social media

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

Crossposed on Rhizomicomm

McLuhan Way is just down the street from me, so perhaps it’s my inspiration.  I remember reading Marshall McLuhan‘s Understanding Media over 14 years ago in a seminar on the Internet.  The hot/cool media continuum perplexed many of us and some say technology has rendered the concept obsolete.  In terms of hot/cool, where does the Internet stand?

• Hot media are high-definition.  Media that fully-engages one sense of the audience member:: print {visual}, radio {sound}, film {visual}, & the photograph {visual}.
• Cool media are low-definition.  Media that require more active participation from the audience member to interpret::  Television {visual with limitations in the 1960s},  telephone {sound of a relatively poor quality in the 1960s}, and comic strips {cheaply reproduced mass-entertainment}.  The video game as a hyperreal construct, where the audience/player must fill in gaps of this representation of the real.

Reading is engaging in hot media and is a solitary experience.  Reading, contrasted with speech, forces an isolating consciousness, perhaps one overly-immersed in the individual.

How does Web 2.0 fit into all of this?  Well, new technologies trend towards the hot.  The iPod engages us, bathes us in a bubble of sound of our choosing.  What about this paradox?  New technologies are higher-definition, engaging us more and more, but also allowing us to be interactive with others {social media}.  Moreover, there is convergence of the technologies.  The smartphone {MP3 player, telephony, Internet web surfing} is a stunning example of multisensory engagement that also allows us to communicate and share with others.

What happened?  Is the singularity of media, where all media is converging, making it all lukewarm?  The continuum is shrinking to a singular point, as in the multimedia experiences of the smartphone.  Has technology sped up our communications, so that there is the appearance that time has folded upon itself.  We read text or see a video and now we can immediately respond to others.  We read a tweet from Twitter and immediately respond to it.

So, bear with me as I think out loud here.  Let’s assume that media are approaching singularity.  As you go up the cone, technologies converge and the user is collapsing hot/cold, engaging both simultaneously.

Let’s assume that at the circular base of the cone, along the diameter is the continuum from hot to cold.  Perpendicular to that diameter is another continuum, the institutional semistructures, rigid {controlling} versus chaotic {open}.  The base would have 4 quadrants, each with prototypical examples::

1. Hot & Rigid- Old “big media” {print, radio, film, etc.)
2. Hot & Chaotic- Engaging content in unstructured/uncontrolled  databases
3. Cool & Rigid- Newsgroups
4. Cool & Chaotic- Synchronous unmoderated chat

The origin will be “lukewarm” and semi-structured.  The origin is somewhat of a normative assumption.  Individual user experiences may vary and may not even be contiguous.  I know I need to refine these ideas and construct a better diagram.  Nevertheless, I think this concept might be valuable in thinking about how people’s use of technologies is likely to evolve.  Where would you put the following::

• Facebook {social networking site}
• Twitter {microblogging}
• YouTube {video filesharing}
• Hulu {long-form professional videos}
• Google {all things data}

Where are they moving towards -or- how could they better provide value?  Of course, despite McLuhan being gone for quite a while, I half-expect this to happen to me::

Twitterversion:: Can #MarshallMcLuhan ‘s hot/cold continuum inform #socialmedia? #sociology #web2.0 http://url.ie/1wys @Prof_K

Song:: “Suspect Device” Ted Leo & the Pharmacists-lyrics

Updated:: 18 June 2009 10:53 EDT

Overshadowed by rather serious events in Iran and subsequent stutter-steps by mainstream media in its coverage, David Letterman got into a dustup with Sarah Palin over allegedly tasteless jokes about her 14 year-old daughter, Willow.  The Huffington Post has a 1:43 compilation of the affair::

Dave went to great lengths to apologize and Sarah Palin accepted his apology on Tuesday.  Old news.  Now, one group is clamoring for Dave’s firing.  Just to be clear here, Dave is protected by the First Amendment’s right to free speech, but that doesn’t guarantee employment.  Ask Don Imus about how big media can frown on inappropriate humour. The FireDavidLetterman site announced that Olive Garden supposedly dropped its sponsorship of The Late Show::

In a Politico article, according to Sherri Bruen, the company’s guest relations manager::

“We apologize that Mr. Letterman’s mistake, which was not consistent with our standards and values, left you with a bad impression of Olive Garden.

but, this HotAir post finished the paragraph with this::

“There will be no more Olive Garden ads scheduled for The Late Show with David Letterman in this year’s broadcast schedule.

