Symbolic violence on Facebook?

This is the second article in a three part series, which aims to tease out emerging issues as a result of the increased scale, frequency and intensity of interaction on social networking sites. Whereas the first article entitled, ‘who is monitoring who in a world of online social networking?’ addressed some possible implications at the extreme arising from the emergence of individuals having explicit data on activity in their social network, this article addresses one particular avenue for linking micro (individual), meso (group or class) and macro (society) consequences. French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s theorising on cultural and social capital, and specifically his theory of ‘symbolic violence’, provides the framework for this article.

Following on from the first article presenting figures which demonstrate the speed and increasing pervasiveness of social networking sites on the lives of many, one interesting line of enquiry concerns how ‘desirable’ cultural and social norms propagate as a result of sites such as facebook. Pierre Bourdieu developed his theory of 'symbolic violence' alongside his theory and concepts of cultural and social capital to capture what he saw as the process by which dominant values (or those in position of power within a societal hierarchy) are impressed upon others as desirable and normative, often unbeknownst to the individuals in question. Whereas cultural capital refers to the acquisition and inheritance of specific symbolic language, knowledge, practices and even possessions, social capital refers to the acquisition and inheritance of social connections. According to Bourdieu ‘symbolic violence’ arises through a process of 'miseducation'. Miseducated individuals are left with attaining/attained thought, perception, values and subsequent actions which are seen as desirable and right to hold in society. A simple but pervasive example would be members of society trying to emulate and copy the lifestyles of wealthy and famous members of society.

The crux of the problem with 'symbolic violence' lies in the imposition and reproduction of power differentials within society which ultimately favours the already dominant and powerful. 'Miseducation' serves to legitimate the powerful and dominant groups through 'miseducating' that they 'rightly' hold the desirable and normative social and cultural values and practices. His theory leads us to the question of whether social networking sites like facebook facilitate, enhance or perhaps curb 'symbolic violence’. Does facebook merely represent what is happening offline or does it play a role in changing the nature of social relations?

One possible answer is that it may well augment and enhance ‘symbolic violence’. For if individuals possess connections in their social network with 'less desirable' cultural and social standing, the actions of the dominant online may enforce and enhance their position, by continually miseducating the dominated of their desirable and normative lifestyle and social standing. This can be achieved through the posting of educational qualifications and merits, through the choice and complexity of language used in status updates and conversation and through the posting of videos, photos and events of social activity. Thus, the dominant and powerful may enhance and maintain their social and cultural standing relative to those lower in the various hierarchies, by making it a continual and explicit 'miseducation' of the dominated in their social network. This may be a purposeful activity in some cases but likely a largely unconscious activity. What facebook may do is make various social and cultural hierarchies more explicit on a continual basis, leaving 'dominated' individuals more attentive to their social and cultural standing and perhaps promoting specific discontents and subsequent actions.

The potential with interaction is that individuals becomes more attentive to their cultural standing. Laumann's prestige principle states that individuals prefer connections that have higher social standing, because it grants access to potential resources of others, as well as potentially improves ones social standing by association. Thus, there is likely a tendency for individuals on facebook to have a number of connections with "higher" cultural and social capital than themselves. Interesting empirical data worth gathering would be to ascertain which profiles individual members are interested in outside of their close friends and family.
Is there a correlation between such profiles and the cultural and social capital of these alters? If this is correct, as Laumann's prestige principle would imply, then individuals on facebook have access and maybe continually confronted with people they know, whom they "believe" to have higher cultural capital. Laumann's principle suggests that social networking sites may be a rich ground for miseducation.

