Food For Thought

Wellman and Gulia note that much existing research on online identity and communities have failed to take into account the wider context in which the interactions online are taking place.  Rather than treating internet activity as one part of a person’s life, much research isolated online behavior and examines it out of context.  They also note that there is little in the way of long term or in-depth analysis of online communities, looking at the ways in which various social networks online and in real life interlink, or how virtual communication factors into the overall communication patterns of people. They also note that there has also been relatively little research conducted on the nature and longevity of online intimacy.

Most of the analysis that does exist is parochial.  It almost always treats the internet as an isolated social phenomenon without taking into account how interactions on the Net fit together with other aspects of people’s lives. […] There have been very few detailed ethnographic studies of online communities, no surveys of who is connected to whom and about what,  and no time-budget accounts of how many people spend what amount of hours virtually communing. (p170)

When Wellman and Gulia then go on to describe the narrow focus of many internet communities and groups it raises the question for me whether this narrow focus of research has been dictated to some degree by the nature of the communities being studied.  Wellman and Gulia say that the Internet continues the trend of the real modern world of fostering specialized relationships. Many discussion groups are topic-oriented  (political, technical, social or recreational)  and this can lead to the creation of narrow relationships that focus more on the information shared than the relationships.

However, they also note that many of these specialized groups still perform a role of social support and companionship.  Performing these roles for  others online is often a way of expressing identity, particularly for people to whom expertise or supportive behavior is an important part of their self-identity.  These supportive behaviors help them to develop their reputation and recognition within the group.

Even when online groups are not designed to be supportive, they tend to be.  As social beings, those who use the net seek not only information but also companionship, social support, and a sense of belonging. For example, while the majority of elderly users of “SeniorNet” reported joining the net to gain access to information, nearly half (47%) had also joined to find companionship. Indeed, the most popular activity was chatting with others.  (p173)

On other occasions groups are mobilized online with the specific intent of providing both information and support – often for an event or activity that is happening/coordinated in the real world.  After the Oklahoma City bombing in April 1995 local university students had created information sites and electronic bulletin boards all within hours of the blast.  These sites informed locals of critical information like the names of the wounded, the hospitals in use, and where they could go to donate blood.  Another example that Wellman and Gulia give is that of striking professors in Israeli universities who coordinated their action in public and private groups online.

The lack of status or situational cues can also encourage contact between weak ties.  Often, the only thing known about others are email addresses which may provide minimal or misleading information. The relatively egalitarian nature of the net can encourage responses to requests. (p176)

Kiesler and Sproull 1992, and  Hilts and Turoff 1993 argue that “without physical and social cues or immediate feedback, email scan foster extreme language, difficulties in coordination and feedback, and group polarization.” Without situational cues or pre-established status within a group ties can often be weaker, however the same lack of predefined structure gives an egalitarian nature to these groups and can encourage responses from those who may not otherwise have responded.

In he end, despite their effort to do otherwise, Wellman and Gulia concluded that they have resorted to the anecdotal tactics of their predecessors. They finish with a call to action for more evidence-based research in the area.

We have concluded this chapter more like pundits and tellers of tales than like researchers.  As others before us, we have argued often by assertion and anecdote. This is because the paucity of systematic research into virtual communities has raised more questions than even preliminary answers. […] It is time to replace anecdote with evidence. The subject is important: practically, scholarly, and politically.  The answers have not yet been found.  Indeed, the questions are just starting to be formulated. (p188)

We come to see ourselves differently as we catch? sight of our images in the mirror of the machine. (p643)

In this essay Turkle concentrates on the creation of online personae.   She conducted an ethnography and clinical study of how people represent their virtual and ‘real’ selves via the Internet.

