People, I am certain, use Snapchat in myriad ways and for all kinds of reasons. Surely, people use the disappearing-message app to document juicy gossip, send goofy but not save-worthy photos, cheat on an exam, share an inside joke, engage in insider trading, or co-view a sunset in the fleeting moment in which the red-purple sky loses its light. I especially like Nathan Jurgenson’s deeply theoretical and thought provoking analysis of Snapchat in terms of image scarcity and abundance. And yet, when I think about Snapchat, my mind always goes to the same, possibly immaturity-induced, place: sexting.

Sexting, made particularly famous by such figures as Tiger Woods, and Anthony—I can’t believe this is your real name—Weiner, is the act of sending illicit images of oneself and/or erotic messages via SMS. Humans are sexual, and have long engaged the technologies of the time in their erotic practices (if you don’t believe me, read James Joyce’s pen-and-paper love letters to his wife).Despite moral panics surrounding sexting (especially among *gasp* teenagers) the problem with this phenomena has less to do with erotic communication, and more to do with the medium of erotic communication coupled with the affordances and dynamics of networked publics. Snapchat is a technological solution to the problem, but one with unique—possibly problematic in a different way—implications of its own.

Content within networked publics is persistent, replicable, scalable, searchable, and slated for sharing. Actors must manage this content in the face of invisible audiences, collapsed network walls, and a blurring of private and public. Within such an environment, a nude picture of oneself is never in safe hands. The intention of the distributor matters, but only kind of. Once an image exists, it belongs—rightly or wrongly—to The Internet. It may well remain unseen by unintended eyes. In fact, this will likely be the case. However, it might also spread like wildfire, until your body shows up on a sexting meme, or, worse yet, shows up in the inboxes of people that you know. If hell hath no fury like a lover scorned, nothing provides better scorned-lover ammo than a camera roll of nudie pics. Here enters Snapchat.

Earnst Schraube’s technology as materialized action approach contends that technology is both imbued with, and affects, human users and creators—the latter in sometimes unexpected and unknowable ways. In particular, Schraube argues that technologies are born out of human problems, they are the means by which humans solve these problems. The printing press alleviated the problem of time-intensive information dissemination, sewer systems alleviated the problem of air-born disease, and Snapchat ostensibly helps users circumvent privacy concerns within networked publics. Or, more specifically, Snapchat should alleviate the worry inherent in digitally mediated intimate contact.

The key feature of Snapchat is its 10-second-or-less self destruction. The content of a Snapchat message is not persistent, spreadable, scalable, or searchable. It is not slated for mass sharing and eternal life, but instead, for a particular recipient and ephemeral existence. Yes, one can screenshot the message, and, it turns out, both Snapchat and Poke have a similar security loophole, but pursing these options goes against the core of the technology, and to do so, the recipient must be quick, skilled, motivated and willing for the sender to know of the non-normative and unexpected transgression. Snapchat assures a degree of privacy and mitigates a degree of risk. Teenagers, politicians, and long-distance couples everywhere can breathe a little easier. Digitally mediated intimacy has found its way onto less treacherous ground. If the only safe sext is no sext, then snapchat is a responsible preventative measure.

And yet, we cannot forget about the second part of the technology as materialized action approach, the part that says the effects of technology are largely unknowable, and move in directions unfathomed by creators. An unintended result of Snapchat, I argue, is the displacement of trust from a message recipient, to the technology itself.

To share a naked picture is a highly intimate act. The image is created with a particular recipient in mind. It is an act of vulnerability, a gift with the aim of mutual excitement and pleasure. To share such a picture via digital media is, in addition, an act imbued with deep trust. It is an act made all the more meaningful by the affordances and dynamics of networked publics, such that both sender and recipient know that the image can take on a life of its own, that the nude body explicitly forgoes control over itself and its future, that power—real power—is now in the hands of the viewer.

Snapchat, in subverting the affordances of networked publics, alters this dynamic. The technology now—not the recipient—is the trusted object. The code, not a conscience, keeps illicit content from straying off of its intended path. The image changes meaning, as does the act of sharing it. Sexting via Snapchat is still kinky, sexy, and requires the vulnerability of baring one’s body for another, but unlike traditional digital forms, it does not imply a promise of longevity, or  an implicit ritual of giving oneself over to a trusted other. Rather, in its technologically afforded ephemerality, a Snapchat sext is like an amusement park roller coaster, engineered to be exciting but secure, dangerous-seeming with minimal risk. The Snapchat sext becomes a symbol of vulnerability with a safety net, intimacy with an insurance policy, a thrill bound by controlled conditions.

In turn, the very existence of Snapchat changes the meaning of traditional digital intimacy.  Newly located in juxtaposition to an ephemeral alternative, the trust imbued in more permanent media demands to be recognized. As Snapchat (and copycats like Facebook poke) take hold, the gift of a regular old sext message is more than kinky, it is downright loving.

Jenny Davis is a weekly contributor on Cyborgology and an advocate of safe sext. Follow Jenny on Twitter @Jup83

I have a dear family friend. She is highly educated, happily married, a wonderful mother, and incredibly successful in her career. She has also, however, always struggled with her weight.  Like many people, she tried dieting about a million times. This produced the kind of yo-yo style results which bring people to maintain several wardrobes of varying sizes. Then, about five years ago, she started journaling. She wrote down everything she ate and the approximate caloric count of each item. With this tactic, this dear family friend was, for the first time, able to maintain her desired body size.

Don’t worry; this is not a post about how to lose weight. I could write one of those, but the anti-feminist self-loathing would probably be too much for me to bear. Rather, this is a short post about self-tracking. We all know that Cyborgologist Whitney Erin Boesel (@phenatypical) is our resident expert on self-tracking however, as she makes her way from one side of the country to the other, I will pick up the self-tracking ball and talk about some recent findings from the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Susannah Fox and Maeve Duggan over at Pew recently wrote a report on the self-tracking habits of over 3,000 adult Americans. This is a hugely important report, full of wonderful information and droves of data.  These are the summary findings:

General Tracking Patterns

• 60% of U.S. adults track weight, diet, or exercise
• 33% of U.S. adults track health indicators or symptoms (e.g. blood pressure, blood sugar, sleep patterns)
• 12% of U.S. adults track health indicators or symptoms for a loved one

How People Track

• 49% engage in tracking only in their heads
• 34% track on analog technologies (e.g. journals, papers)
• 21% track using digital technologies (e.g. health apps, spread sheets).