We have not yet finalized next year’s advertising plan but will consider our valued guests’ opinions when doing so.”

The context being that the contract was already allowed to expire and no ads were planned.  So, they caved to pressure.  Or, did they?  Apparently, the sources confirming the pulling of the ad sponsorship weren’t authorized to speak for the company and the NY Times reported there was no such decision.  The Politico article was updated and the title revised from this::

to “Olive Garden Backtracks on David Letterman Ads.”  Well, as the story d/evolved, quel surprise, comments from the Twittersphere started to trickle in, some defending Olive Garden, some critical of the chain, and a handful advocating a boycott for allegedly pulling the ads {recent} and for sponsoring Dave {2+ days ago}::

Olive Garden is in a tough PR spot.  If their online demos {Quantcast} are fairly similar to their customer base, their market trends towards being white, female, 18-49, with 0-2 kids, making under $60K, and with some college.  In other words, moderates.

Dave.  Well, he’s getting a bounce from all of this.  According to the NYTimes Media Decoder blog {16 June}::

“In preliminary national ratings, Mr. Letterman pulled in 700,000 more viewers than Mr. O’Brien Monday night, 3.9 million to 3.2 million, his biggest margin yet over his new competitor. Mr. Letterman routinely trailed the former ‘Tonight’ host Jay Leno by a million viewers or more.”

O’Brien still owns the coveted younger demos.

Update:: Video of Fire Letterman Protest from New York magazine

Twitterversion:: #newblogpost #Palin supporters want #DavidLetterman fired. Advertiser #OliveGarden flinches? Dave gets ratings boost. http://url.ie/1qzi  @Prof_K

Song:: Lolita – Throw Me The Statue

Video:: Directed by Matt Daniels

Back in April, we had a lively discussion here on Twitter and language.  I recently saw that the dictionary team at the Oxford University Press is on top of the sitch.  Here’s some of their observations::

“Since January OUP’s dictionary team has sorted through many random tweets.  Here are the basic numbers:

Total tweets = 1,496,981
Total sentences = 2,098,630
Total words = 22,431,033
Average words per tweet = 14.98
Average sentences per tweet = 1.40
Average words per sentence in Twitter= 10.69
Average words per sentence in general usage = 22.09”

Verbs in the gerund form are pretty popular, as well as informal slang like “OK” and “fuck.”  Most common word on Twitter & general English:: “the,” with #2 on Twitter being “I.”

The OED folks seem to just be reporting some of their analyses, which I have no problem with.  They’re not indicting anyone and even end the blurb with “Tweet on.”

Now, enter the shrill cassandras at HigherEdMorning who report on the above with a post, “The Hidden Problem with Twitter.” Talk about framing.  That title is priming the reader to be wary of Twitter, but there’s more.  The image used in the article decries the lament of every frustrated educator who has endured reading a crappy essay::

They report the OUP observations, but finalize their Twitterproblem trifecta with::

“So here’s the question: Is Twitter – along with instant messaging and texting – contributing to the destruction of language skills among college students?”

Twitterfail?  I actually have a big problem with this.  It’s taking observations and drawing inane conclusions that would pass muster in the most laxed ethnography course and would be a social science epic fail.

What gets really interesting is the discourse that follows in the comments.  I urge you to take a look {there were 69 as of 3:18a on 18 June}.  The interesting thing, to me, is how the social aspect of technological use creeps into the dialogue.

“Baloo559 Says:

Twitter, instant messaging and texting ARE contributing to, let’s call it degraded language skills, by providing a set of forums in which these degraded skills are accepted and encouraged. I believe acceptance is primarily a function of the youth of the majority of contributors. They lack experience with more formal language and don’t seem to grasp the subtly and nuance that come with its complexity. Degradation is encouraged by the fact that even the best texting phones or IM clients are poor writing instruments. 12 keys are inadequate as are one eighth scale, not quite QWERTY keyboards. Further encouragement comes from the satisfaction developing personalities take in expressing themselves in creatively alternative manners, especially if it tends to confuse authority figures.”

