Digital Communities

#MDA20009 Branislav Devrnja

[branislavstudent-blog]

Global social media: case study China

Some studies have investigated network filtering, by the Great Firewall  (GFW), and words that cause GFW to drop the connection between the Web site and the user in China that is trying to access it (Bamman  O’Connor & Smith, N.A. 2012). Besides their own rules, social media organisation are bound by the laws of a country where they operate (Bamman  O’Connor & Smith, N.A. 2012). While in the US it means censorship of showing child pornography, copyright and intellectual property infringement, in China it includes forms of political expression (Bamman O’Connor & Smith, N.A. 2012).

Censorship precludes searching some terms at a given time, like “Egypt” during the uprising in Egypt, censorship allows posting political texts, which are sometimes deleted retroactively (Bamman O’Connor & Smith, N.A. 2012). There is inequality in deletion rates across China; far western provinces (e.g. Tibet) and far northern provinces (e.g. Qinghai) have much higher deletions (53%) comparing to the eastern provinces, 12% (Bamman O’Connor & Smith, N.A. 2012). Some foreign journalists have tested effects of the Internet censorship in China. Nick Kristof of New York Times, opened an account on Sina Weibo in 2010, to test government censorship (Bamman O’Connor & Smith, N.A. 2012). His post about Tiananmen Square was deleted by a moderator within twenty minutes (Bamman O’Connor & Smith, N.A. 2012). After reaching wider media attraction, his account was deleted (Bamman O’Connor & Smith, N.A. 2012).

 Sina Weibo is a Chinese equivalent of Titter; at has some advantages like the ability to post videos and comment on other peoples’ updates (Crampton 2011). Like Twitter, Sina Weibo has 140 characters maximum message length, but due to the ideographic nature of the Chinese characters, those micro blogs more resemble blogs with English translations reaching well over 400 characters (Crampton 2011). Social media in China have achieved much higher popularity than government sponsored CCTV (Crampton 2011). Chinese Internet users in 55% cases have joined the discussion about Chinese companies (Crampton 2011). RenRen which attracts university students is the platform most similar to Facebook; another social network is QZone, the largest in China, attracts youth through age 25 (Crampton 2011). Many migrant workers us it (Crampton 2011).

What Does Chinese Social Media Look Like? (2015)

 Cases of search censorship on Sina Weibo far outnumber individual cases of content censorship, like the one of Nick Kristof (Crampton 2011). Like searching for “Chen Guangcheng” detained political activist in October 2011,  or search for “Jon Huntsman” after his participation in demonstrations in Beijing in February 2011 (Crampton 2011). Search for political dissident Liu Xiaobo in October 2011 returned a message: “according to relevant laws, regulations and policies, the search results were not shown.” (Crampton 2011). Google had to partly withdraw from China, because of Chinese government’s demands for restricting its searches (Horwitz, J. & Huang 2016).

Figure 1. Google office in China (Jin c2015)

China is experiencing high growth of the Internet users, partly because of a large migration from urban areas and distrust in government-controlled media (Bamman O’Connor & Smith, N.A. 2012). Restrictions on foreign web sites and social media have resulted in the fast development of domestic equivalents of foreign social media (Bamman O’Connor & Smith, N.A. 2012). China’s specific culture and economy, in spite of restrictions, experience new freedoms on the Internet.

 References:

 Bamman, D., O’Connor, B. & Smith,N.A. 2012,’Censorship and deletion practices in Chinese social media, First Monday, vol. 17, no. 3, viewed 2 February 2017,< http://www.ojphi.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3943/3169>

Crampton, T 2011, 'Social media in China: The same, but differen't, China Business Review, Vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 28-31, viewed 3 August 2016, <http://www.thomascrampton.com/china/social-media-china-business-review/>.

Horwitz, J. & Huang, E 2016,’ Beijing said Facebook and Google are welcome back to China as long as they “respect China’s laws”, Quartz, viewed 2 February 2017, <https://qz.com/808130/beijing-said-facebook-and-google-are-welcome-back-to-china-as-long-as-they-respect-chinas-laws/>.