The prevalence of tracking here is striking.  The majority of U.S. adults track something about their health. This tracking, however, most often takes place in analog form, with over 80% of trackers utilizing pen-and-paper technologies, or no external technologies at all, keeping tabs on themselves mentally. So while many people track, few people do so in “high-tech” ways.

Unsurprisingly, within the report itself, as well as in many public commentaries drawn from the report, authors make the distinction between technological tracking and non-technological tracking, the former referring to the 21% who track digitally, the latter referring to everyone else.

This is a false distinction. Rather, a broad definition of technology as that which mediates and facilitates human engagement supports instead differentiation between kinds of technologies used for self-tracking. Indeed, mental counters, note-takers, and those with irun apps use technologies—language and systems of measurement; pen and paper; hardware and software— to record their movements, affecting how, how much, and what it means, to move. All tracking is mediated tracking, as the self who tracks is a mediated self.

A second interesting point comes from the body of the report. Fox and Duggan show that those with more/more serious conditions are not only more likely to track externally (i.e. not just keep track in their heads), but are also more likely to share their results with others (usually clinicians, but sometimes family and social networks). Here we see an interesting interplay between identity, embodied health,and tracking.  People come to know and define themselves by both seeing what they do, and taking in other’s reactions to them. By externally tracking health indicators, the person comes to see hirself as having an abnormal or possibly pathological body, which will be reinforced through data-based interactions. At the same time, the practice of tracking—and the interactions surrounding it—may be empowering for the patient, as they see themselves improving, and actively engaged in the process of increasing bodily health. In this way, self-tracking may simultaneously reinforce and help break the bounds of sickness-related identities. More largely, this indicates that tracking has identity implications, and that the act of tracking—perhaps motivated by both bodily experience and identity meanings—becomes an integral part of the self-ing process.

Jenny is a weekly contributor on Cyborgology and an in-head-only tracker. Follow Jenny on Twitter @Jup83

Each morning, after reading the news and checking my emails, I reward myself with a quick (okay, not that quick) scroll down the Facebook News Feed.  Over a peanut butter bagel and strong cup of coffee, I look at pictures, laugh at status updates, ignore political rants, and leave small traces along the way: Likes, congratulations, the occasional snarky retort. I look forward to my Facebook time. It’s the dessert portion of my morning routine. The little sugary something that warms me into my day. And yet, this is a precarious treat—one day sweet, the next lip-puckeringly tart.

I never know quite how I will feel at the end of my scroll session. Some days, I am energized, connected, warm, fuzzy, and one with the world. Other days, I feel annoyed, left out, jealous, regretful that I let that half hour slip away while others were doing something more productive, more impactful, more meaningful. Admittedly, on most days, my feelings lie between these poles in the far less dramatic realm of mild amusement or hinted anxiety.  

My personal experiences of Facebook-induced-emotional vacillations are reflected in a series of recent studies that pertain to Facebook use and mental well-being. Let us discuss them chronologically.

First, back in November, researchers out of the University of Edinburgh found that having a very large network of Friends on Facebook causes stress. This effect was particularly strong for those who added parents and employers. Here, we see a clear case of context collapse, and a nice example of its psychological consequences.

Then, at the end of December, an article published in Social Psychological and Personality Science  found that actively posting on Facebook decreased experiences of loneliness, regardless of the levels of interaction that posted material received (e.g. Likes, comments, shares etc.).

Now, as February approaches, a paper from the upcoming proceedings for the 11^th International Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik argues that Facebook use can cause feelings of frustration and envy, and that these are exacerbated by “passive” following (i.e. scrolling through the News Feed without adding content).

In sum, Facebook causes stress, frustration and envy, but reduces feelings of loneliness, yet these effects persist in differential degrees under varying conditions.  How’s a social media researcher to make sense of all of this? And more importantly, how is she supposed to respond next Thanksgiving when family member X asks: “So what do you think Facebook is doing to society?”

The short answer, is that Facebook is not *doing* anything to society, but engaged in an intricate dance with social, structural, interpersonal, and emotional processes. The better answer, and the one far more likely to fly with family member X and his social media curiosity, is that Facebook affects us in many ways. It affects the ways in which we are social, and the ways in which we experience that sociality. Because social situations are highly emotive, the ways in which we engage new social platforms will have emotional consequences, which in turn, should lead to distress reducing behaviors. Indeed, if passive consumption causes envy and frustration, and active posting reduces loneliness, then an active participant—rather than a spectator—is, according to the above mentioned studies, better able to avoid distress and achieve feelings of connectedness. This, of course, depends on the social and emotional propensities of the social media user, who may or may not feel capable or comfortable engaging in ways that promote—rather than detract from—mental health.

Importantly, this is not far off from interactive techniques in physical space. Imagine for moment a large party. People are scattered about, engaged in clusters of varying size. Music is playing. Drinks are flowing. Occasional eruptions of laughter sprout from here and then there. This is potentially a lovely scene, one in which party-goers feel connected to one another, full of emotional energy. But what about the wallflower? The guy or gal perched next to the cheese poofs, awkwardly wiping the orange dust off of hir pant leg, bobbing hir head slightly off beat from the music, listening quietly to the conversations of visitors to the food table, who offer the polite hello and linger but a moment before rejoining the collective. We might imagine that the clustered storytellers feel good, while the wallflower feels bad. Passive observers are the wallflowers of Facebook. They are there but not There. Part of the crowd, but not part of the collective. For them, Facebook, like a party, is a source of distress. The wallflower is likely to prefer small gatherings or one-on-one coffees, and likely finds Facebook to be a daunting space. Importantly, while there are those who are consistently the life of the party, and others who consistently reside by the cheese poofs, most of us find ourselves in both of these roles–and in the spaces in between–in different life moments. Sometimes, the party, like Facebook, feels good. Other times, we go out of obligation, and leave early, longing for the non-judgmental quiet of alone time.

Overall, the social and emotional effects of any interaction medium are contingent on use. But beyond this, the affordances of particular media are more or less amenable to different kinds of interaction, which various users will experience in vastly different ways. To understand what social media “does” is to examine simultaneously architecture, normative structure, and an array of experiential realities.

Follow Jenny on Twitter: @Jup83

Pic creds in order of appearance:

http://kenward.blogspot.com/2011/05/record-album-bowl.html

http://www.slumpedover.com/the-perks-of-reading-wallflower.html

Back in October, Nathan Jurgenson (@nathanjurgenson) created a typology of digital dualism, which I followed by mapping this typology onto material conditions that vary in terms of physical-digital enmeshment. Today, I want to apply this typology and its material-mapping to discourses and conditions of embodiment in light of technological advancements. If you have been following the blog and are up-to-date with this line of discussion, feel free to scroll down past the review.

