A qualitative study of online social networking sites and instant messaging.
Background
-CMC reduces the exchange of social context cues, affecting perceptions of truthfulness, interpretation and response to messages, and the formation of impressions.
–Social Information Processing Model (Walther): CMC relies on paralinguistics, slowing the rate at which social cues are received.
-Impression Management (Goffman): The subtle process of controlling another’s perception of something by managing the information exchanged in a social interaction. When that something is one’s own identity, it is referred to as self-presentation. We interpret others through inference of their roles, derived from the information they or others present to us.
-Social-Technical Gap: The space between what technology can support and what actually happens in the social world.
The Study
-Examined the use of technology to manage relationships, and the ways in which these technologies mediate behaviors pertaining to the management of these relationships.
-The semi-structured interview designed inquired about self-presentation/impression management, pros and cons of these systems, usage and dependency for social communication. It also probed participants for information on how they used the tools provided by this systems in developing new relationships, restricting access, and responding to negative events. Expectations of privacy were also investigated, pertaining to what individuals felt comfortable with sharing and why.
-Interviews were conducted by 6 undergraduates, who interviewed a total of 19 college-aged participants. The transcripts were content-analyzed and coded.
-Participants reported heavy use of communication technologies, heralding their low cost, entertainment value, and convenience.
-Profiles provide the opportunity for impression management. Authenticity plays a large role here- profiles that appear (or are known to be) false or contrived trigger a very negative impression. However, they also discussed the need to create a “cool” persona and intense awareness of how others would perceive their self-presentations. Nevertheless, the act of constructing one’s profile was generally considered a fun, entertaining activity.
-As one participant put it, “The defining characteristic of social networking sites is extreme impersonality. The people that one talks to on these sites are not treated as other human beings. They appear more like characters in a story.”
-Though privacy concerns have been well-documented, the participants expressed general apathy, countering that they as members are responsible for the content and management of their virtual personas.
-Acknowledged that relationships formed online are superficial in nature.
-General enjoyment of these systems’ ability to maintain bonds with those one doesn’t see every day, as well as reunite one with old friends.
-Instant Messenger Away Messages: A user is able to monitor others while behind the “barrier” of the away message.
-Comfort level increased as the degree of their own anonymity rose, decreased with the anonymity of others.
Framework
Communication technology features (profile, visibility, and identity management) enable interpersonal relationship management (forming new relationships, maintaining existing relationships), which is in turn influenced by individual attitudes (impression management, concern for information privacy).
Questions Raised
How is impression management carried out within CMC?
How to explain the apparent contradiction between privacy concerns and the overwhelming popularity of social networking sites?
—
Individuals are fluid, not static, and in the act of creating a profile of the self one undergoes a strangely simplified process of impression management. I would like to examine the paralanguage of Internet communities, the ways in which social cues are subtly communicated, as well as the complex ways in which impression management is enacted.
this then would be never ever after.
tremulous chortling and chattering, bird hands doing nothing,
nestled in a warm nest of lies.
i think it rolls off of you like smoke.
i think you see yourself
in everyone to whom you’ve ever spoke.
what is any of this
but pure and primal loneliness
.
i guess i’ll be seeing you
in dreams i sometimes do
(night mourning straight to morning-
i looked for you in your coffin,
but you were not there.
my eyes are flowing
in the wind’s mouth,
where you are.
i shivered and tossed through the night,
and awoke to the sound of thunder from a granite sky-
having soaked my body and sheets in rivers of sweat.
the body rebels, feverish, and i delight
in the startling dreams of a delusional mind.
she towered as the tallest flame, two balls
rested lightly on her fingertips
*space* *time*
eyes lotus petals, body a canvas of lovemarks
her laughter that of a child discovering snow or sand
four ducklings nuzzled under one knee,
a ladybug under the other.
some called her Lady Poppy,
some others called her mother.
and tigers roared but to pet her,
and the rivers rushed to hold her.
i called her Captivation.
i have no patience for your esoteric conversation.
a smile so indelible, i’m sauced,
melted, burnt, and tempest-tossed
i hope you find what you’ve been looking for.
looking for, i hope you find what you’ve been.
it surrounds the best of us,
besieged by wanderlust,
we coo and caw completely in awe.
under canopies of smoke and haze,
all the ways we number our days,
i stand corrected.
i lie dissected.
but balloons so full of lead,
crawl creeping, seeping and unsaid,
pray for mercy in the thirsty air.
i will wait for you there.
mind affixed with a restless stare.
stomach stirs and it troubles,
keeps on swallowing bubbles.
born to be confused,
rocket-ridden and infused-
we go hungry but amused.
the shudders that emerge from waking
my heart! it’s over-baking!