Jin, A. c2015,’ Time to dust off the mantle? ’Reuters, viewed 2 February 2017, <https://qz.com/808130/beijing-said-facebook-and-google-are-welcome-back-to-china-as-long-as-they-respect-chinas-laws/>.

What Does Chinese Social Media Look Like? (2015), Tom McDonald and Xinyuan Wang introduce the platforms as part of and online course in "The Anthropology of Social Media".

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Social gaming: playing the crowd

I was invited to join Farmville by my online friends on Facebook, but I didn’t have enough time to devote to the online social game. As I know, such social games require considerable portions of time and motivation. Research by Lee, Lee and Choi (2012) discovered six dimensions in motive for playing social games:  

social interaction, self-presentation, fantasy/role-playing, passing time/escapism, entertainment, and challenge/competition  (Landers 2012). It is interesting that participants in online social games don’t state being social as their primary reason for playing social games (Landers 2012).

It is useful to evaluate some characteristic benefits of social games for online communities. According to scholars, MMO games provide environments for social interaction besides home and workplace; MMOs have potential to function as new “third places” for informal socialising in similar way to coffee shops, pubs and clubs (Steinkuehler & Williams 2006, p. 886). Furthermore, engaging in such “third places” seems to be especially suitable for the formation of bridging social capital, social relationships which do not provide a deep emotional bonding and support in themselves, yet generally function to expose the individual to diverse worldviews ( p. 886). In virtual worlds of MMOs, players plug material worlds defined by open-ended narratives, where users can mostly do as they please, siege castles, save money for homes, create relationships and worry about crimes (p. 886).

                         League of Angels II: Angel's Birth (2016)

 Social online games, with many users, require norms and rules of conduct. Online games, like MMOs, are usually described as contractual environments, where rules of behaviour are determined in one-sided end user licence agreement (EULA) that user must accept to start playing the game (de Zwart, M & Humphreys 2014, p. 78). However, is only part of the mechanism how governance within such environments functions (p. 79). Players learn to play with the rules and against them, and this tension between rules and creativity that keeps the game attractive (p. 80).

Players also can add their own rules, social norms that are in many cases inconsistent with EULA and Acceptable User Policy (p. 80). Eve online is owned by CCP (Crowd Control Productions) an Icelandic company (de Zwart, M & Humphreys 2014, p. 82).

As an example, in EVE Online terms of use there is a rule about non-harassment, non-abusing and non-threatening any player or authorised representative of CCP (p. 80). And another rule that prevents use of any abusive, defamatory, ethnically or racially offensive, hateful, obscene or sexually explicit language (p. 80). Yet use of abusive language is one of the strategies often used to harass players to surrender regions to the dominant alliance (p. 80). Lastly there are external laws, and some players may have expectations that they are enforced (p. 80). There is a continues interplay of user practices and rules of acceptable conduct in online social games. These add diversity to online communities and present new challenges for legal scholars. The virtual world of online gaming is a place where players enact their fantasies and employ their creativity, probably at the highest level in online communities. They allow us to see how online communities try to augment reality of everyday life, by enacting new roles and being exposed to worldviews and social contacts that are generally beyond their reach in everyday lives, and thus achieve the new levels of self-expression.

 References:

 de Zwart, M & Humphreys, S 2014,' The Lawless Frontier of Deep Space: Code as Law in EVE Online', Cultural Studies Review, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 77-99.

 Landers, R.N. 2012, ‘Why Do People Play Online Social Games? ’NeoAcademic, viewed 23 January 2017,< http://neoacademic.com/2012/10/10/why-do-people-play-online-social-games/>.

 League of Angels II: Angel's Birth 2016, Official trailer

 Steinkuehler, S.A. & Williams, D. 2006,’ Where everybody knows your (screen) name: Online games as "third places"’, Journal Of Computer-Mediated Communication, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 885-909, viewed 24 January 2017, <http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=83b0a029-339c-4424-b65d-38d67fe0fb7d%40sessionmgr4009&vid=1&hid=4207>.