Jurgenson’s Typology of Digital Dualism

Strong Digital Dualism: The digital and the physical are different realities, have different properties, and do not interact.

 Mild Digital Dualism: The digital and physical are different realities, have different properties, and do interact.

 Mild Augmented Reality: The digital and physical are part of one reality, have different

properties, and interact.

 Strong Augmented Reality: The digital and physical are part of one reality and have the same properties.

Jurgenson’s typology preferences Mild Augmented Reality, and problematizes the remaining categories.

Mapping the Dualism Typology Onto Materiality

I  mapped Jurgenson’s critique onto material conditions, arguing that theoretical movement between typological categories can be largely explained by material variations in the degree of integration between physical and digital. This mapping is pictured below:

Pure Digital Dualism: This is an Ideal Type in which digital and physical are fully separate, share no properties, and do not interact

 Mild Augmentated Reality: Highly digital or highly physical, with small amounts of digtal/physical interaction

Augmented Reality: Physical and digital are explicitly intertwined and mutually constitutive, but maintain unique properties

 Strong Augmented Reality: Physical and digital, though maintaining separate properties, are deeply intertwined, mutually constitutive, and inseparable

Pure Integration: An Ideal Type in which the physical and digital are one in the same.

Embodiment and Digital-Physical Integration

To be human is to be a bodied being. We do not have bodies, we are bodies. Bodies are simultaneously experienced, felt, imagined, represented, acted with, and inscribed upon. Technologies of the time can affect both how people think about bodies (their own, and bodies in general), and how people experience embodiment. New technological advancements have resulted in two extreme embodiment discourses, rooted in particular material conditions. These discourses, and their conditions, can be theorized using the typologies discussed above.

The first discourse is that of disembodiment. This was common in early computer-mediated-communication research, as the internet was viewed as a separate space in which the actor could leave hir body behind, divorcing hir from the constraints of race, gender, and physical ability. More recently, the Foresight Project—government commissioned research on the effects of changing science and technology in the UK, issued a report which argues that “hyper-connectivity” enables social actors to connect based on shared interest, relegating physical demarcations (race, gender, class, physical ability, physical attractiveness etc.) to the margins. Because of this, report author Prof Sir John Beddington argues that people may be better able to access and enact their “true selves.” Referencing role-playing games, for example, the report states:

 One of the most significant observations of the impact of online identities is that some individuals feel they have only achieved their ‘true’ identity for first time online. For example, for individuals with various forms of disability, such as autism and muscular dystrophy, being online or having an avatar can be the first time the person feels they are seen by others as a ‘normal’ human being.

*Let me to take a moment and cringe at the use of “’normal’ human being” in juxtaposition to a person with physical impairments*

Theoretically, what we see here is a case of Strong Digital Dualism. The physical (i.e. the body) is problematically left behind, as the actor—presumably yet inexplicably separated from hir body—enters the digital realm. Interestingly, the digital here is privileged as more real than the physical. Yet non-the-less, the physical and digital are understood as wholly separate entities.

Materially, this Strong Digital Dualism is rooted in Mild Augmented Reality, in which the physical and digital, though connected, play differentially salient parts. In role-playing games, although certainly users do not leave their bodies behind, the digital becomes the preferenced realm. The avatar becomes the visible signifier, and engagement takes place largely through the digital space.

A second discourse is that of hyper-embodiment. Here, the self is constituted through the body, and new technologies are employed as the authoritative means of knowing, constructing, and articulating the body. This is largely seen in the biomedical model of physical health and wellness. New technologies that enable increasingly detailed information about the body become the exclusive tools with which one can legitimately make sense of the body. We see this in contested illnesses, in which bodily suffering is medically dismissed due to the seeming lack of physiological abnormality. Similarly, a recent article in Media, Culture &  Society discusses the field of biometrics, in which identities are authoritatively fixed through genetic makeup, facial recognition, iris scans, and fingerprinting.

Theoretically, these are clear cases of Strong Augmented Reality. The body and technology are not just mutually constitutive within this discourse, but inseparable, and without distinct properties. The human being is hir genetic makeup, physiological abnormality, and synaptic structure. S/he cannot be anything outside of this.

Materially, this is also rooted in Strong Augmented Reality[i]—or the deep entwinement of digital and physical, with each maintaining separate properties. Keep in mind here that Pure Integration—which fits most closely with the discourse of hyper-embodiment, is an Ideal Type, empirically unreachable. As such, the discourse is problematic in its lack of digital/physical separation, but understandable in light of the deep connection between bodies and the technologies with which they are integrated.

Of course, hyper and dis-embodiment discourses live at the ends of a vast continuum, with far more nuanced views peppering the space in between. These extreme discourses, and the material conditions form which they stem, however, offer an illustrative example of the ways in which the theories of Digital-Dualism/Augmented Reality can be applied.

In what follows, I attempt to diagnose the IRL Fetish, or the explicit preference of physical over digital, and in particular, the designation of the former as more “real” than the latter. Bear with me, the punch line is at the end.

I get invited to a lot of things. It’s not because I’m cool or popular—rest assured, I am not. I also get regular messages from friends offering deals on the products that they sell, such as Scentsy, MaryKay, and Tasteful Pleasures. It’s not because I’m rich or have expressed interest in these products—rest assured, I am a poor post-doc far more likely to buy new running shoes than liquefying candle wax .  Rather, I receive these invitations, messages, and deals because I am part of a large Facebook network, through which information can be easily spread.  And as a recipient under these circumstances, I think little of not only declining invitations and consumptive offerings, but often completely ignoring said objects with a fully clear conscience. No, I do not want any Fifty Shades of Grey Toys, nor do I want to attend an event entitled “Come Punch Me in the Face” (yes, that was an *actual* event someone invited me to), and I feel no inclination to articulate my decline, but assume that my silence implies disinterest.

To talk about it, this seems rude and inconsiderate. Yet, I am not a rude person (unless you count the past me that interacted with my parents between the ages of 12 and 18). So how do I, a generally polite and empathetic person, sleep at night? How do I justify my flippant dismissal of social outreach from my network? It has to do with digitality, scarcity, and “real”ness.

