Session 2

My selected readings are:

-          Galston, William A. (2000). Does the Internet Strengthen Community? National Civic Review 89(3), 193-202.

-          Weeks, Linton (2009). Social Responsibility and the Web: A Drama Unfolds. 8 January 2009. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99094257

-          Albrechtslund, Anders (2008). Online Social Networking as Participatory Surveillance. First Monday 13(3). http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2142/1949

-          Rosen, Christine (2007). Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism. The New Atlantis 17, 15-31.http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/virtual-friendship-and-the-new-narcissim

-          Bigge, Ryan (2006). The Cost of (Anti-) Social Networks: Identity, Agency and Neo-Luddites" First Monday 11(12). http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1421/1339

While I was reading those articles, I found some similar concepts and connections within them and some contradictions as well.

Virtual Community as Actual Community

While Galston noted that ‘the Internet’s virtual communities are not communities’, Weeks’s article quoted Evans, ‘unlikely to change core human concepts of friendship and community’. Albrechtslund also says that there is a reciprocal action between online and offline and online social networking is not distinct from offline networking.  From my experiences of participating on online communities, it’s hard to define what an online community is that is really separate from offline communities.  I’m not sure if this is just because most of the online communities that I had joined were merely ‘offline’ gathering communities.  Because of this I didn’t think there was a big difference between virtual communities and real life communities.  The following is an example of one of online communities that I have joined.  It is online community for fans of a specific Japanese band. It is a certainly a group by ‘a fascination with a narrowly defined topic’, so in J.Snyder’s view from Galston, this online community is not a community. However, I continued to use my pseudonym at offline meetings of this community, and we all called each other by our pseudonyms.  The members of this online community were bound by not only a perception of self-interest,  which is that of the Japanese band, but also by affective ties as well because ‘we’ became ‘friends’ who had the same interests . Whether the ties are as strong as those of purely offline communities or not is different story, however.

Online Social Networks as a Tool for ‘Managing’ Friendship

Rosen indicated many people take advantage of one of the virtues social networking website, which is to maintain their relationships with their offline acquaintances or friends who haven’t kept in touch for a long time.  Albrechtslund also noted that many teens use online social networking to maintain friendships with a large circle of friends. They find it easier to keep in touch with them online and to update their information on these websites, rather than face to face. I have friends, friends who are considered acquaintances, and “friends” who are almost acquaintances from all over the world – Japan to Argentina. Of course I can use email to contact them, or to update my personal info, but by having them connected on my social networking site – Facebook it is much more convenient to ‘just’ keep in touch with them by commenting “Happy Birthday” or simply “poking” once in a while. Also, I can easily just let them know about changes in my personal information, like graduation, going on a business trip to  Tokyo, a family member’s illness, without having to individually call or email all of my ‘friends’.

Voluntary Community vs. Enforced Volunteerism

Galston pointed out that online groups are typical examples of voluntary community.  There is low barrier to entrance and low exit online communities. Despite of its lack of obligation and a certain reinforcement to join ‘majority’ communities, online groups are still considered as voluntary communities which can fulfill our emotional needs.

Bigge claims that we, who live in web2.0 era, have no choice- whether join up online social networking website or not. If we don’t have online identity it means we don’t exist. It is an interesting comparison to say that social networks work as a ‘guest list’ in club culture or to say that social networks can be used as tools of exclusion.  Under this social (at least online social) pressure, we need to join the online social networking to have an online identity, to be, to exist. So this is not exactly ‘voluntarily’ being a member of an online community. Although there is not a requirement to join, still there is pressure.  One of reasons why I signed up for Myspace and Facebook is because most of my friends have at least one of them, and they consistently asked me to join. Finally I realized that I had to have one when friends of mine had conversations, excluding me, about photos they posted or ‘quizzes’ like ‘what’s your color?’ from Facebook, and I had no idea what they were talking about.

Quantity > Quality

Both Rosen and Bigge indicated number of friends as social status. How many online ‘friends’ you have shows your online social status, so people compete with others who have more ‘friends’ and race to see how quickly they can get more friends, and some are even anxious about it. In this case, who are your real friends or how we define ‘friends’ doesn’t matter anymore.  Only ‘how many’ is all that matters. I am reminded of one of my friends who is on my Facebook list. It was a couple of days after I ‘invited’ him to add me as his friend. In a few days, I noticed he had over 800 ‘friends’!  The only thing in my mind was ‘is he insane?’  Why, and what makes him, who is a super popular guy in the offline world, that obsessed with his ‘friends’ count?