The Internet challenges all aspects of our identities as we are navigating virtual worlds, often in the company of others.  Turkle says that life on the screen is shifting the notion of identity to one that is multifaceted and flexible.   Because self-presentation online is written in text, users have the ability to choose how they wish to present themselves (everything from their physical characteristics, sex and sexuality and personality) to others online. The anonymity of the web gives users the chance to explore various aspects of their personality. Online MUDs, or Multi-user Domains, are specified online spaces where users create a persona or avatar and role-play with others.  Turkle says that though this is one of the most explicit examples of role-play and identity exploration online, it is by no means the only one.   Bulletin boards, newsgroups and chatrooms all allow for the creation of one or more personae, and modern computer environments allow for shifting from one online space to another in very little time.

As a user, you are attentive to just one of the windows on your screen at any given moment, but in a certain sense, you are a presence in all of them at all times[…]  The windows metaphor suggests a distributed self that exists in many worlds and plays many roles at the same time. P644

Turkle compares online life to Erik Erikson’s “psychosocial moratorium”, a relatively consequence-free adolescent time for intense experimentation and interaction with other people and new ideas. Erikson was writing in the 50s and 60s, and Turkle argues that in today’s society adolescence is no longer consequence-free- virtual communities generally are however, and this is part of what makes them so attractive. Turkle says that while many modern psychologists, social theorists, psychoanalysts and philosophers argue that the unitary self is an illusion, the requirements of everyday life mean that people need to accept responsibility for all of their actions.  Turkle calls cyberspace “an element of cultural bricolage” that we can use to think about identity, particularly this notion of decentred identity.

The instrumental computer, the computer that does things for us, has revealed another side: a subjective computer that does things to us as people, to our view of ourselves and our relationships, to our way of looking at out minds.  In simulation, identity can be fluid and multiple, a signifier no longer clearly points to the thing that is signified, and understanding is less likely to proceed through analysis than by navigation through virtual space. (p646)

Turkle says that the online personae we write can be used by us for self-reflection, as a sort of Rorchach test for us to examine who we are, and what we want and need from life.  In essence she is saying that we can use the personae we create online as a mirror for different aspects of ourselves that might otherwise remain hidden from our view.

Welcome to convergence culture, where old and new media collide, where grassroots and corporate media intersect, where the power of the media producer and the power of the media consumer interact in unpredictable ways. (p2)

Convergence Culture explores the relationship between media convergence, participatory culture and collective intelligence. Much like Baym, Jenkins argues that convergence is not caused solely by technological innovation and should not be understood as such.  Rather it is the product of a cultural shift that encourages technology users to seek information and resources among multiple platforms and dispersed content.  Jenkins says, “Convergence occurs within the brains of individual consumers and through their social interactions with others. Each of us constructs our own personal mythology from bits and fragments of information extracted from the media flow and transformed into resources through which we make sense of our everyday lives.”  This harks back to Jones’ writings on cyberpunk culture, and the individual construction of meaning from ‘hypertext’ or information abstracted from context.

Jenkins also notes that paradigm shifts within the media industry is nothing new, and that during 1990s the prediction of a digital revolution was met with the assumption that old media would be pushed aside and the Internet would replace traditional broadcasting. He quotes George Gilder as saying “The computer industry is converging with the television industry in the same sense that the automobile converged with the horse, the TV converged with the nickelodeon, the word-processing program converged with the typewriter, the CAD program converged with the drafting board, and digital desktop publishing converged with the linotype machine and the letterpress.” (George Gilder, Of Life after Television: The coming transformation of Media and American Life, 1994 ed. New York: W.W. Norton p189. )  The dot com bust however, made it evident that this was not (at least immediately) going to be the case, and for many years the Internet, Television, and other media have co-existed and served as ancillary platforms for each other. This idea of convergence that Jenkins details as existing in the 1990s seems to be getting a renewal of late with multifunctional devices selling well at the moment, although it remain to be seen whether they will truly displace any other broadcast systems. However this merging of technologies may be more reflective of the type of content convergence that Jenkins quotes the Cheskin Report 2002 on.  This is reflected most easily in the rise in popularity of cloud computing in recent year.