The affordances of digital communication, and social network sites in particular, are such that users can distribute information (and invitations) with little cost. It takes very little time to create a group, craft a mass message, share information, or even construct a personal birthday note. In short, interpersonal social outreach has taken on a mass-production model. In the pre-Facebook days, my birthday consisted of a big slice of cake, a few cards, and a handful of phone calls from all of the usual suspects (I’m looking at you Nana). Today, my birthday also consists of 121 Facebook notifications, and exclamatory notes from that girl I played basketball with during the “rude” years (i.e. 12-18) and that guy who I can’t quite place, but am pretty sure lived somewhere in my dorm Freshman year (or maybe he was just friends with my roommate?).  I am compelled to respond the cards and phone calls, not so to the Facebook posts (although I would be lying if I said I didn’t like the attention—even if it is manufactured).

The key difference between the cards and calls as compared with the Facebook posts, is the relative effort it took to produce them, and the related scarcity/abundance with which I receive them.  Cards and calls take more effort, and as such, are less abundant than Facebook posts. Because of this, the cards and calls mean more to me. They are, in a deep way, more “real.”

Now before everyone gets up in arms, I do not think the physical is inherently more real than the digital. I do, however, think that the affordances of digital technologies enable abundant production, and in doing so can water-down the meaning of an object and/or interaction. It is the productive affordances of digital technologies that lead to an often implicit feeling that the digitally mediated social outreach does not always require a reply.

This is captured, I believe, in, Sarah Wanenchak’s (@dynamicsymmetry) seemingly inexplicable and yet undeniable digital dualism experience with regards to her own book. She wants the physical copy, as this—and only this—will make the publication real. The digital copy perhaps feels like a fancy version of the document she keeps in some folder on her computer and/or on a cloud, something she can create, produce, and distribute all on her own, something that does not need external validation or passage through a highly selective gatekeeper. In this, the digital seems less real.

Importantly, we can see this trend through multiple technological advancements, not just digitization. For instance, the same story told via motion picture perhaps feels less real than a play, as audiences in the latter are limited to the physical space of the performance hall and the temporal moment in which it is performed. A book from the printing press perhaps feels less real than one which was hand-written, as the former can be owned by many, while the latter is only possessed by one.

I should also note that some digital interactions very much feel real, and do indeed require response. A personal email or Facebook message; a tagged status update; an @-directed tweet. These are quite real, quite intentional, and interactionally different than mass produced messages and/or invitations. In the same way, mass mailings from political candidates, sales calls, and change-of-address cards do not compel me to respond.

The perceived realness of an object or interaction is not inextricably tied to the media through which it was produced. The media and the object/interaction, however, are also not wholly disconnected. Rather, the content and the circumstances of an object’s materiality affect—but do not determine—one another.

Digital technologies afford the mass production, consumption, and distribution of objects and interactions in ways that demolish scarcity. This new abundance can shallow out the object’s/interaction’s depth, creating a nebulous feeling which allows dismissal, facilitates less personal consumptive investment, and generally diminishes the tangibility of the object’s/interaction’s consequences. This, I argue, is a diagnosis of the IRL Fetish. 

Follow Jenny on Twitter @Jup83

This is not a typical blog post.  It has far too many words–many of which are jargony– no images, and formal citations where readers would expect/prefer hyperlinks. Rather, this is a literature review. A dry recapitulation of the often formulaic work of established scholars, forged by two low-on-the-totem-pole bloggers with the hope of acceptance into the scholarly realm through professionally recognized channels–in this case, the American Sociological Association annual meetings. Nathan Jurgenson (@nathanjurgenson) and I are working to further theorize context collapse. To do so, however, we need to fully understand how the concept is being and has been used. Below we offer such an account, and ask readers to point out anything we’ve missed or perhaps misrepresented.  In short, we hope to share our labors, and invite readers to tell us how we can do better.

Recognizing that this is an atypically time/energy intensive blog reading experience,  I offer you, the reader,  a joyous and theoretically relevant moment with George Costanza before the onslaught of text: 

Context Collapse: Background, Definitions, and Uses within the Literature

In beginning a discussion of context collapse, we must make two key points. First, although we focus here on context collapse, it is important to situate it within the larger scholarly image of this historical moment, and the widely cited affordances and dynamics of networked publics. Second, the affordances and dynamics of networked publics are implicitly located in juxtaposition to a more analogue era, and in particular, face-to-face interaction (although pre-digital electronics are fair game for juxtaposition as well).

The Pew Internet and American Life Project indicates that 69% of Americans utilize some form of social media with over 90% under the age of thirty having at least one social media account (brenner 2012). More concretely, Facebook, the predominant social media platform, reports a billion active users per month as of October 2012, most of which reside outside of the U.S. (Facebook.com 2012). In short, we live in a connected era, and sociality is largely affected by emerging technological platforms.

boyd (2008) refers to the new interaction structure resulting from an increasingly mediated form of sociality as “networked publics,” with the key interaction media being social network sites. Social network sites are defined as ‘‘web-based services that allow individuals to  (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulates a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system” (boyd and Ellison 2007). The content generated within network publics hold particular affordances and interconnected dynamics. In particular, content produced and consumed through social media and within networked publics is persistent, replicable, scalable, and searchable. With these affordances, actors within a networked public must manage invisible audiences, context collapse, and the blurring of private and public (boyd 2010).

Persistence refers to the continual availability of content beyond the temporal moment of its creation. Even when deleted, the content may have spread and may be stored and potentially altered, in a variety of physical and digital locations maintained by other users. The content is scalable in that it is often shared with a large and likely diverse audience, who can further share the content with their own networks, expanding the reach far beyond the local interaction situation. Also, the content is searchable, such that it is stored on servers and becomes re-available when it matches key terms typed in by another user. Papacharissi (2011) suggests a fifth structural affordance, pertaining to shareability, or the tendency of networked digital structures to encourage sharing over withholding information. As Stutzman (2006) has argued, this is perhaps why so many people share as much as they do on social media.

These affordances of networked publics create dynamics to be managed by networked individuals. Invisible audiences refer to the necessarily obscured nature of the viewership for one’s self-presentation and/or content creation. Although users often act as though their audiences are bounded, they are in fact, potentially limitless (Marwick and boyd 2011). Moreover, these audiences (actual and potential), by default, span multiple arenas of the actor’s social world; collapsing contexts that were previously segmented. Finally, networked publics are characterized by a blurring of private and public, such that personal life is increasingly fare for public interaction, and personal data becomes part of an aggregated database.