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Visual communities and social imaging

I use Facebook almost daily, but I wasn’t fully aware of tagging policy. By adding a tag to a photograph published on Facebook, one is creating a new social context. The tagged individual instantly becomes part of any conversation around the tagged image, whether it is with friends or even total strangers. That practice can reach unpredicted consequences, and that is the reason for tension and uncertainty associated with tagging photographs.

In connecting with others, I use mostly images from my holiday trips. I avoid using images from my daily ‘routine’. I tend to choose what could be interesting for my social media friends and acquaintances to see, and that doesn’t include events from my everyday life. I got many such postings from my friends, and that usually presents very little interest, so avoid that in my posts. I don’t record videos, but occasionally I post video with music and songs. That is a more universal context.

From the Snapchat, introductory video: Over one million people use Snapchat every day to have fun and express themselves. People use snaps (photos and videos) to talk with friends, rather than capture personal memories. In 2013, stories were introduced, collections of snaps, played in chronological order that expire after 24 hours. Over 10 billion video views every day. It presents a strong foundation for advertising. What is original in Snapchat, is its policy to avoid heavy curating that is present in other SMS, e.g. Facebook.

                             Storytelling in a Snap (2016)

A few people noted higher than usual trait of narcissistic culture in SMS communities. Narcissism is a prevalent trait of grandiosity, need for admiration, and an exaggerated sense of self-importance (Mehdizadeh 2010, p. 360). What is probably most noticeable among many SMS users is their need for admiration, which is reflected in many likes on their pages.  Because Facebook offers various options for self-presentation (e.g. Main Photo, About me) and opportunity to form a large number of superficial relationships, it was hypothesised that narcissists would engage more in Facebook activities (Mehdizadeh 2010, p. 360). Facebook users who had higher Narcissistic personality scores, tend to spend more time on Facebook (p. 360).

 In Reddit gonewild user posted images of naked bodies with their faces (identities) hidden. Images show the highest intimacy in an anonymous setting. In Tumblr blog, visual content comes to support the narrative.  In ‘Politics and civic culture’ posted videos are part of political activity and campaign. In ‘Activism and protest’ photos taken at the sites of protest and instantly posted on SMS played important part in civic protests. In “Trolling and social media conflict’, pornographic images are used to deface web pages of targets of trolling attacks. In ‘Crowdsourcing in times of crisis’ social imaging and visual information was used extensively to support the claims in messages from localities affected by natural disasters. In visual communities, social imaging was at the centre of communication. Jurgenson said, that in Snapchat with ephemerality, communication is done through photos, rather than around them (Herrman 2014).

 References:

Herrman, J. 2014,’ Meet The Man Who Got Inside Snapchat’s Head’, viewed 17 January 2017,< https://www.buzzfeed.com/jwherrman/meet-the-unlikely-academic-behind-snapchats-new-pitch?utm_term=.qf7MeA5Dp#.bj0eK3Y5k>.

Mehdizadeh, S. 2010,’ Self-Presentation 2.0: Narcissism and Self-Esteem on Facebook’, Cyberpsychology Behavior And Social Networking,vol. 13, no. 4, pp.357-364, viewed 17 January 2017, <http://online.liebertpub.com.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/doi/abs/10.1089/cyber.2009.0257>.

Storytelling in a Snap 2016, Snapchat, official trailer.

Titlow, J.P. 2012,’The Unspoken Etiquette of Facebook Photo Tagging’, Readwrite, viewed 17 January 2017, < http://readwrite.com/2012/03/26/etiquette-of-facebook-photo-tagging/>

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Crowdsourcing in times of crisis