  The old idea of convergence was that all devices would converge into one central device  that did everything for you (a la the universal remote). What we are now seeing is the hardware diverging while the content converges.  (Cheskin Research, Designing Digital Experiences for Youth, Market Insights Series, Fall 2002, pp8-9)

Jenkins talks about how history tells us that old media never truly dies as it is always evolving, rather it is the delivery technologies that become obsolete and get replaced.  A shift in the content, audience or social status of a medium may well occur but any medium which has been long established is unlikely to simply die out. He says: “When people take media into their own hands, the results can be wonderfully creative; they can also be bad news for all involved.”(p17)

In chapter 6 Jenkins deals with the 2004 Howard Dean Election Campaign (the same one that Jones’ Political Activism in the Digital Age deals with).  He quotes Garret LoPorto, a senior creative consultant for True Majority (a website with the aim to increase to increase voter participation and rally support behind a progressive agenda) which aims to make politics more playful, developing games and video to engage people politically in what they term ‘serious fun’.  “Locating people who share your beliefs is easy, LoPorto says, because we tend to seek out like-minded communities on the Web.” (p218)

Jenkins says that it was in these elections that we began to see people applying the convergence skills they had learned as consumers to political activism.   He notes the difference between the Internet as a ‘pull’ medium and television as a ‘push’ medium. This is important to election campaigns because, while the Internet is the ideal medium for hard core followers, or those with an active interest who seek out information but is unlikely to engage those without any prior interest.  Television has more opportunity to reach and engage with the undecided and uninterested.

When John Kerry announced running mate Jon Edwards, the Republican Party immediately responded by releasing a series of criticisms of Edwards to serve as talking points to their supporters.  Jenkins says,  “In publishing their talking points about Edwards on the Web, the [Republican Party) was not so much trying to spin the story as to give the public a toolkit that they could use to spin it themselves in their conversations with friends and neighbours.” In a way, this provides the supporters with a false sense of receiving the ‘hypertext’ (spin or context-free information) of the cyberpunk ethos discussed in Steve Jones’ Hyperpunk. This is reminecent of on of the main plot points of the film Inception (2011), which is that a person will only believe that something is their own idea if they can trace the genesis of the thought.  What Schudson calls the ‘Monitorial Citizen’ also contributes to this, as he believes that many citizens are vigilant, rather than proactive, but that when an issue is raised to them they will often make an effort to learn more about it. It may be worth exploring whether this is a potential entry point to becoming politically, socially or ideologically active.

 Monitorial citizens tend to be defensive rather than proactive…. The monitorial citizen engages in environmental surveillance more than information gathering. Picture parents watching small children at the community pool.  They are not gathering information; they are keeping an eye on the scene.  They look inactive but they are poised for action if action is required. The monitorial citizen is not an absentee citizen but watchful, even while he or she is doing something else. (Michael Schudson, Click Here for Democracy: A History and Critique of an Information-based Model of Citizenship, MIT Communication Forum)

This book is strongly influenced by the work of Pierre Levy.  Jenkins embraces Levy’s idea that participation gives the everyday users, audience and citizens power.

For Levy, at his most utopian, this emerging power to participate serves as a strong corrective to those traditional sources of power, though they will also seek means to turn it to their own ends. We are just learning how to exercise that power – individually and collectively – and we are still fighting to determine the terms under which we will be allowed to participate.  Many fear this power; others embrace it. There are no guarantees that we will use our new power any more responsibly than nation-states or corporations have exercised theirs. We are trying to hammer out the ethical codes and social contracts that will determine how we will relate to one another just as we are trying to determine how this power will insert itself into the entertainment system or into the political process. (p256)

Jenkin’s deals briefly with the concept of ‘smart mobs’ but it may be worthwhile looking further into smart mobs, as many of the groups that I will be looking at may be the natural descendants of the smart mobs, or even fall into this category themselves.

Smart mobs consist of people who are able to act in concert even if they don’t know each other. The people who make up smart mobs cooperate in ways never before possible because they carry devices that possess both communication and computing capabilities . … Groups of people using these tools will gain new forms of social power. (Howard Rheingold, Smart Mobs: The net Social Revolution, 2003. New York: Basic Books pxii)