With this in mind, we further expound upon the literature surrounding context collapse, and its affects upon interaction and identity processes. Social actors hold many roles throughout the life course and simultaneously at any given moment within the life course. For instance, one may be a mother, sister, athlete, student, and exotic dancer. For each role, the social actor maintains particular identity meanings guiding who s/he is, and a network of others who (typically) share these expectations. Although the expectations across roles may coincide neatly, it is most often the case that each role bears slightly different meanings, and in some cases, highly contradictory ones.

Social psychologists argue that we come to know ourselves by seeing what we do and how others react to us, and that through interaction, actors seek to maintain the identity meanings associated with each role (Burke and Stets 2009; Cooley 1902; Mead 1934).  Indeed, Mead (1934) contends that for each role the actor plays, there is a separate Generalized Other, or larger moral understanding of who the person is and how the person is expected to be in the world, and that social actors manage their roles by adhering to disparate expectations as is situationally necessary. Similarly, Goffman (1959) demonstrates the skillful ways in which social actors reveal and conceal aspects of themselves for varying audiences, maintaining separate faces within distinct social arenas, while Leary (1995) discusses playing to each audience, their values, and their perceived positive opinion of the actor.

The notion of context collapse complicates this artful dance between networks and across Generalized Others. Indeed, within the social media space, these diverse Generalized Others converge into a single mass, such that the actor must now present to her/his family, colleagues, and drinking buddies, each of whom harbor different views of who the actor is, and different interactional and presentational expectations. Concretely, this may mean that a beer-bong picture of the target actor at a fraternity party can become visible to her/his boss, and perhaps worse yet, her/his mother.

Further, unlike early forms of computer-mediated-communication that facilitate strong actor control over the presented self (Walther 1996), social network sites facilitate the relinquishing of presentational control. Indeed, social network sites are first and foremost social, and each profile is a co-construction through public wall posts and tagged status updates, pictures, and comments (Marwick and Ellison 2012; Vitak 2012). That is, profiled content is both self-generated and other generated. Through the warranting principle (Walther, Van Der Heide, Hamel, and Shulman 2009), audiences give greater credence to other-generated content (OGC), granting the tagged picture greater weight than the image posted intentionally by the actor her/himself.

This is not to say that context collapse is absent from face-to-face settings, or only emerged with Web 2.0 technologies. On the contrary, weddings, funerals, and public community gathering spaces have long been sites of merging networks and divergent actor expectations (Marwick and Ellison 2012). Rather, context collapse is exacerbated by the affordances of social media and dynamics of networked publics, such that the relative segmentation of earlier times becomes more salient, as the relative blending of networked others in the present era takes on defaults status.

Largely, context collapse is difficult to avoid due to the architecture and normative structure of social media space. In such a space users are searchable, the cost of connection is very low, and norms dictate that requests for connection (i.e. “friend requests”) be honored if the actor knows the requestor in even the most distant capacity (McLaughlin and Vitak 2012). Indeed, the ease with which networks grow within this setting has re-set the meaning of network size such that very large networks are no longer status symbols or signs of popularity, but discrediting signifiers of narcissism and/or in-authenticity (Donath and boyd 2004; Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe 2011; Tong, Van Der Heide, Langwell, and Walther 2008).

Research shows several ways in which users manage context collapse. Hogan (2010) introduces the lowest common denominator approach, or limiting content to that which will be appropriate for every member of the network. Others skillfully navigate the architecture itself, utilizing privacy settings, deleting offending OGC, and engaging re-segmentation tools within the social media platform. For instance, one may block some members of her/his network from viewing some aspects of the profile, or from viewing the content of a particular post. Similarly, the user can designate particular recipients for each post, disaggregating the network based on particular expectations about the actor (Marwick and Ellison 2012; Stutzman, Capra, and Thompson 2011; Vitak 2012). Still others circumvent the system altogether, utilizing aliases to make themselves unsearchable, and/or creating multiple accounts for multiple audiences—both of which go against Facebook and Google+ Terms of Service (ToS) (Lim, Vadrevu, Chan, and Basnyat 2012; Raynes-Goldie 2010).

Context collapse, however, is the default state, and each technique with which to trouble this state, comes at a cost. The lowest common denominator approach limits the deeps kinds of connection made possible through social network sites, and requires a surface level presentation and interaction, despite the potential to strengthen existing ties through sharing. The skillful navigation of the site comes with a time cost, and requires a particular level of skill to exist as a viable. Finally, circumventing ToS puts the actor at risk of expulsion from participation altogether.

Moreover, efforts to limit the network, and in particular, explicit efforts to curate the profiled content, run counter to expectations of accurate representation and threaten authenticity (Davis 2012). Further, and perhaps most interestingly, each of these techniques, which work to re-segment and effectively shrink a large diverse Network into smaller homogonous networks, strip from the user the social capital made possible by social network sites (Vitak 2012). Indeed, social network sites, though certainly presenting a threat to privacy, are also a means by which users can maintain weak ties, accessing an array of resources, novel ideas, and opportunities brought about by the bridges of a single large Network (Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe 2007; Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe 2011).

Like all social phenomena, one would expect context collapse and its consequences to affect different kinds of people differently. Although little work has been done on the differential affects of context collapse and/or its management techniques, there are indications that status and power differentials within the social structure will be reflected within these variations. First, if expanded networks result in bridging social capital (Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe 2007; Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe 2011) then those with the need to acquire such capital (e.g. those without jobs, in need of material resources from others etc.) have the most to lose by avoiding a large and diverse network (Rainie and Wellman 2012). At the same time, those who enact non-normative identities, or engage in socially reprimanded behaviors may need to keep their networks segmented in order to avoid social rejection, physical harm, or even institutionalization (Lim, Vadrevu, Chan, and Basnyat 2012). Finally, the ability to choose re-segmentation is largely dependent upon user skill level and technological comfort, which will vary by race, class, gender, and age.

References

boyd, danah. 2010. ” Social network sites as networked publics: Affordances, dynamics, and implications.” Pp. 39-58 in A Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites, edited by Z. Papacharissi. New York: routledge.

boyd, danah 2008. “Why Youth Heart Social Network Sites: The Role of NetworkedPublics in Teenage Social Life.” Pp. 119-142 in Youth, Identity, and Digital Media, edited by D. Buckingham. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.

boyd, danah  and Nicole B. Ellison. 2007. “Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13:210-210.

brenner, Joanna. 2012. “Pew Internet: Social Networking (Full Detail).” Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Burke, Peter J. and Jan E. Stets. 2009. Identity Theory. New York: Oxford University Press.

Cooley, Charles Horton. 1902. Human Nature and the Social Order. New York: Scribner.