Not everyone is a naysayer::

“Catherine Politi Says:

Did the abbreviated wording used in telegrams destroy the English language? I don’t think so. Neither will Twitter, or texting in general – as long as schools continue to stress good language skills in the classroom. As an English teacher and student of linguistics, I realize that English and all other living languages are constantly evolving, so Twitter and its “siblings” will affect English, but not to necessarily destroy or devalue it. As for spelling, well, English is a terrible model for spelling, so maybe these mediums will improve it!”

and this comment makes an interesting link to dictation::

“Jill Lindsey Says:

I believe that Twitter, messaging and texting language is just like the dictation shorthand from the last century. My mother wrote in shorthand and it just looked like a bunch of symbols to me but she and others skilled in it decoded it with fluency. No one but Golden Agers know or use shorthand anymore, but now we text. It is simply a new shorthand for a new context in a new age. Formal language is constantly evolving too. Think of the transition from Olde English to American English. Change does not have to mean destruction of language- its just evolution. Just like shorthand was a symbol system for more formal language, so is texting- the meaning is conveyed through a symbol system and translated in our minds. Spelling is just agreed conventions- those have and will continue to change over time. The only problem of concern should be when the meaning one is trying to convey cannot be discerned by the reader. We have to have common understandings for any symbol system to work- formal or informal.”

Whenever I see criticisms of youth or youth culture, I tend to look for ad hominems and finger-waving.  Damn, fool kids.  The Cisco fatty meme brought out a bunch of such anger.  So, when it comes to Twitilliteracy, JRB offers his 2¢::

“jrb@msu Says:

As long as texting is treated like vocal dialects, I have no objection. Cajun, Cockney, etc. are fine but rarely get transcribed unless the accent is essential to the story. Likewise telegrams – they serve a purpose but we don’t ever see “telegram text” in written stories or formal correspondence.

But when this sort of “abbrev-speak” traverses the chasm into formal writing I think we risk losing a substantial chunk of our discreet and collective cultures, so much of which are recorded as written words (not wrds). Just as learning a second languange [sic] enhances the developing brain, so does an understanding of the colorful and deeply descriptive nature of the written word.

SS I think you miss a key point with using text speak for formal communications – sometimes, like it or not, we _have_ to adhere to a minimal level of decorum, and frankly students who cannot adopt such probably have an issue with authority which suggests ther are not the best candidates for a good old fashioned college experience (where the instructor still wields authority) – perhaps they are better suited to informal cloud-based learning, just before they step out to that job at Burger Queen.“

Bitter, much?  Clearly, this gets people into a lather, but what plays out is a culture war of sorts, where technology and the social collide with a normative vengeance.  What strikes me is a reduction of the “other” to a stereotype and having no interest in contextualizing what’s going on here with Twitter.  There are also a lot of assumptions about an ideal orthodoxy, in terms of psychological information processing, learning, and expression, let alone the hegemony of English usage online.  Going back to the OUP report, what about non-English tweets or tweets by non-native speakers?  So many questions, but I’m a social science geek.

So, is this no big thing?  While many think this is just a tempest in a teapot, I think these debates are just a tip of the iceberg in an increasingly globalized world.  I think Novia in the first pic. will do just fine despite Twitterish communication.  Oh, for all the n00bs, BFF 4 realz=Ben Folds Five.

Twitterversion::  #newblogpost #Twitter kllng English lang-still! SmOnePlsThinkoftheChildren‽ HighrEdMorn takes OxUnivPress stry&stirs pot. http://url.ie/1qqo  @Prof_K

Song:: Battle of Who Could Care Less – Ben Folds Five

Video::

José blogged about protests over the Iranian elections and this evening I noticed on Twitter that the hashtag “#CNNFail” was a trending topic::

Another hashtag I saw was #MSMfail for mainstream media fail.  In the past, I’ve looked to CNN to have some coverage, but as one “tweet” noted, the switch from analog to digital TV was the big story::

In Iran, Mir Hossein Mousavi, the  reformist presidential candidate who ran against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been placed under house arrest, riots have erupted, and telephone service has been cut.  This is a big story.  Are there just interns at CNN headquarters in Atlanta this weekend?  Twitterers have posted coverage by various news agencies and MyNewsJunkie noted the CNN failure.  One tweet had a link to another social media site, Flickr, with a slideshow of images from Tehran::

Well, if you believe the Daily Show, CNN is all over the social media out of desperation to get/engage viewers::

Canadian viewers without a US proxy or HotspotShield can see the clip here, but go to 7min 40 sec mark.  Comedy Network won’t let me deep link to the exact spot on the clip.