At the time of great natural disasters, people started using new media to communicate and bring relief. The Internet and social media sites have demonstrated their usefulness in crowdsourcing to coordinate needed relief activities. Jeff Howe (2006) defined crowdsourcing as a business practice that means literally to outsource an activity to the crowd Estellés-Arolas & González-Ladrón-de-Guevara 2012, p.1). (Kodrich and Laituri (2005) wrote that after 2001 earthquake in India, many people formed online communities in order to share information and organise civic support (Jung, Toriumi & Mizukoshi 2013, p. 644).  In the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake, from 11th March 2011, 15,000 were killed and 340,000 lost their homes (Jung, Toriumi & Mizukoshi 2013). The communication infrastructure theory views communication infrastructure in neighbourhood as influencing the people's sense of belonging and civic participation (p. 641). The study analysed responses of people residing in Tokyo area at the time of the earthquake (p. 637). Higher Internet connectedness correlated with participation in various civic activities in the aftermath of the earthquake (p. 637). People who used information-related social media and blogs were more likely to participate in community activities than others (p. 637). Social media acted like mobilizing agents.

Introductory video of Hidenori’s past project ‘The East Japan Earthquake Archive’(2011)

After the earthquake struck Haiti on 12th January 2010, many in Haitian diaspora were online, searching for the information and ways to help their relatives (Munro 2013, p. 211). Mission 4636 set the phone number 4636 that allowed free text messages for anyone in Haiti (ibid). The messages (80,000) were translated into English, categorised and mapped by volunteers by volunteers by online crowdsourcing platforms (ibid). The median time for translating, categorising, geo-tagging and streaming back to responders in Haiti was within five minutes (ibid).

It is a misconception to think that humanitarian crowdsourcing is based on new technologies and methods of communication (p. 211). The media focus after the earthquake was on the Internet and social media, yet the most important technology for the population affected was radio (p. 211). The media focus was search and rescue operations (p. 219). The most lives were saved in the less dramatic way: directing aid to vulnerable people, like infants, pregnant women and sick, and providing supplies to hospitals ( p. 219 ).

Figure 1: Earthquake in Port-au-Prince, Haiti 2010 (2010)

 The smallest crowdsourcing initiative related to the Haiti earthquake was started by students from Tufts University in Boston, using open-source software ‘Ushahidi’(p. 223). The main interface for data is an interactive map (p. 233). Ushahidi enforces geotagging of reports (p.233). It was the independent initiative from the students in Boston,  who started mapping information from various sources: social media, traditional media, emails, radio reports and reports on the Internet (p.233). Ushahidi was first launched as missing international persons in Haiti; it was aided by two students from Tufts University who were interns for an NGO Digital Democracy (p. 233).

Ushahidi was created by Kobia, Kenyan developer in the US, who responded to the plea from Kenyan blogger Ory Orollah for tracking dead persons in political unrest in Kenya in 2007 (Ford 2012, p. 34). He and a group of people created a software platform where people could send text messages and populate a Google map (p. 34).

 References:

  Earthquake in Port-au-Prince, Haiti 2010, Yahoo News, viewed 22 December,

< https://www.yahoo.com/news/look-haiti-earthquake-5-anniversary-050032427.html?ref=gs>.

 Estellés-Arolas, E. & González-Ladrón-de-Guevara, F. 2012,’ Towards an integrated crowdsourcing definition’, Journal of Information Science, vol. 20, no. 10, pp. 1-14, viewed 8 January 2017,

< http://www.crowdsourcing-blog.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Towards-an-integrated-crowdsourcing-definition-Estell%C3%A9s-Gonz%C3%A1lez.pdf>.

  Ford, H 2012, 'Crowd Wisdom', Index on Censorship, vol. 41, no. 4, pp. 33-39.

 Introductory video of Hidenori’s past project ‘The East Japan Earthquake Archive’ 2011, Watanabe, Hidenori

 Jung, J., Toriumi, K, & Mizukoshi, S. 2013, ‘Neighborhood storytelling networks, Internet connectedness, and civic participation after the Great East Japan Earthquake’,

Asian Journal of Communication, Vol. 23, No. 6, 637-657, viewed on 29 December 2016, < http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01292986.2013.819930>.