Davis, Jenny L. 2012. “Accomplishing authenticity in a labor-exposing space.” Computers in Human Behavior 28:1966-1973.

Donath, Judith and danah boyd. 2004. “Public displays of connection.” Bt Technology Journal 22:71-82.

Ellison, Nicole B., Charles Steinfield, and Cliff Lampe. 2007. “The Benefits of Facebook “Friends:” Social Capital and College Students’ Use of Online Social Network Sites.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 12:1143-1168.

—. 2011. “Connection strategies: Social capital implications of Facebook-enabled communication practices.” New Media & Society 13:873-892.

Facebook. 2012. “Key Facts.”

Goffman, Erving. 1959. Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday.

Hogan, Bernie. 2010. “The Presentation of Self in the Age of Social Media: Distinguishing Performances and Exhibitions Online.” Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 30:377-386.

Leary, Mark R. 1995. Self-Presentation: Impression Management and Interpersonal Behavior. Dubuque, IA: Brown & Benchmark Publishers.

Lim, Sun Sun, Shobha Vadrevu, Yoke Hian Chan, and Iccha Basnyat. 2012. “Facework on Facebook: The Online Publicness of Juvenile Delinquents and Youths-at-Risk.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 56:346-361.

Marwick, Alice E. and danah boyd. 2011. “I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience.” New Media & Society 13:114-133.

Marwick, Alice and Nicole B. Ellison. 2012. “”There Isn’t Wifi in Heaven!” Negotiating Visibility on Facebook Memorial Pages.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 56:378-400.

McLaughlin, Caitlin and Jessica Vitak. 2012. “Norm evolution and violation on Facebook.” New Media & Society 14:299-315.

Mead, George Herbert. 1934. Mind, Self, and Society. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press.

Papacharissi, Z. & Gibson, P. (2011). 15 Minutes of Privacy: Privacy, Sociality an Publicity on Social Network Sites. In L. Reinecke & S. Tepte, (Eds.), Privacy Online: Theoretical Approaches and Research Perspectives on the Role of Privacy in the Social Web (pp. 75-89). New York: Springer.

Rainie, Lee and Barry Wellman. 2012. Networked: The New Social Operating System. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.

Raynes-Goldie, Kate. 2010. “Aliases, creeping, and wall cleaning: Understanding privacy in the age of Facebook.” First Monday 15.

Stutzman, Fred, Robert Capra, and Jamila Thompson. 2011. “Factors mediating disclosure in social network sites.” Computers in Human Behavior 27:590-598.

Tong, Stephanie Tom, Brandon Van Der Heide, Lindsey Langwell, and Joseph B. Walther. 2008. “Too Much of a Good Thing? The Relationship Between Number of Friends and Interpersonal Impressions on Facebook.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13:531-549.

Vitak, Jessica. 2012. “The Impact of Context Collapse and Privacy on Social Network Site Disclosures.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 56:451-470.

Walther, Joseph B. 1996. “Computer-Mediated Communication: Impersonal, Interpersonal, and Hyperpersonal Interaction.” Communication Research 23:3-43.

Walther, Joseph B., Brandon Van Der Heide, Lauren M. Hamel, and Hillary C. Shulman. 2009. “Self-Generated Versus Other-Generated Statements and Impressions in Computer-Mediated Communication: A Test of Warranting Theory Using Facebook.” Communication Research 36:229-253.

Science and Technology studies scholars have long understood that the physical structures and architectures of everyday life both reflect and construct human values, propensities, lines of action, and behavioral and social constraints. This was famously described by Langdon Winner with regards to the segregationist role of Robert Moses’ low bridges on the New York highway system.  Recently on this blog, David Banks (@DA_Banks) wrote a beautiful essay on the technology, and technological artifacts of Troy New York.  Indeed, the architectures of spaces in which we move shape how we move and reflect normative expectations about how we ought to move.

When thinking about urban landscapes, the role of these technologies, the processes by which they were constructed, and the place of each individual in the maintenance of them, is often obscured. For instance, in sprawled layouts, people get in cars to drive from their homes to dispersed strip malls and office complexes, reinforcing and/or spurring the need for interconnected road systems, parking lots, and an available personal vehicle. Or, in condensed urban areas, people ride bikes, walk, or hop on the bus, reinforcing and/or spurring the architectural need for public transit systems, bike lanes, and sidewalks. The way people move through space is both architecturally determined and agentically managed.

But if above ground structures, those which we physically tread on, are to remain implicitly in the background, invisibly visible, then what about that which dwells under the earth, on the margins, and out of site? What, more specifically, about waste? Humans produce waste. A lot of waste—much of which comes from our very bodies. Indeed, the average American produces 7 pounds of organic waste per day, largely made up of feces and urine. Cities have to somehow manage this waste, manage these now expelled parts of human bodies, manage that which we produce, drop, leave, and conscientiously ignore. Such management is typically engaged by an underclass of workers, the sanitation department, waste management employees, septic cleaners. When all goes well, waste remains invisible. Unsmelled. Unseen. Silently moved through underground systems and channeled out in ambiguous ways. This is a process to which most producers of bodily waste remain blissfully ignorant.

Sometimes, however, this waste management becomes a problem, and when it does, our expelled and forgotten matter spills back up into human view, reconnecting humans with the ways in which their own bodies must be managed through external structures; reminding humans of the dirty reality of organic embodiment. Such is the case in the New York City sewer system. High water levels, coupled with high waste levels, can lead to sewer overflows, flushing raw human waste into the city’s waterways—including the East River and the Hudson. Nothing reminds humans of their own embodiment like literal consumption of expelled matter. Nothing reconnects humans to an otherwise hidden process than their own shit floating down the river.

A recent solution to this problem of waste re-emergence comes from an unlikely place: social media. Leif Percifield recently introduced a social media tool called DontFlushMe, which allows New Yorkers to keep track of water levels and make waste management decisions accordingly—that is, decisions about whether or not to flush. The system works through sensors within the sewers, which notify users of high water levels via text message, Twitter, a call-in number or by a website. When water levels get too high, users will ostensibly “let it mellow,” reducing the influx of waste into the sewer systems, and preserving the waterways.

The role of social media here is particularly interesting. Here we have a social tool, a communication medium necessarily removed from the body and physicality, working to reconnect the user to hir body, and reconnect the body to the architectures and structures in which it dwells. This form of mediated communication thins the mediating line between personal actions and public good, between expelling and consuming, between individuals and infrastructures. This tool makes invisible processes visible, and turns everyone into stewards of the shared land.