One of the hallmarks of social networking sites is the individual’s ability to somewhat 'control' or 'select' their identity portrayal, preferably in a positive light. We don’t necessarily conjure an identity, but reveal aspects of ourselves in a certain manner. It is worth invoking Ervin Goffman Dramaturgy here, and his concept of 'front stage'. 'Front-stage' as opposed to 'back-stage' refers to the public presentation of identity according to self-perceived rightness and how one seeks to anchor identity in a certain light. With regard to 'symbolic violence', those with lower cultural capital may wish to be more attentive to this front stage portrayal. According Nan Lin's theory of social capital, those more likely wishing to move up the social hierarchy are those in the lower to upper middle classes. Instrumental actions are more likely to occur here, in order to move up the social hierarchy. Furthermore, those higher in the social hierarchy wish to maintain and increase their power, and miseducation is one fruitful means to achieve this.

Overall, granted that unless we are looking purely through the lens of rational choice theory, symbolic violence can be useful for understanding the consequences of social networking sites not necessarily as a result of conscious human action. Some of the problems with rational choice theory include the fact that human action can be guided by worldviews; morals, ethics, personal beliefs and norms etc.; which influence human action, how individuals present the 'face' and the degree of congruency between 'front stage' and 'back stage'. Writers who implicitly invoke rational choice leanings in this regard should be questioned. For instance, Andy Oram writing for O'Reilly Radar assume such rational choice in writing that, 'every nugget we release is subjected first, consciously or unconsciously, to a key question: will we get some benefit from the social network commensurate with the value of the information we are about to give our contacts?' (O'Reilly, 2009)

Finally, granted that Social Networking Sites may afford the individual the creation and maintenance of an enlarged social network, the third and final article in this series will address the possible implications for individuals as a result.


Copyright © 2009 Shane McLoughlin. This article may not be resold or redistributed without prior written permission.

Who is monitoring who in a world of online social networking?

This article is the first in a three part series raising issues arising from the proliferation and increasing usage of online social media. Recently Nielson research reported a tripling of the time Internet users spend on social networking sites in the space of a year, with social networking now accounting for 17% of time spent online. Similarly, based on the statistics from Alexa.com, the combined daily reach of 3 popular social network websites (facebook.com, myspace.com and twitter.com) is 24% of daily internet consumption with facebook.com accounting for 17%. This magnitude of growth alone, suggests a significant impact of these networks on the lives of individual members.

Recent reports by both Comscore and Nielson appear to show that social networking and social networking sites are now the most popular online activities;

"social networking was the second most popular online activity in the U.K. based on average time spent per user (4.6 hours), trailing only instant messaging (8.6 hours)" (Comscore, 2009).

Recently released research for the US by Nielson (2009) found that americans spend over 4 1/2 hours (on average per month) on facebook, more than any other site (of the top 10 brands) on the Internet. Thus, both the Nielson and Comscore reports say that Social networking, in particular facebook, is the most popular online activity in both the UK and the States. There is some difference though with Nielson and Comscore regarding time spent on these with Nielson quoting 6 hours for Facebook and Comscore quoting 4.6 hours for social networking sites in aggregate. But if you look at the nielson figures, its shows only facebook manages 6 hours with myspace, bebo hovering around 2 hours. Thus, in reality, the figures for both studies would seem to correlate. And, it seems to indicate that UK users of facebook spend more time on facebook than those in the US.

These figures demonstrate the need for substantive social research on the emerging role of social networking and social media on individuals and society. The next article entitled 'symbolic violence on facebook', will look at facebook through the lens of social capital and cultural capital theories. To begin with though, this article will briefly raise some possible issues and concerns regarding the phenomenon of individuals having increased available 'evidence' of their social network and it's activity.