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Trolling and social media conflict

How we understand citizenship originates in the 19th century and comprises rights, duties, and conduct associated with a nation state (McCosker 2014, p. 204). McCosker exposes the view that ‘citizenship’ is often idealized, citizenship, in essence, is combative, ideological term, associated with the history of struggle and resistance (ibid). The author analyses abusive comments regarding the New Zealand earthquake and haka. Bottom line is that McCosker seems to attempt to find positive function of abusive violence in those comments. He quotes work of Phillips (2011) who proposes a kind of equality between the passionate expressions of sadness or exuberant cultural celebration (that may be themselves considered forms of provocation) in the same way that sexualised vitriol at other points could be considered a form of aggressive critical reaction to the public display of sadness or cultural heritage (p. 212). It is not easy to understand, how can ones' natural expression of sadness provoke a vitriolic reaction in another human being? How can such vitriolic reaction be classified under normal human expression of online citizenship? I suppose that McCosker exemplifies what some term ‘ultraliberal’ views. The additional difficulty arises that if such vitriolic public behaviour is justified, it will further encourage multitudes of imitators. Boyd noted similar behaviur in teens, where they must negotiate their social status in networked publics   (Boyd 2014, p. 151). The networked environment produces interpersonal conflicts and teens get involved in struggles over status and popularity; attention becomes a commodity (ibid).

 As for cyber-safety or social media ombudsman in Australia, evidence indicates that such mechanism will be needed. Online forums don’t have enough capacity to deal with drasctic examples of trolling. One of the reasons is that socal media are (often) polarised and gather like minded individuals. Mantilla (2013) describes ‘gendertrolling’ cases, the misogynist variants of trolling. These are characterised by coordinated participation of many people (Mantilla 2013, p. 151). Insults are gender based, aimed particularly at women (ibid). Threats are credible, they include revealing targets real identity, and posting their physical addresses; treats include endangering safety and job loss (ibid). The author mentions Kathy Sierra, a technology blogger, who in 2007 feared for her safety after repeated rape and death treats (p. 565) Due to a fear, she moved to another address and stopped blogging for six years (ibid).

Figure 1: Kathy Sierra (Sandoval 2013)

 The online campaign against Rebecca Watson, as well as against her public supporters, has lasted several years and continues (p. 566). She posted a video about her incident with a man in a lift at the conference in Ireland in 2011, what caused trolling attacks on her (ibid). After starting a fundraising campaign for highlighting sexist representation of women in online games, Anita Sarkeesian, a media critic, received a flood of threatening post (rape, death threats) on SMS from members of the gaming community (p. 567). Her Wikipedia page was vandalised with pornographic material. I suppose that everybody has the right to be bigot, but that doesn’t automatically come with a permission to post rape and death treats on SMS. Similar applies to the view of racial vilification laws; one can have an opinion but it doesn’t give a permission to vilify others based on their race.

  References:

Boyd, D 2014, 'Bullying: Is the Media Amplifying Meanness and Cruelty?', in It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, Yale University Press, New Haven, USA, pp. 128-52.

Mantilla, K. 2013,’ Gendertrolling: Misogyny Adapts to New Media’, Feminist studies’, vol.39, no. 2. pp. 563-570, viewed on 20 December 2016,

<http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=29557b8c-0803-4e0a-8b54-68176b053f3a%40sessionmgr103&vid=27&hid=123>.

McCosker, A 2014, YouTrolling as provocation: Tube's agonistics publics, Convergence, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 201-217.

Sandoval, G. 2013,’The end of kindness: weev and cult of the angry young man’,The Verge, viewed 2 January 2017,< http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/12/4693710/the-end-of-kindness-weev-and-the-cult-of-the-angry-young-man>.

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Activism and protest

With the advent of social media, activism saw their great mobilising potential.

Social media sites (SMS) played an important role in the July 2016 coup in Turkey. It was fascinating how the situation changed within a few hours in favour of the Turkish government. As SMS were used in political activism in Turkey in 2013 protests, the Turkish President Erdogan stated that he will “wipe out” Twitter (Poole 2016). There was no evidence of full blockade of the Internet (ibid). Instead, Mr Erdogan used Twitter during the coup to message his supporters (ibid). SMS were blocked in previous crises, it appears that this time the government wanted them to be available as they worked for their interests (ibid). The problem the coup organiser had, was that they used the script for overthrowing the government that was from a pre-internet era (ibid).