Such reconnection—between humans and their bodies; between individuals and infrastructures—is facilitated by a tool so often accused of causing disembodiment and disconnection. Social media republicizes and disseminates responsibility for that which was previously relegated out of sight, smell, and mind. This “new” technology, ironically, brings us back to an earlier time of chamber pots and smelly streets, in which bodily awareness was a communal necessity.

Jenny Davis is a postdoctoral researcher in the social psychology lab at Texas A&M University. Follow Jenny on twitter @Jup83

*Special thanks to James Chouinard for bringing this social media tool to my attention, and for sharing his vast knowledge on the Sociology of Dirt.

Most Wanted posters, having lost their long standing place at the Post Office, have found a new home on Pinterest. Following the Philadelphia Police Department, police in Pottstown PA, are now electronically pinning  images of those with outstanding arrest warrants. Yes, the same place people exchange recipes and DIY home tips is increasingly also place in which police officers disseminate photographs of felons on the lam (time out: I just got to use the phrase “on the lam” in an academic-ish piece of writing.  *self high-five*).

This use of Pinterest for mugshot dissemination is theoretically interesting in a number of ways. Here, I denote three key interrelated insights:

First, this demonstrates the unpredictability of technology—in use and consequence. I’ve written previously about Ernst Schraube’s notion of technology as materialized action, an understanding that technology is both a product of human creators and users, and shapes human practices, structures, and cultures in unknowable ways. In other words, technology is imbued with vast and complex potentialities.  The purpose of Pinterest is the recreational sharing of interests, consumables, crafts, and objects of beauty, comedy, wit, and wisdom. The intended user base is unaffiliated persons, engaging these things on their own time and in their own space. In contrast, the police utilize Pinterest to share institutional information,working towards highly instrumental ends. They act as professional representatives of a government institution, and ask fellow Pinterest users to not only accept, but participate in this institutional, labor-based activity. Not only then do the police use Pinterest in an unexpected way, but also alter the space in so doing. They hybridize recreation with labor, citizens with institutions, and people with things[i] within the Pinterest platform.

Police use of Pinterest also highlights the expanding role of crowdsourcing, and the ways in which digitization can have very real
implications. Finding wanted criminals has always been crowdsourced, from milk carton photos to the in-your-face-conservative America’s Most Wanted television show. In these ways, police officers have always delegated a portion of their work to an unpaid public (in fact, they delegate their work to the very public who pays their salaries through taxes). Here, we see a digitization of this crowdsourcing. This process of digitization both expands and narrows the laboring crowd. An electronic pin can certainly reach more eyes than one stuck in a crowded public cork-board. However, whereas everyone sends mail, it is predominately (though certainly not ubiquitously) upper-middle class women who participate on Pinterest. Perhaps police use of Pinterest will engage these women with law enforcement in ways that were previously uncommon. Perhaps police use of Pinterest will redefine the space as one that is more masculine, inviting men to participate with their manliness unthreatened. Linking back to my point above, the consequences of this digitized crowdsourcing for law enforcement, Pinterest, and gender relations more largely, are yet unknowable.

Finally, this institutional use of Pinterest indicates an interesting return to the industrial complex. Haraway tells the story of contemporary technology and its original home in, and growth out of, the military industrial complex. Indeed the internet was developed as a military communications tool, and has since been co-opted to such a degree that this combative beginning is largely absent from public consciousness. Here, we see a reverse co-optation, as this technology of entertainment, leisure, and creativity is co-opted back towards institutional use—namely, by the prison industrial complex. It becomes, explicitly, a technology of control, one in which users are asked to actively participate. This circular infiltration of prisons into a free space of creativity and leisure speaks again to the unknowable nature of technology and its consequences. Just as military engineers likely never envisioned their work evolving into Google hangouts and Words With Friends, Pinterest founders (and users) likely never expected to become tools of The Law. Further still, the consequences of these historical, material, and cultural forces combined remain on an unchartable trajectory.

Several weeks ago, I wrote about the “fear of being missed (FOBM).” The flip side of FOMO (fear of missing out), FOBM captures the anxiety surrounding a complex and fast moving online realm in which it is easy to be buried, ignored, and/or forgotten. This anxiety is amplified by the online/offline connectedness, through which invisibility online can lead to neglect offline (personally and professionally). FOMO and FOBM speak to the difficulty of deleting social media accounts, the discomfort of a dead cell/laptop/tablet battery, and the drive to livetweet, status update, tag oneself in pictures, and be physically present for tagable photo-ops.

Soon after posting my piece on Cyborgology, I read Tiana Bucher’s article in New Media & Society about Facebook algorithms and the fear of invisibility. Bucher’s work offers a useful theoretical frame (Foucault’s Panoptican) for FOBM, and an equally good (if not better) term for the phenomena (fear of invisibility). In what follows, I describe Bucher’s piece and its utilization. I then offer critiques of her work. In this way, I hope to further the theoretical substance of FOBM, framing it with the tools suggested by Bucher, and refining it through juxtaposition to Bucher’s arguments.   

Bucher comes from a Foucauldian perspective, but takes a new angle. Foucault famously describes the disciplinary technology of the panopticon, an architectural form that grants power to the seer over the always potentially seen. Epitomized in prisons, schools and hospitals, the subject must always assume s/he is watched, and must therefore discipline hirself accordingly. Numerous researchers have applied Foucault’s panoptic model to digital surveillance (see examples here, here, and here). The key threat is ubiquitous visibility, an end to privacy, and instilled normative discipline.  Bucher flips this panoptic model. She argues that social network sites’ discriminating algorithms produce not a threat of full visibility, but instead, create a dearth of vlisibility. In short, the real threat is that of invisibility. As a case example,  Bucher describes how EdgeRank—Facebook’s algorithmic system that shapes News Feed content—works, resulting in about a 12% chance for one’s post to end up in their network’s Top News. There are 3 main components of Edgerank:

1. Affinity: those with whom a user is more intimately connected have increased News Feed visibility
2. Weight: Some interactions are weighted more than others. For instance, a “Like” weighs less than a photograph
3. Time Decay: Older objects are less visible. Newer objects are more visible

This algorithm creates a self-perpetuating loop, such that those who are less visible are less frequently objects of interaction, decreasing further their visibility. To remain visible and relevant within one’s network, the subject must manage these algorithmic preferences. S/he must update frequently (time decay), engage intimately (affinity), and participate substantively (weight).