CNN seems desperate to connect with viewers seems to be dropping the ball here.  ElleMac just let me know that someone at CNN directed Twitterers to the CNN International page, which has coverage, but as of 2:22 EDT, CNN.com has nothing on the home page, but there is one article on the  CNN.com/World tab.  On Twitter, CNN has nothing on Iran and CNNBrk has three tweets::

“Crowds in Tehran break into shops and start fires as they protest re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.about 13 hours ago from CNN

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won country’s election with 62 percent of vote, government says.about 18 hours ago from CNN

Main challenger in Iran’s presidential election calls for counting of ballots to halt due to “blatant violations.”

Are Twitterers being too hard on CNN and the mainstream media -or- is this just the state of journalism?  Is this a case of CNN not really understanding what it means to truly engage in social media?  There is content at CNN International and from CNN Twitterers, so why not be responsive 24/7?  It reminds me of an emerging social media adage I’ve been seeing.  You need to both shout & listen.

Twitterversion::  Lack of US coverge on Iranian election/protests/clampdown lead Twitterers to cite #CNNfail &#MSMfail. Too harsh or journalist #socmediafail?

HatTip:: ElleMac

Song:: Clampdown – The Clash

I spend holidays in Ontario, Canada and listen to CBC every so often.  I heard this episode of Spark with an interview with Clay Shirky (NYU).  They discuss concepts from his book, Here Comes Everybody, including “cognitive surplus,” where the Internet is taking advantage of people’s unstructured thinking time.  Where is this time coming from?  Aren’t our lives overbooked with no spare time.  Barry Wellman and other found that the rise of the Internet was hand in glove with less TV viewing.  

One of the issues about TV is that’s it’s passive.  It’s a passive consumption experience, while the Internet in Web 2.0 can have the potential to be participatory, involving producing content, sharing content, and viewing content.

They also discuss how Web 2.0 is adding value in ways that would not be undertaken by market forces.  No firm or organization would undertake creating a tagged image repository such as Flickr with its 1B images, but enabling the crowd to do so is a big idea.  The question is how the limits of the freemium model in commercial possibilities.

• Will the crowd help firms/organizations see the path to cash?  (Revenues)

I think there’s also an interesting discussion on intellectual property sharing.  Will mass amateurization become commonplace?  Yes.  New opportunities will transform our relationship with innovations and intellectual property, as open source will open doors and close others.  

While not discussed on Spark, independent researchers can even engage in medical research, as evidenced by a physician hacking into his daughter’s DNA.   Many nations have an eye on the biotech prize, as this has huge implications for the cost of health care and on pharmaceutical innovations, how will open source affect biotech?

• Will the scale and scope of China (given their take on open source) blast apart our current notions of property rights and capitalizing on intellectual property rights?

Much of these discussions go back to the idea of data.  23andme is allowing users to get a DNA report.  You need not identify yourself, but they will be able to use and sell the aggregate data.  

I think we’re in new territory here with innovations, open source, and globalization.  I think it’s unclear what the “rules” are and we need to be aware for signs that the market is not working.  After all, value was created by Flickr, but it was the “wisdom” of the crowd that played a huge role in enabling it.

Finally, I thought there were good points on the notion of ethics and Web 2.0.  I’m not a technological utopian and I feel that technology transforms culture and often amplifies what is going on already.  Did MySpace spontaneously “create” pedophiles?  (Or did a brainchild for a NBC ratings grab create the illusion of an epidemic?)  Did MySpace create  real dangers for the youth?  The research points to ‘no’ on both counts, but the question remains:

• How will culture manifest itself online with norms, sanctions, and rules of conduct?

I liked Shirky’s quote that ethicists are like ambulance chasers.  Not to slam ethicists, but I think it’s extremely difficult to create prescriptions or a normative mode for an evolving social context.

Cool uses of Web 2.0 to augment the inaugural experience courtesy of students in my Internet and Politics course. HT: Ryan Kushigemachi and James DeHaan.

Flickr Photo Download: Before & After: WhiteHouse.gov

Search Inside Obama’s Inaugural Speech

By the Numbers: Inauguration Day’s Impact on Social Media

The crowd captures the inaugural moment for CNN