 I participated in a few online petitions organised by Change.org. Eventually I posted their link on my Facebook page. From my experiences in online-activism, there is some justification in the criticism of ‘clicktivism’ or ‘slacktivism’ as it takes very little of personal involvement to participate in online activism, usually. If we try to think back, after a few years, about our ‘offline’ social involvements and compare them to our clicktivism from the same period, I think we will observe how we can hardly remember our online activisms, compared to our real-time social activities.

 The SMS platforms are owned by private groups, and their interests conflict with their uses in in online activism and civic society (Youmans and York 2012, p. 316). There is also the factor of state and its interest is collecting intelligence and using SMS for broadcasting the state propaganda (ibid). The Flickr, owned by Yahoo!, restricts content to users in certain countries due to governments regulations (p. 234).

 After the murder of Rodrigo Rosenberg, a lawyer in Guatemala on May 2009, his grim posthumous video appeared, in which he accuses the Guatemalan President Colom for his imminent murder (Harlow 2011, p. 255).  The video was posted on the day of his funeral, within a few hours on Facebook and YouTube (ibid). Soon after that, Guatemalan Facebook users started creating groups and discussion threads asking for the replacement of Colom and justice for Rosenberg (p. 226). Through Facebook pages, users mobilised online movement that went offline, initiating several large protests (ibid). Justice for Rodrigo Rosenberg group created on Facebook mobilised 28,000 friends in three days (ibid).

Figure 1: Rosenberg Video Unleashes Political Crisis and Deepens Social Division (Rodriguez 2009)

Guatemalans successfully used Facebook to start offline movement that comprised about 50,000 activists who marched demanding justice, yet after three months it faded out (p. 239). Is appears that SNS have the potential to galvanize into collective action, but SNS still may be not have the influence to sustain motivation for social change in poor countries (p. 241). In future, with diminishing digital divide, we can expect that activists will use social media with greater influence.

    References:

Harlow, S. 2011,’ Social media and social movements: Facebook and an online Guatemalan justice movement that moved offline’, New media & society, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 225–243

Poole, T. 2016, ‘Turkey coup: How mobiles beat tanks and saved Erdogan’, BBC News, 18 July.

Rodriguez, J. 2009,’Rosenberg Video Unleashes Political Crisis and Deepens Social Division’, MiMundo.org, viewed 2 January 2017,

< http://www.mimundo-photoessays.org/2009/05/rosenberg-video-unleashes-political.html>.

Viewed 12 December 2016, < http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36822858>.

 Youmans, W, & York, J. 2012, 'Social Media and the Activist Toolkit: User Agreements, Corporate Interests, and the Information Infrastructure of Modern Social Movements', Journal Of Communication, vol. 62, no. 2, pp. 315-329.

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Politics and civic cultures

Social media became part of the political dialogue, in Australia at least since 2007 (Young 2010). In 2007, ABC had online tools for following the election campaign, maps, graphs and statistics (Young 2010, p. 205). The demise of Kevin Rudd was facilitated by the video posted on YouTube (Jericho 2012). Social media like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube will probably play more important role in the future election. Yet that time when the Internet overshadows traditional media may be further in future. Young and other sources noted that social media and blogs are the places for criticism, but they are still very small producers of original news (Young 2010, p. 228). But for some younger voters presentation of politicians on YouTube could be more appropriate for conveying the political message relevant to an election campaign. As for the physical appearance and how good one politician looks, there appears  no substantial evidence that it has become a stereotype for politicians in Australia among the young people. There is no much discussion in the essays on online media about that particular quality of politicians, and I tend to think that if such trend is present it is only in a small minority of young voters. Entertainment and crime tend to be more attractive to the Internet publics (p. 209). Entertainment could be one approach of political parties to the young voters, besides credibility. Or in a  more realistic scenario, parties could present their political program aimed at younger generations in a more entertaining way. The Internet still has smaller reach comparing to the traditional media in Australia. In 2007, only 6% relied on most of the news and 60% used TV instead for the same purpose (Young 2010).