Foucault is indeed a useful frame with which to understand the algorithmic and behavioral dynamics of visibility on social media. Bucher’s angle on Foucault is unique among the literature, and captures an important experiential component of mediated interaction in the contemporary era. As such, Bucher’s use of Foucault is a fruitful frame with which to theorize FOBM (or fear of invisibility as she aptly calls it).

Pushing Bucher’s work (and my own) further, I offer the two main critiques:

First, Bucher’s argument is algorithmically deterministic. Indeed, visibility and privacy are guided by algorithms, but far from determined by them.  Most significantly, visibility need not be directly tied to digital communication (e.g. posting and commenting on pictures). Rather, one can increase hir visibility while away from the computer by simply attending events in which others will check in, post pictures, send invitations etc.  Moreover, viewers actively surpass the algorithmic preferences through highlighting some Friends and types of content, and hiding, deleting, or minimizing others (for a full discussion of this second point, see my earlier post on reality curation). In this vein, a Facebook user may perform with algorithmic perfection, messaging, updating frequently, and posting lots of substantive content, but if this content is of the “wrong” type (e.g. politically inflammatory material, pictures of one’s children) or in too high an abundance, the user may find hirself manually removed from hir network’s view, or in extreme cases, deleted as a connection, rendering hir performative work—and hir very presence—obsolete.

Second, Bucher frames visibility as a juxtaposition between an omnipresent gaze and a laser sharp eye with discriminating vision. For instance, Bucher states:

“…visibility is not something ubiquitous, but rather something scarce.”

I argue that these poles do not exist in opposition, but in conjunction with one another. Hyper-visibility and invisibility are not mutually exclusive, and the tension between scarcity and abundance becomes part of users’ ambivalent experience with social media. As I have shown elsewhere, the potentialities of a connected era, coupled with competing desires, moral values, and goals of social actors, create a highly ambivalent relationship between humans and the technologies of the time. In the case of visibility, users simultaneously angst over an omnipresent gaze and relegation to the margins (or out of frame altogether). They worry about narcissism, surveillance, and invasions of privacy, while finding pleasure in sharing and micro-stardom.

I think there is a lot more theorizing to be done with regards to visibility. What I hope to have shown here is its complexity. Admittedly, the above post may do more complicating than clarifying.

Pic creds:

Anxiety girl: http://on-account-of.com/

Unfriend: http://blog.hudsonhorizons.com

Jenny Davis (@Jup83)  is a weekly contributor for Cyborgology. She wants this post to be visible, so please tweet it, respond to it, and share it on Facebook in an algorithmically effective way (hopefully no one will hide or Unfriend you for it).

  *12/01/2012: SEE UPDATE BELOW ORIGINAL POST*

Today (Thursday November 29, 2012), Syria’s internet shut down. This is a serious situation with literal life and death implications. We have been following the situation on the Cyborgology Facebook page since the story broke (largely, this consisted of seeing what was going on with Andy Carvin @acarvin). Much of this story has yet to play out, and we will certainly continue to follow/write about it as events progress and we learn more. Right now, I want to take a moment to explore one aspect of what this all means. Namely, I want to explore the question: why did the internet shut off now? To do so, I turn to Derrick Bell’s interest convergence theory.

Derrick Bell’s theory of interest convergence is a canonical statement on race relations. Bell famously argues that whites promote racial justice only when doing so converges with their own interests. The key example is the 1954 Brown V. Board of Education case, in which racial integration in schools served the larger U.S. message within the Cold War of human rights, freedom, and equality.

Although many scholars critique the strong version of Bell’s argument for its failure to incorporate agency among blacks, the root of the argument is quite useful in explaining power relations. In short, interest convergence theory tells us that the will of the powerful wades towards the direction of self-interest. When these interests converge with those of the less powerful, the less powerful are better able to achieve their will.

To a degree, I think this framework helps us understand the decision of the Syrian government to shut down communication channels. Syrian rebels utilized digital communication channels to both organize among themselves, and share their experiences—often in real time—with the outside world. This was instrumental in their cause both on the ground and internationally. The real question then, is why did the government maintain these channels for so long? This question is particularly blaring in light of extreme government atrocities, such as the mass killings of innocent citizens—including children. Moreover, why did the government decide to cut off these channels now?

Internet and communication blackouts are not unique among the Arab uprisings. Egypt and Libyan governments both shut down communication during their respective battles. The Syrian government, however, is unique in its deft use of digital technologies to quash protests, locate dissidents, and suppress the movement. In short, the interests of the powerful (i.e. the government) converged with the less powerful (i.e. the rebels). In addition to appearing somehow less oppressive to the international community, we see here a possible reason for maintaining Internet capabilities despite their strategic importance in the rebel movement.

However, we may speculate that the costs got too high for the government. We may speculate that in light a persistent rebel force, culminating in massive protests in Damascus—so large that the major airport had to be shut down—it no longer served governmental interests to maintain digital connectivity. The interests of the powerful and the less powerful no longer converged.

Certainly, there are other factors in play. This is a minuscule fraction of the story. With that said, this framework suggests that perhaps today’s act by the Syrian government was one of desperation. They were forced to give up a key oppressive resource (digital communication capabilities). This resource was no longer adequately effective for keeping the uprising at bay. Now, they must all battle in the dark.

Update 12/01/2012 2:19pm Central

Recent reports indicate that despite the government initiated Internet blackout, Syrian rebels have maintained spotty communication through the use of Skype. As a New York Times article reports

…[H]aving dealt with periodic outages for more than a year, the opposition had anticipated a full shutdown of Syria’s Internet service providers. To prepare, they have spent months smuggling communications equipment like mobile handsets and portable satellite phones into the country… If the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt were Twitter Revolutions, then Syria is becoming the Skype Rebellion. To get around a near-nationwide Internet shutdown, rebels have armed themselves with mobile satellite phones and dial-up modems.

Problematic designations of “Skype and Twitter” uprisings aside, this speaks to the agency of the less powerful—the very agency that Bell is critiqued for not addressing. These alternative means of communication are indeed, weapons of the weak.

With that said, this new rebel weapon is used at a very high price. As the article further warns:

In recent months the Assad government, often with help from Iran, has developed tools to install malware on computers that allows officials to monitor a user’s activity… Using satellite phone service to connect makes Skype potentially more dangerous since it makes it easier to track a user’s location, said Eva Galperin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group in San Francisco.

Far from powerless, the rebels are indeed at a power deficit. They can subvert the will of the regime, but do so on terms that are not their own.