Search results for facebook

Maclom Gladwell searches for an activist Facebook in his recent New Yorker piece. Guess what? He doesn’t find it. Gladwell isnot the first person to make the observation that Facebook and other social networking platforms are of limited effectiveness in promoting activism. Evegny Morozov makes the important observation that the ease with which Facebook users can express support for a cause and feel they have taken action on that cause inhibits, rather than promotes, social activism.

I think these social critics are setting up a digital straw man. Facebook, for instance, serves other important political purposes that might not have direct, identifiable effect upon social policy. In my own recent work on Facebook political groups, I find that many of them are created with no specific activist purpose. Often, these groups seem simply to be a site to “park” political views in a place with access to thousands of sympathetic eyeballs. I argue that many individuals use Facebook to perform political identity in a venue that allows them to try on different political selves in a nomynous (not anonymous) venue. This means that individuals are performing a “public” political identity. For many of them this might be the only place they feel comfortable expressing this voice. Those who aren’t good communicators, disabled, low income or otherwise inhibited from participating in political activism can use Facebook as a semi-autonomous space to proclaim their political self.

Rather than see it as the savior of global politics, we should see Facebook as one more site where individuals can development their political voice. It’s often not a voice that we necessarily want developed. There is a great deal of nativist, racist, sexist and homophobic voice development on-line. But as a space, Facebook and other SNS sites allow the development of humanist/transformational voices. It is not an activist training ground, but rather a “third space” for cultivating political identity.

For us, the trick should be transforming these performative identity spaces into deliberative, cross cutting spaces. This requires theorizing digital citizenship to include cross-cutting dialogue as an essential component. In a paper I presented at the Western Political Science Association annual conference last year, I made the case that we should be training young people in a digital citizenship that includes stressing the importance of what Susan Bickford called “the politics of attention” or including the voiceless as be part of public conversations. Listening to the other through what Diana Mutz calls cross-cutting dialogue is critical in helping individuals developed textured, vetted and more nuanced voices in public dialogue.

Yes and no…
(Source: www.internetworldstats.com/stats25.htm)

On ThickCulture, we’ve written about public figures getting into hot water before using Facebook.  A candidate’s campaign for provincial legislative office in British Columbia was sunk by “risqué” photos posted on Facebook [1].  Down in the States, the Young Republicans got into a dustup stemming from racially charged comments left on a vice chairman’s wall [2].  Now, Russell Wiseman, the mayor of Arlington, Tennessee is feeling the heat for calling President Obama a Muslim on a “friends only” Facebook post.  Wiseman has over 1,600 “friends” and the comments leaked out.  What did he say?  Well, for starters::

“Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch ‘The Charlie Brown Christmas Special’ and our muslim president is there, what a load…..try to convince me that wasn’t done on purpose. Ask the man if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he will give you a 10 minute disertation (sic) about it….w…hen the answer should simply be ‘yes’….”

The extensive thread also included this::

“…you obama people need to move to a muslim country…oh wait, that’s America….pitiful.”

He also goes on with his interesting take on polity::

“you know, our forefathers had it written in the original Constitution that ONLY property owners could vote, if that has stayed in there, things would be different……..”

Wiseman felt those making a fuss about his comments were making a “mountain out of a molehill.”

I get a sense that Wiseman thought his Facebook comments were only viewable to those who shared his views -or- perhaps was imbibing in a bit too much holiday cheer before settling down to watch “It’s a Charlie Brown Christmas.”  The irony is that the Obama speech on the Afghanistan surge had so much in common with George W’s take on terrorism.  Jon Stewart has a funny take on the speech {US IPs only}::

Canadian viewers can watch the segment here {2 December}.

So, what was Wiseman upset about missing.  It was Linus’ reading of the Gospel of Luke::

The object lesson for public figures is to be careful about what you post online, but I wonder if the proliferation of social media will “desensitize” us all to every little thing that someone says on their Facebook wall or in a Tweet.