Macnamara and Kenning (2011) did a study of social media and elections in 2007, 2010 in Australia. Macnamara (2008) claims that most social media used by politicians and political parties were strictly moderated; only one politician allowed critical comments (Macnamara & Kenning 2011, p. 8). Nearly three-quarters of Australian federal politicians had a Facebook account in 2010 election compared to just 3.5% in 2007 (p.11).  In 2010 election 16.5% politicians had their video on YouTube, compared to 5.75% in 2007. Their analysis found that except in a few cases, politicians used social media for the one-way broadcasting of political messages, instead of for citizen engagement (p. 16). A considerable proportion of their content in social media were slogans, attacks and rhetoric of banal nature (ibid). This  conclusion is in accord with the result of analysis of 2010 UK election by (Gibson et al. 2010) — UK politicians acted in old-fashion top-down broadcasting manner (ibid). The conclusion from this and Young’s analysis is that social media did not bring substantial qualitative change in our civic participation. Social media communications mostly reflect our existing political  culture and participation in democracy. To paraphrase Jodi Dean —  more is needed than our participation in social media to make a change (DCU School of Communication 2013).

  References:

 DCU School of Communication 2013, IAMCR 2013 Plenary No. 3 - Jodi Dean, 3 July, viewed 7 December 2016, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5ABPuNQ6IU>.

 Jericho, G 2012, 'How many votes are there on Twitter?', in The Rise of the Fifth Estate, Scribe, Victoria, Australia.

 Macnamara, J. & Kenning, G.  2011,’ E-Electioneering 2010: Trends in Social Media Use in Australian Political Communication’, Media International Australia, vol. 139, no. 1, pp. 7-22, viewed 7 December <http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=6325cb62-511a-4f3e-ae07-06719652a124%40sessionmgr103&vid=2&hid=130>.

 Young, S 2010, 'News, political reporting and the internet', in How Australia Decides, Cambridge University Press, Victoria, Australia.

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Different platforms

Social media extended the notion of friendship and made our private lives more public. Boyd and Ellison defined a social network as providing web services which facilitate users maintaining a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system and through which can express a list of other users with whom they share a connection (cited in Murty 2013, p. 7). Facebook is an example of a social network, that achieved worldwide popularity. It can allow creating and maintain circles of friends regardless of one’s present location. Users normally see only its community dimension. The networks of online friends are much larger than the real-life circles of friends. Some of my online friends have several hundred online friends. Most of the online friends come to users by the mediation of algorithms and filters — the configuring of friendships online is mediated by technology and is commercially motivated (Bucher 2012, p. 480). On Facebook friendship obviously exists as an association between multiple actors, nohuman software actors and individuals (ibid). There is a difference between one’s offline friends who meet on Facebook as well and those who exist only on Facebook. Understanding of sociotechnical aspect of a friendship necessarily also includes the difference between its traditional definition and Facebook ‘friending’ (p. 481). Contrary to Aristotle's concept of friendship as something valuable, Aristotle (2004, p. 168), Facebook encourages rather the opposite (cited in Bucher 2012, p. 481). Quantity, the level of engagement determines a ‘good friend’ (p. 487). Due to Facebook algorithms, one chooses online friends less voluntarily than in real life (p. 490).

 Tweeter can be classified as social media — many inexpensive and accessible electronic devices that enable publishing and getting information, collaboration and building relationships (Jue et al. 2010) (cited in Murty 2013, p. 7). Tweeter has no privacy restrictions. One does not have the ask for a permission from the other users to send them a tweet (Murty 2013, p. 2). Only the basic  mobile phone can be used  which makes it accessible even in poor countries, a significant difference to Facebook (p. 3).   # prefixed word (hashtag)   denotes the subject; it is included in a wider conversation that comprises messages with the same hashtag (ibid). Everything can be public on Tweeter. Barriers between public and private become blurred — one can see conversations between users which are intended to be private (p. 6). It has been designed to enable  interactive multicasting, broadcasting from many to many,   ‘retweet’ to followers outside one’s immediate circle (ibid). Aggregated tweets present more articulate text, described as a ‘microblog’ (p. 8). An important tweet can travel far, crossing many networks  (p. 12).  Donald’Trumps tweeted to the Saudi prince who was Clinton’s supporter in the election: ‘Dopey Prince @Alwaleed_Talal wants to control U.S. politicians with daddy’s money. Can’t do it when I get elected. #Trump2016’ (Tweet 2015).