Question Raised:

Weeks article leads me to ask one question: according to Fogg in Weeks article, “people use Facebook as a ‘call for help’.  Facebook, blogs, or tweets are actually based on interaction with revealed identities, at least the identity of the one who establishes the message. In other word, we know who is screaming for help. Then, what about using random online communities as an anonymous ‘call for help’?  Will readers of the message still feel responsible for responding to the message?

I selected a huge online community as called ‘MissyUSA’ which is a community for Korean-American ladies who live in the USA. Members who use this community share their information about all sort of things related with Ms’s, such as where are good SAT prep schools, what is the best cleansing cream, etc.  I did not need to use my pseudonym to post my comments, instead my comments appeared under my partial IP address.  This means it is almost impossible for other members to identify who I am.  I posted to say I’m so sick and I have a pain whenever I take antibiotic pills. Please excuse that the post is in Korean (as I mentioned, the community is for Korean Americans, so most posts are in Korean).

The first response was posted two minutes after my complaining. It’s not really a helpful comment, and it says that “in my case, I have diarrhea when I take antibiotics” But soon after the first response, rapidly other sympathetic, and yet helpful advice and comments followed. I omit translation on all comments since it’s about how to deal with my symptom.

The point is, although it’s not a life threatening situation, nor an actual ‘cry for help’ (I even didn’t ask about what I should do for this, nor did I use the word ‘help’ in the subject), a total of ten people responded immediately.  Is this because of the users’ gender – which tends to be feminine, or did it captured the users’ attention because of its extravagancy (not a typical subject in this community)? Unless I investigate more with other online communities, I cannot be sure what motivates this response. However, I got an answer for my question – people still feel responsibility in reading online comments even it’s anonymous.  Like Weeks noted Fogg’s statement – “people will respond to people who sound like they are in trouble – online or off” and I’m glad I find there is normal human behavior exercised even online, despite of all of the negative aspects of a virtual community.

Session 1, Week 1

Regarding articles with references to the role of social media, in terms of what motivated the recent tragedy and people's reactions to it, I found two I would like to discuss.


Gabrielle Giffords shooting: Social media's power, limits on display(by Bill Goodykoonstz)

Social Media's Dark Side Casts Long Shadow Beyond Tucson Shopping Mall (by Ron Callari)

Both articles point out the negative aspects of the 'role of Social media' and I tend to agree with these two articles' point. The shooting of Arizona Rep.Gabrielle Giffords and other people reflects many aspects of Social media, includes it's role.

First of all, I would like to point out the media's erroneous reporting, which said 'Giffords was killed.' Later then, they admitted their shameful mistake. I am not sure which one leads which, but it is certain that people deliver "news" - we can say here, 'posting', 're-posting' and 'tweeting' and 're-tweeting' - without checking the source's authority, and so this incorrect information spread out. Like Goddykoontz's writing, many people, including himself, followed the story on social media. This leads me to remember 'rhetoric of democratisation' in Beer and Burrows' 'Sociology and, of and in web 2.0: Some Initial Consideration'. Unlike traditional media, "people" take control of the contents of information, but are not able to control who might be their audience in social media. In this case, it seemed that it did not really matter to the posters if the "news" was true or false, the only thing that mattered was delivering 'hot' issues to their "friends" via social media. I liked the idea that blogs are defined as being like radio in 'Blogging as Social Activity, or Would You Let 900 Million People Read Your Diary?' Just as with radio, the blogger can 'broadcast' whatever they want to say, but without responsibility for their messages. This 'democratizaing' effects of social media runs into my next point.

Then, what about 'motivation' of this tragedy? Callari's article says, " radical rhetoric expressed on social networks can also cause hundreds or even thousands of followers to impulsively act out based on the belief that their actions are in alignment with a greater mission, condoned by political leaders." We saw Sarah Palin's infamous 'crosshairs' map posts all over the place - friends' facebook, blogs, and even major media. Obviously, we don't know what was the real trigger to make the shooter take action at this point. However, many social media users assigned political motive to this incident. It reminds me of Tenopir's article 'Online Databases - Web 2.0: Our Cultural Downfall?', Keen warns about losing the accuracy that comes from reliance on experts. 

I like the description of social media as "pushbutton publishing for the people".  It is efficient, easy, and democratic in a way. While I was reading Boyd's 'Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship', I agreed that social network sites are unique because on not only they allow individuals to meet strangers, but also they enable user to make visible their social networks.

Although I don't agree 100 percent with Keen's "ignorance meets egoism meets bad taste meets mob rule", but deeply agree with his warning of  traditional media's danger of being replaced by widespread social networking sites. Because still there is a good role of social media, which is rapid dispersion, and it's "democratization", ironically.