{"id":143,"date":"2008-09-20T00:06:25","date_gmt":"2008-09-20T05:06:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/?p=143"},"modified":"2008-09-20T00:09:06","modified_gmt":"2008-09-20T05:09:06","slug":"facebook-and-human-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/2008\/09\/20\/facebook-and-human-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook and Human Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"

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 \u201cshow thyself\u201d rather than \u201cknow thyself.\u201d From a different perspective, the Los Angeles Times today posted an article exploring ongoing debates about religion (in this case, Islam) on Facebook (\u201c<\/span>Facebook reflects struggle over Islam’s role\u201d: http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/news\/nationworld\/world\/la-fg-facebook19-2008sep19,0,1968535.story<\/a>). <\/span><\/p>\n

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. <\/span><\/p>\n

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\u00a0their 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. <\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2019t help but think that, as more and more viewpoints are competing for attention online, they are at least teaching the world that choice <\/em>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 \u201coptions\u201d\u2014that no one construction or interpretation is all that\u2019s out there. As such, these young Muslims struggling over Islam\u2019s role should realize that (as Marshall McLuhan once said) \u201cthe medium is the message,\u201d 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. \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":138,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":147,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions\/147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}