In Canada a few weeks ago, the wife of the immediate-past Liberal Party leader Stéphane Dion, Janine Krieber {AKA la présidente}, criticized the current leader, Michael Ignatieff, you guessed it, on Facebook [3].  Here’s a translation {it was posted originally in French}::

“It’s been a year and one week since I last wrote on my blog. Ah! “la présidente” is lazy. But we have to take action now.

The Liberal Party is falling apart, and will not recover. Like all liberal parties in Europe, it will become a weakling at the mercy of ephemeral coalitions. By refusing the historic coalition that would have placed it at the helm of the left, it will be punished by history.

Anyway, I became convinced of it the moment that Paul Martin treated Jean Chrétien so cavalierly. The party died at that moment. If the Toronto elites had been more in tune, humble and realist, Stéphane would have been willing to take all the time and absord all the hits needed to rebuild the party. But they couldn’t swallow the 26%, and now we are at 23%.

The time for choices is now. I don’t want to see the Conservatives continue to change my country. They are, slowly, like any dictatorship, changing the world. Torture doesn’t exist, corruption is a fabrication. Do we really have the right leader to discuss these questions? Can someone really write these insanities and lead us to believe that he simply changed his mind? In order to justify violence, he must have engaged in serious thought. Otherwise, it’s very dangerous. How can we be sure that he won’t change his mind one more time?

The party grassroots had understood all of that, and the average citizen is starting to understand it too. Ignatieff’s supporters have not done their homework. They did not read his books, consult his colleagues. They were satisfied that he could be charming at cocktails. Some of them are outraged now. I am hearing: Why did no one say it? We told you loud and clear, you didn’t listen.

I am starting a serious reflection. I will not give my voice to a party that will end up in the trashcan of history. I am looking around me, and certain things are attractive. Like a dedicated party that doesn’t challenge its leader at every hiccup in the polls. A party where the rule would be the principle of pleasure, and not assassination. A party where work ethic and competence would be respected and where smiles would be real.

Maybe I’m not dreaming.

“La présidente.”

Some have called the above as a tirade, others think it wasn’t constructive given where the Liberal party is these days, and still others went “right on.”  No matter what, Ms. Krieber’s post was taken down after it was being circulated.

Will social media eventually change what we collectively deem as shocking, inappropriate, or out-of-line?  Until then, watch what you say…and Google cache.

Twitterversion:: Tenn. mayor goes off on “Muslim president.” Anothr #Facebook #fail 4 a public figure. Will we evntually get desensitized? @Prof_K

Song:: Tennessee – Silver Jews

Right now I’m exploring public deliberation on Facebook through an analysis of members’ writings about California’s Proposition 8. I entered the term “Proposition 8” on Facebook’s search function, analyzing the first 10 pages of wall postings on each of the first 50 groups created (examining only groups with over 25 members). Between the pro and anti-Proposition 8 sites, one clear finding has emerged—the opposition to Prop 8 engages the walls of pro-Prop 8 sites far more than vice versa (e.g. compare the walls of groups like “Repeal CA Proposition 8” with “Vote YES On Proposition 8!”).

Supporters of Prop 8 seldom write on the walls of anti groups. The pro-Prop 8 sites evidence a great deal of clash, however. For anti-Prop 8 advocates, Facebook groups appear to mostly offer spaces for testing and exploring arguments, that is, intra-movement advocacy. Occasionally a supporter of Prop 8 will write on an anti-site wall, but this usually consists of an isolated, inflammatory comment. Anti-Prop 8 advocates largely have to jump onto pro sites in order to engage in argument with the other side. My question is, what do you think explains this phenomenon? My initial thought is that anti-Prop 8 advocates are the ones with an uphill battle here, so they simply need to work harder to overcome the status quo. But that seems a bit surface and inadequate, given the sheer effort that the pro-Prop 8 supporters have put into their campaign. All in all, why is there more engagement by one side rather than the other on Facebook’s wall posts?