There are a host of new capabilities emerging with the social web. What technology may now be facilitating is a nation of procumers (granted the figure still ranges between 1 and 5%). For the majority however, what we are now mostly seeing is a nation of monitors. This may even go beyond monitoring the 'background noise' of ones social network, seen as vital in sustaining virtual communities and enhancing offline social relations (Komito, Bates, 2009). What I wish to highlight at the extreme or 'ideal type', are a group of users in surveillance and gathering explicit analytical data; on those interested in their online identity or 'ego', often unbeknownst to the users interested (granted this is not the case for the vast majority of users). It has historically been the case that companies with an online presence should monitor and analyse traffic to their sites for pragmatic instrumental goals of optimising service, targeting users for products. However, now even beyond bloggers catching on to the practice of analysing site traffic, personal users with an online presence are now analysing traffic emerging from within their; 'personal networks' (see Wellman, 2001, 2002, 2003) or 'networks of sociability' (see Castells, 2004). This inevitably opens up questions as to how technologies (imbued with social and cultural values etc.) are in tandem with users; changing the nature of social relations?, changing privacy? and changing the nature of mind, consciousness and identity?. There is indeed a significant and growing body of academic research and literature addressing such questions as the 'impact' of technology on society from a macro to micro level. What I specifically wish to tackle in this article concerns the ability for individuals to explicitly, quantitatively and continuously survey and analyse their social position, social relations and those of others within personal networks. This may go beyond the traditional social monitoring, reflecting and theorising which individuals have (to various degrees) practiced on ones social network. Individuals for the first time in history, now have recorded evidence of their social networks activity, right there in front of them.

For instance, social network sites, now mean individuals can monitor online the relations that one's alters (ties such as friends, acquaintances etc) have with each other. McGuinness (2009) suggests that perhaps this provides an alternative to gathering information on ones ties, through hearsay and gossip. Could this in-turn reduce tainted or biased information that would come from alters? This would indicate increased information certainty. On the other hand, having exposure to tie communications that one isn't a part of, may increase uncertainty about ones importance and stature in one's social network? The issue here is that online social networks may have consequences for social relations on a level previously unseen in society and could make redundant sociological understandings about the dynamics of social relations. But this can go even further:

To take the case of twitter. Users now have several means of monitoring traffic to one's profile and the impact of their tweets. For instance, one can set up an account with one of the tinyurl companies and track traffic to ones posted links. Secondly, individuals can track whether status updates affects the number of people following them. Individuals can watch the diffusion of popular tweets through 'Retweets'. Users can monitor and use analytic tools to analyse their follower count and the demographic data etc. on those followers. This kind of activity by some users on twitter, is likely strongly correlated with their particular use of twitter. For instance, those who take the time to analyse and monitor activity to their profile, likely do so, because there is some value to them beyond mere curiosity. Nontheless, we can see trends emerging, such as programs on facebook that can sidestep privacy rules, by using apps to analyse available data for; 'popularity', 'friends interest in your profile' etc. Such statistics are based on who has posted on each others walls and commented on photos etc.

A larger and larger proportion of Internet users are becoming techno-savy and adept at using available Internet services. The increased interconnectedness of individuals disparate data on the web, and a crop of advancements in online technologies facilitating this, means that individuals can have easy access to information on individuals not in their everyday lives (pipl.com etc.). It is not uncommon for individuals to google a first date, or to monitor those they no-longer see. The past may importantly ground the present, but there may be times when its more helpful to leave past physical relationships in the past. Individuals may diminish consciousness of their present situations, their immediate experience. Here, the consciousness of place gives way to the 'space of flows' (see; Castells, 1998). Individual's attention can be more easily stretched across time and space.

Beyond recorded evidence of ones social relations and alters, we are now seeing software such as twitanalyser emerging that allows individuals analyse online identities. There is the potential for psychological traits, truth, consistency etc. to be gaged based on available information on the web. For the moment, the phenomenon of analysing online identities has been mainly confined to micro-blogging sites 'status updates', but there is no reason why it will stop there. Such information might be of interest to recruiters, workplace managers, schoolground bullies and prospective friends and colleagues. Previously, this kind of analytic data was available on website traffic of interest to those managing websites, whereby e-commerce sites and others found value in having data on traffic locations, referrals etc. Now, everyone can 'know' this kind of information 'if' one wishes.

Questions of the possible consequences of monitoring and quantitatively analysing our ego-centric networks arise:

-Curtails our own intuition and imagination?

-Makes us more instrumental in our social relations?

-Makes us more instrumental to ensuring social presence online?

-Addiction to checking our social network's 'background noise'?

