for greater access to more views and thoughts.
Another instance I can think of would be live streams of music festivals such as Coachella online on sites such as youtube. This allows not only people all around the globe to watch the acts perform, it allows for a gathering of like-minded people which would not have been previously possible. The sheer ease of access and the relative anonymity of such virtual communities do however, tend to lead to the occasional presence of trolls.
Boyd talks about how one can form an identity in ‘networked public’ through a profile, by blatantly stating one’s interests or through public comments. A profile gives a stranger an idea about the person. Especially since Facebook allows for tagging and people can view your pictures in recent events that you have participated in. An example is when employers search their potential employees on Facebook, or when your friend is talking about someone you don’t know, they will usually show you his or her Facebook profile. In Rheingold’s article, he talks about how he misunderstood Albert Mitchell, and how he initially thought he was fierce but later realized that he was actually quite sweet in real life. As compared to communicating solely through text, like Rheingold’s example, profiles create a better understanding of someone. Even without communicating personally, one can probably make a good guess of how the person will be like.
Is cyberspace the new ‘place we gather for conviviality’? Despite what Rheingold suggests about how cyberspace can be the informal public space that is missing, I think that the third place has not completely disappeared because we still spend most of our lives away from our computers. Cafes and hawker centres and other such places still available places for conviviality. Mere letters on the screen can never replace personal interaction that allows one to have eye contact, have a variation of tones in their voices and facial expressions. These are still important to create a sense of familiarity and close relations. Thus I think that cyberspace does not replace the third place, but rather, is an extension of it. Furthermore, the article states that online communities are communities ‘not of common location, but of common interest’. Although it is easier for people to create close relations when they share common interests, what happens if one person’s interest changes? He leaves his community and finds a new one. I feel that the ease of access cheapens the relations within online communities.
Lastly, I feel that the point about online activity stirring real emotions is very true. For example, a friend’s post on twitter may cause you to make guesses at the person’s intentions. There are people who express their unhappiness on twitter about ‘that particular person’ and in certain contexts, you wonder if ‘that person’ is you. This may strain relationships and create unwanted tension. Twitter is a place where people express their extreme emotions, especially while watching soccer. I get live updates from my real friends, instead of a commentator, even when I am not watching the game and it serves as a form of entertainment. Thompson talks about how Twitter is collectivist, but I think that it works both ways. You can only have a shared understanding if people are narcissistic and want to publicize their opinions and activities.
Howard Rheingold, in discussing how individuals find support and security in the virtual community, has addressed how human interaction has changed. Rheingold to a large extent is a proponent of virtual communication for he makes a claim that some individuals are not proficient in vocal communication; most individuals, as he argues, “have valuable contributions to make in a conversation in which they have time to think about what to say”. More importantly, Rheingold asserts that virtual community is essentially more bonded since it is established based on common interest as opposed to the default locality in which one is situated within a specific setting and context or as he puts it “by accidents of proximity”. This changes fundamentally how individuals meet. To be explicit, previously individuals first meet others before knowing them. Now, individuals know others and then decide whether or not to establish the bond and to maintain it. Moreover, one might not and never “meet” the people he talks to online. The virtual community is akin to Oldenburg’s “third place”, a place for conviviality. According to Oldenburg, the third place is a social leveling ground dispelled of social inequality. It is a place where “conversation is the primary activity and the major vehicle for the display and appreciation of human personality and individuality”. It is further argued that the third place is especially important in the capitalistic and materialistic modern context where there is a “deficient informal public life”.
Danah Boyd proposes that social network sites like MySpace are what he coins as networked publics. He is particularly concerned with how technological networks have contracted the spaces and audiences. Put differently, such social network sites serve as a mediator between individuals dispersed across spatial and temporal boundaries. Juxtaposed with unmediated publics, mediated publics have an amplified scale where sensory information is no longer constricted by physics. Audience, rather than being contained by the presence within a particular physical space at a given time, has included those who “might witness a reproduction of” a particular event or action; “the bounding forces of networked publics are less constrained by geography and temporal collocation than unmediated publics” (p.9). In this light, networked publics take on four characteristics: persistence; searchability; replicability; and invisible audience (p.9). Another aspect in which Boyd delves into is the idea of identity performance in the virtual world or social network sites e.g. MySpace. Identity performance, as Boyd argues, is conditioned by the desire to be “cool” (p.13). Profile is an example of how individuals write their digital body into being, the self that one seeks to portray and to be validated by others. An integral part of identity performance henceforth hinges on the friend network, or the “public displays of connections” – “You are who you know” (p.13). But who exactly are the individuals trying to impress? According to Boyd, the individuals are taking reference from an “imaged audience” (p.14). As Boyd continues to explain, the imagined audience helps individuals construct a socially acceptable self even though the “audience online may not be who they think it is” (p.15).
I find that Thompson’s article, though the shortest, also led to the greatest alteration in how I viewed social networks. Rheingold and Boyd’s article about the WELL (an online forum) and Friendster was well-written, but as digital natives, they merely reinforced what we already know about the various online networking options. On the other hand, Thompson’s article changed how I viewed Twitter. As he says, oftentimes we see Twitter as the epitome of narcissism in which we post banal updates regardless of whether anyone is actually reading the tweets. But he argues that that is not the primary function of Twitter. Rather, he talks about social proprioception – where we accumulate an almost sub-conscious sense of what our friends are doing through the small but constant updates of their lives. In this, he terms it as being collectivism, in the sense that we are concerned not of ourselves, but for our friends. Hence, tweeting is merely a reciprocal activity to ensure the longevity of Twitter. I will argue that Instagram is Twitter in pictorial form. Again, selfies, food photos and other seemingly pointless photograph is not an arrogant, individualistic activity. The grandeur it adds to our life is epiphenomenal, and we all benefit from having a better sense of our friends’ lives through all the posts even if we may not have time to meet up. Perhaps then, we should stop being so critical of these useless social networking site and accept that it is equivalent to gossiping or the third places of yesteryear.
I really enjoyed reading Danah Boyd’s “Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life”. One of the points in the article that stood out to me was that with the advent of social networking sites, social relations that were once considered ‘private’ have now been thrust into the public sphere. This raises the question of whether anything is really secure anymore, even with ‘privatised’ features. The recent controversy surrounding James Franco is testament to this. On April 3 2014, Franco reportedly tried to “hook up” with a 17 year old girl via Instagram, inspiring a “flurry of outrage” (Huffington Post) from the masses who considered the whole supposedly-private exchange “creepy” (some have argued that it was a publicity stunt for his upcoming movie, “Palo Alto”, but whether or not this is true is, I suppose, a different issue altogether) but it still goes to show how social networking sites are essentially open to the public eye, however hard you try to restrict access.
Boyd also says that because people using social networking sites now have the ability to create their own identities through the construction of their profile pages (“write themselves into being”), they, in some sense, have “more control online”. But do they really have control? What about hackers who have the ability to break into accounts and manipulate information online? Or could information be taken out of context, which takes ‘control’ away from the creator?
(Anyway, there’s a joke video by comedian/vlogger David So which mocks the whole James Franco controversy. He mentions how there are now rules to social networking, because social media has the potential to ‘blow things up’. Its a bit crude, but some parts are quite relevant so take it as entertainment! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZzgh8H050g&list=UUt8OnQ7ztuLrPrehlj8ZuuQ)