Last week, the Young Republicans got into a dustup over yet another Facebook flap.  This spring, we discussed how Facebook derailed an NDP candidate to provincial office in British Columbia, when the BC-Liberal opposition got wind of “racy” photos posted.  In this incident, there’s differing opinions which are arguably representations of fragmentation in the Republican Party.  According to the DailyBeast, it started with Audra Shay, vice chairman of the Young Republicans hosting a discussion on Wal*Mart endorsing Barack Obama’s health care plan.  Things unravelled when an “Eric S. Piker” made racially charged comments using the word “coon,” another ThickCulture topic from the spring {See above}.  Audra agreed with the statements, adding a LOL.

Subsequently, there were others criticizing these remarks, Cassie Wallender {a national committeewoman from the Washington Young Republican Federation} and Sean Connor {chairman of the D.C. Young Republicans}.  While these critics were “de-friended” by Audra, “Piker,” for the time being, remained a “friend.”  On Thursday, a black Republican activist, Lenny McAllister condemned these remarks and prior statements by Shay::

McAllister references a culture war going on in the Republican Party and regarding the racially charged remarks going around, he stated “You can cover cyanide with chocolate, but you still can’t call it candy.”

Her own recounting of the events, possible unaware of the screencap, paint a different picture of the events.  In her statement on 3 July, Shay went on to denounce the remarks and attributed the dustup to her political enemies capitalizing on an opportunity.  Irreparable damage may have already been done, as her upcoming bid to be Young Republican chairman may have been derailed.  

I’m not going to engage in any admonishing finger-waving on the dangers of social media, a bete-noire of mine.  I think this is beyond a matter of “political correctness” or freedom of speech issues and do reflect a growing divide between moderates and a more divisive fringe.  Indicative of this is how moderates are often criticized as being RINOs, Republicans-in-name-only, who are not sufficiently conservative. The RINO label was thrown at Wallender by Shay supporters after her criticism of the racial remarks.  In order for Republicans to move forward, they will have to deal with these issues head-on.  Will they use social media to do this?

Twitterversion:: #YoungRepublican schism over racially-charged #Facebook flap. Indicative of a larger #CultureWar within the party?  @Prof_K

Song:: Space Oddity (1990 Digital Remaster) – David Bowie

  

Crosspost:: A shorter version is available on Rhizomicomm.

When I was a senior in college, I must admit thought quite highly of economics and its rationality.  It was the early 1990s and I was contemplating law school and doctoral programs in environmental economics, with interests in law and economics and public choice.  I was given The Gift Economy by David Cheal to read, altering my worldview forever.  A close second was Jean Baudrillard’s Selected Writings, but that’s another post.

Cheal’s book focuses on the tensions between market relationships {political economy} and social ones {moral economy}, as a distinctive characteristic of the social milieu in capitalist societies.  While gifts may be given for instrumentalist means, they often are not, hence being representative of a wide array of behaviors firmly in the realm of the symbolic and the relational.  Cheal talks about the interplay between the market and social realms, which could easily be superimposed on a Pierre Bourdieu framework of fields, habitus, doxa, and forms of capital.  In the past, gift-giving was often marginalized and thought to be subsumed in a capitalist exchange model.  Recent thinking considers gifts to be a social process, one that has a significant economic impact.

So, how is this interplay affected by social media?  In my current work, I’ve been thinking of the use of Facebook by organizations, particularly in the realm of philanthropy.  Organizations have been embracing the idea of creating relationships with constituents, rather than focusing on transactions.  Health non-profits often provide information and advocate on behalf of their constituents.  By doing so, this creates a person-organization relationship and ideally leads to greater levels of philanthropy {economic resources for the non-profit}.  The key is that the relationship must have salient meanings for the constituents, i.e., the brand meaning system.  Depending on the context, this is often tied to outcomes, e.g., cures for diseases, social change, identity, etc.