  References:

 Bucher, T 2012, ‘The Friendship Assemblage: Investigating Programmed Sociality on Facebook’, Television & New Media, Vol. 14, no. 6, pp. 479–493, viewed 25 November 2016 <http://tvn.sagepub.com.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/content/14/6/479.full.pdf+html>

Murthy, D 2013, Twitter: Social Communication in the Twitter Age, Polity, Cambridge.

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Social media and what holds society together

Many hope that social media will introduce new quality to the ways we make bonds. Some theorists, like Tönnies, had a deep distrust of what is meant by progress (Macionis 2005, p.15). Social critic Rousseau also saw advantages of simpler societies. Tönnies created a theory of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft to explain the gradual transformation of human societies (p. 14). Toennies saw the gradual loss of human community (Gemeinschaft) in the modern world. His view was that because of the Industrial Revolution, strong social bonds of family and tradition were undermined, by promoting individualism and efficacy (p. 15). That produced impersonal societies in Europe and North America, where people associate mainly based on self-interest or rational will (p. 15). This condition he terms Gesellschaft (p. 15). He argued that traditional societies, founded on kinship and neighbourhood, encouraged collective sentiments and virtue (p. 15).  Progress and modernization erode the sense of community and promotes unrestrained individualism (p. 15). He was hoping that in future some new structures of organization would develop that would incorporate traditional responsibility into rationality (ibid).   On social media sites, it is very common to see the word ‘fun’ but it is very rare to see the word virtue.

 Physical communities are based on shared social and physical boundaries, yet what binds virtual communities are common practices and interest (Siapera 2012, p. 194).  One of the advantages of virtual communities that they enable meeting of like-minded persons and expression without fear of exclusion (p. 194). They are decentralized, without community leaders, more open, easily integrating new members (p. 194). Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992) define social capital as the totality of resources that accumulate as a result of possession of lasting networks of established associations of mutual acquaintances and recognition (p. 195). Researching surveys from the 1950s to 1990s, Putnam (1995) concluded that people in the US spend less time in socializing than the prior generations (p. 195). Putnam attributes this loss of the social capital partly to new technologies (ibid). Even as we walk among others, we are increasingly isolated and retreating to  the worlds offered and created by the new media (ibid). Putnam (2000) identified two forms of social capital: bonding, close bonds and solidarity that exist between close friends and family, and bridging social capital formed by acquaintances, friends of friends, work contacts etc. (p. 203). Ellison et al. found that Facebook use increases bot  kinds of social capital (ibid).

 Can social networking sites (SNS) replace real community life? Calhoun (1998) claims that the Internet can be useful in organizing communities that function offline but is unable the ties, rights, and responsibilities that are part of community life (Siapera 2012, p. 196).  They can never replace real, offline communities (ibid). Sunstein argues that egalitarianism on the Internet leads to self-centeredness, in which individuals see themselves as consumers, less than citizens (Barber 2002, p.867). When citizens become consumers they become commodities, sought for by the markets (ibid). SNS can still not replace those community bonds that Tönnies saw in Gemeinschaft and Putnam in close bonds between family and friends.

   References:

 Barber, B 2002,’Republic.com’, Ethics, vol. 112, no. 4, pp.866-869, viewed 19 September, <http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=4006b816-b210-4b11-849b-44a5cfcb7ea4%40sessionmgr4007&vid=1&hid=4101>.

 Macionis, JJ & Plumer, K 2005, Sociology A Global introduction, 3rd end, Person Education limited, England

Siapera, E 2012, ‘Socialities and Social Media’, in Introduction to New Media, Sage, London, pp. 191-208.