-Reduces the expressive and affective nature of communication?

-Adds complexity to managing our social lives?

-Adds the potentiality of paranoia and uncertainty with ones close ties?

-Means we become grounded in the reality of our social position, reputation and social capital rather than our perceived or imagined position and reputation?

These are just a few of the myriad of possible questions which arise and which can be seen as perhaps positive or negative. We are principally dealing with the potentiality of users having more explicit hard information on others, and ones relations with others. Furthermore, we can now observe how ones action affects those relations in new and altered ways. This seems to point to the notion of a more individualised atomised person, with perhaps greater attentiveness and 'sense' of control(ing) of their relation with 'their' world, inline with trends theorised by Wellman and with observations by Putnam.

Bibliography:

references to follow shortly...

Copyright © 2009 Shane McLoughlin. This article may not be resold or redistributed without prior written permission.

Ode to the six nation lemmings (not the players)...

Response to; I haz a Nom

A friend of mine; 'Victoria MacArthur' over at 'Propositional Structure' , today wrote an interesting muse about personal writings on blogs. In it, she put forward the question; as to how personal one should get in a blog? How much does one 'feel comfortable' with sharing on the web? And, what are the ramifications in terms of employers vetting candidates for jobs etc. ?

She seemed to raise 2 fundamental issues:
1. The question of instinctually or more cognitively wanting to protect and control one's identity.
2. The pragmatic issues around needing to negotiate one's privacy on the web.

This got me thinking about some of the key issues at stake which I've layed out as follows:

First off, there is the problem of ‘identity crime’. This is a type of crime which is on the increase and one further enabled by the web. This can occur whereby you leave enough breadcrumbs on the internet for someone to cross-correlate that information and build up a profile on you. This profile can then be used to create a false identity for another person, or even worse; to 'steal' someones identity. Outside of crime though, it may be a case that you unknowingly have left the jig-saw for an online profile of you, which can be pieced together by employers and others. Thus, you may incremently and unknowingly lose your privacy online.

Second off, identity in the 21st century has increasingly become ‘individuated’, whereby individuals construct the ’self’ through-out their lives. (Note: This construction can be conscious, unconconscious and indeed shaped with social structure at micro, meso, macro level) What’s important about posting information on the internet, is that it can leave relics of your previous ’selves’. Thus, your past can constrain your identity ‘construction’, particularly when it cannot be erased from the past. For example, archive.org has been archiving web pages on the internet for nearly 10 years now. Fragments of your past identities on the internet can be seen as both positive and negative. One positive, is that it means you have to face all of your past realities (and integrate them). On a negative, it can give people (such as employers) a false sense of who you are ‘now’; your past may constrain you in the eyes of others. It may also constrain your own sense of identity and your ability to construct.

Third Point. There is an issue with social networking sites etc., whereby individuals can have too much ‘control’ of their online identities. Individuals can now put themselves in a position to be able to package their life online, and this online construction may not be ‘holistically’ representative of the integrated identity. It may represent a planned and controlled fragment of your identity, or even an entirely consciously manufactured identity. At the other extreme, the fragments of identity that do lie on the internet, may result in people constructing a narrow and perhaps even false sense of who you are as an integrated identity.

Final point. The solution to all this seems 3 fold. (1)Government policy with regards to data protection etc. (2)Some responsibility and forsight with regard to website owners and content managers (3)Individual responsiblity, in terms of managing your online identity and maintaining a degree of foresight.

Overall, it seems like there isn’t a polarising solution. A balanced attitude to your identity and privacy on the internet seems the best approach. Individuals need to be vigilant and maintain foresight when posting information on the web. On the other-hand, individuals need to be attentive to how, ‘controlled’ and ‘representative’ that information on the web is of their ‘integrated identity’.


To see the original article, go to; http://www.victoriamacarthur.com/2009/01/20/i-haz-a-nom/
Copyright © 2006-2008 Shane McLoughlin. This article may not be resold or redistributed without prior written permission.