Social media and social networking sites like Facebook not only foster person-organizational relationships via information disemmination and services, but also peer-to-peer relationships.  These relationships are social, but are within a capitalist market context.  Hence, we return to the gift.  We manage relationships through gift-giving and other behaviours, through the management of symbols::

Social media has the ability to move constituents from this model::

Organizational Activities -> Org.-Person Relationship -> Outcomes

more towards this one::

Organizational Activities  -> Communities of practice -> Outcomes

The latter being facilitated by the Internet and with the possibility of a richer set of outcomes stemming from an engaged community.  We want gifts to be expressive of our relational ties, hence full of meanings, within a given social context, e.g., a community of practice.

Facebook is a global player, but still needs a solid revenue model.  Apple’s success with “apps” show the power of a platform to deliver value, often at a low price-point.  The Facebook platform should be developed in line with how people, how a large number of people, actually engage in symbolic relationship management, tied to other strategies, such as::

• Bling gifts that are expressive of sentiments {various media}
• Donations and sponsorships
• Online events to engage community members
• Free/Low-cost personalized apps that add value, e.g., health monitoring, reminders, alerts, etc.

Organizations are still figuring out how to use social media and Facebook is still figuring out how to deliver value.  All I can say its future isn’t online ads and organizations just paying lip service to their constituencies with social media is as transparent as this::

Twitterversion::  #newblogpost #Facebook & #socialmedia in reconfig of econmics. Interplay {political&moral economies}.Implic.for orgs&FBk. http://url.ie/1x6e  @Prof_K

I’m currently working on a project exploring Facebook and public deliberation. In this project, I’m asking questions like: What does Facebook portend for deliberative democracy? When, where, and how do Facebook and its users invite or obstruct the development of public argument/s? How does Facebook’s very form and content promote or impede opportunities for argumentation? Rosen (2007) asks some parallel questions:

What cues are young, avid social networkers learning about social space? What unspoken rules and communal norms have the millions of participants in these online social networks internalized, and how have these new norms influenced their behavior in the offline world? (p. 23)

We know very little about the potential for social networking sites to help or hinder public deliberation, and what kinds of norms are involved in these processes. As the site draws an increasingly large user base, this would appear to be a critical subject for argument studies. Overall, I’m exploring the idea that Facebook has created civic spaces for a new kind of networked argumentation, which leverages the trust of anchored online identity and offline friendship toward social issues. Subsequently, I’m wondering if some of the communication that occurs on Facebook could be viewed within the framework of what I term diasporic-virtual publics. Users create a diasporic-virtual public on Facebook by threading together central and peripheral friendships from the past and present. Despite the wide geographical dispersion of these friends/acquaintances, each is moored in a past/present relationship that carries implications for arguments and arguing online. At the same time, my current analysis is trying to figure out whether various facets of Facebook are anti-deliberative, in both content and form. I invite your critiques or extensions on this subject. . . .  – Don

There is some remarkable new research out on the persuasive dynamics of Facebook. Stanford researcher BJ Fogg argues that a new form of persuasion has emerged in the structure of Facebook, namely, “mass interpersonal persuasion. . . . This phenomenon brings together the power of interpersonal persuasion with the reach of mass media.” In particular, Facebook has brought together six dynamics of persuasion for the first time in history, such as an automated structure, rapid cycle, and measured impact—in a way that goes far above and beyond what is often called “viral adoption” (www.bjfogg.com/mip.pdf). Weiksner, Fogg, and Liu also find another six patterns of persuasion in more specific Facebook applications, such as provoke and retaliate, reveal and compare, and expression (some of which are native to Facebook)—which invoke many persuasive norms such as “reciprocity,” “cognitive dissonance,” and “social proof” (www.springerlink.com/index/20652047j6801376.pdf).