A summary of the bill, taken from the official website THOMAS:
Directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish or designate a university-based Center of Excellence for the Study of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism in the United States to assist federal, state, local, and tribal homeland security officials, through training, education, and research, in preventing violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism in the United States. Requires the Secretary to: (1) conduct a survey of methodologies implemented by foreign nations to prevent violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism; and (2) report to Congress on lessons learned from survey results.
Clearly, this fascist little piece of legislation is intended to extend the Patriot Act into the realm of activists and intellectuals. My professor is hosting a campus-wide forum next week to discuss its implications and possible avenues of resistance. Such legislation is NOT limited solely to political radicals, but also poses a threat to all who exercise their right to free speech.
The linguistic terms employed by the bill are defined as:
`(2) VIOLENT RADICALIZATION- The term `violent radicalization’ means the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.
`(3) HOMEGROWN TERRORISM- The term `homegrown terrorism’ means the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.
`(4) IDEOLOGICALLY BASED VIOLENCE- The term `ideologically based violence’ means the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual’s political, religious, or social beliefs.
What exactly is meant by “force”? The clip below explores several possible interpretations:
In particular, the Internet is to be indubitably a primary vehicle for targeting individuals, communities, and organizations where ideas live and breathe. If I am a champion of any lofty ideal, it is the potential of the Web to liberate information and potentiate collaborative dialogue. As an academic, blogger, and all-around thinking individual, intellectual freedom is something I typically take for granted. Nevertheless, there are nations and organizations all over the world bent on eliminating any and all challenges to hegemonic rule. Over the past decade, the US has increasingly endorsed such projects. As such, there is no doubt in my mind that, despite this bill’s utter absurdity, intellectual freedom faces a grave danger.Do you love your freedom? If so, please share and distribute this information widely; it is your civilian duty.
go past it! be blasted but still.
i tried to keep track of what the fuck just happened?
I wish it would all just uncomplicate,
clear and light.
keep soul strung strong above and raw to the surface
don’t tell me what to do!
quivering tongue to the tip
it unsnags the best of it
insatiable shadow sprung forth
you hold these things to be self-evident
your own maniacal truths
lord i am a victim of the eye
i’ll leave you to your twisted social convolusions
i’m off to dance with my delusions
(i am so sorry please forgive me)
i will be quietly enjoying pleasantries
for exhorbitant fees.
oh man and all your gods!
your idolatry prayer
that trickles unspoken
in the impermanent glare
so uncertain, i looked for you there
amongst the purple flowers, but you were not there.
put it all out on the table.
nothing is ever stable.
this is the shape and the character of love
and i just keep falling in.
stretching and flexing in the darkness,
tripping and falling through the sky.
i walked for hours on end.
and the eye kept staring in.
(and it will all come together
in the smoke and the nearness of breath)
and further and further and softer, now
the spring of reknown being
—
“i like you ’cause you make art out of things you touch. sometimes those things are people.”
-andy
under a tapestry of sighs i met my demise,
a burgeoning blanket of burdens!
bliss begins with a kiss-
made heavy beneath the loss of this
ecstatic experience has a nefarious side
undone my boundaries flew loose as i did
how now folding always : come back tempestuously…!
cold wind bites the face
as soil hardens beneath tired legs
these are the artifacts of time.
i fall asleep unspoken.
glass after glass we drink away the past
powders and softening gazes…
age i hate you yet you are inevitable and so i should not
but i cannot ask for more
and i wish only for a more raw self,
we are all only less as it passes.
such is the inconsequence of apathy.
and the future is so doomful.
and i have no more witty rhymes,
only the memories of stranger times.
yet it emerges unexpected and quite well.
in case you cared.
a shiver upon the rising sea
a sliver in the toe of a god
a song sung sad and out of tune
the only thing left is swung to the middle of it,
widening huge, pupils big as lucy,
i clutched my belly and hissed.
and it steamed out nonsensically!
and i gave it up so much more than willingly…
i gave it up with all i had.
i give it up with all i know.
what’s this? somewhere a memory
of a human time but without words:
your hands in my hair my heart in your teeth,
the sun rising warm
(and purple flowers scattered all around)
senses sharp and eyes wide,
the universe teeming at the seam:
give me your reckless, your few,
your open scattered brains enthralled,
dizzy from the earth’s concoctions-
still as i would you knew seek the sun,
scavenged and sullied, unremarkable, drained-
–^–& your world’s most intangible oats &–^–
i came crawling out onto the boats,
all sharp-edged and pale,
belonging underwater.
said the son of the earth mother dime a dozen cannon fodder as it seeps it creeps upon your pores it pokes, prodding, persistantly preying picking pullin tightening the screw it knocked loose. however much you anticipate it, it miscreates it strips nerves raw to bleeding.
so take it up with me. give me all you’ve got. i’m going now to beat around the bush.