I believe that mass interpersonal persuasion and the confluence of these influential techniques bear heavily upon the design and articulation of future public sphere activities. While there is much about Web 2.0 worth critiquing, we might remain critically hopeful about the possibilities for Facebook to create online cultures of trust and risk that perform valuable functions for deliberative democracy. Running through Facebook’s post-election newsfeeds, I noticed the remarkable degree to which many people engaged their online friends, of many political persuasions, in discussions over the results. Even when some of this communication was quite divisive, people still carved out an interactive space for engagement. Beyond my own experience, however, there are two connections I would like to make between Facebook and the public sphere.

First, in ideal public spheres individuals should be able to talk in an “unrestricted fashion” about matters of general interest—and these arenas are instantiated through conversation “in which private individuals assemble to form a public body” (Habermas). There are thus some bounded communicative conditions that individuals commit themselves to in order to democratically advance as much of the public interest as possible. In the same way, when Fogg mentions that Facebook makes it easy to build a “high-trust culture” due to a number of agreements and assumptions users make when joining and using the service, we can see that the structure of Facebook appears to lay the groundwork for communicating upon which much public sphere activity relies.

Second, what Fogg terms “automated structure” evidences how Facebook sets in motion persuasive experiences. As he puts it, “computer code doesn’t take a vacation or go on coffee breaks.” As such, this is one place where I see Facebook perhaps promoting civic engagement even more than, say, face-to-face communication. Facebook actually encourages members to further online interaction without their having to do anything. We’ve all been to public meetings where someone forgets to send out the minutes afterward, or follow up with an important e-mail to the group. Facebook has no such qualms, its computer codes make sure that we receive news of important events, and can even see public conversations occurring between others in ways unrestricted by the demands of time and space. If someone else joins a group protesting global human trafficking, they don’t need to tell others that they have joined, Facebook structures the experience in such a way that everyone will rapidly receive the message. 

New technologies such as social networking sites are bringing diverse cultures into contact as never before. Whether or not websites such as Myspace or Facebook help or hinder democracy is an open question, and a topic many journalists and scholars are still coming to terms with. Some view these sites as devices for amplifying narcissistic tendencies. Journalist Christine Rosen argues, for instance, that social networking sites are committed to the principle “show thyself” rather than “know thyself.” From a different perspective, the Los Angeles Times today posted an article exploring ongoing debates about religion (in this case, Islam) on Facebook (“Facebook reflects struggle over Islam’s role”: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-facebook19-2008sep19,0,1968535.story).

The story notes that young Muslims in the Middle East, in particular, have been using Facebook as a means to dialogue with others about religion and politics. Many are using the site to create a space for public argumentation largely denied in the social and political structures of their societies. Some are using Facebook to dispel myths about themselves and their faith with Westerners. Most want to know whether cyberspace could potentially act as a tool that might create change in their own social contexts.

While these questions remain open, and I think that scholars examining Web 2.0 have often been far too celebratory about its potential, these online debates and deliberations on Facebook appear to be a largely positive social phenomenon. Many young Muslims seem to be finding their rhetorical selves by engaging in an online dialectic between the local and the global. Facebook is becoming a means to traverse the very human constructions of borders and boundaries which have traditionally enveloped their lives. At the same time, Facebook is being used in these examples as a way to create attention structures that highlight the existence of both multiple viewpoints and embodied others.

As the devout and the secular battle it out online, are the sides having any effect upon one another? Only time will tell. But I can’t help but think that, as more and more viewpoints are competing for attention online, they are at least teaching the world that choice matters. Whether or not people are persuading one another in these matters, these online debates evidence various communicators (of both tolerant and intolerant orientations) colliding with the notion of “options”—that no one construction or interpretation is all that’s out there. As such, these young Muslims struggling over Islam’s role should realize that (as Marshall McLuhan once said) “the medium is the message,” and that above and beyond the content posted on the social networking site, it is perhaps the structure of Facebook itself, as a way to open communicative space, that holds the most promise for breaking down various societal boundaries.