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“Beer”-goggles: confused

As I turned the pages of boyd and Ellison’s piece on “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship”, as a relative new-comer to the subject, I found myself nodding as I came to understand my own engagement with social media through a scholarly lens. I found their definitions particularly helpful in classifying the different social media in which I’ve grown particularly savvy. However, upon reading Beer’s article in response to the previous, I was admittedly perplexed. Let me explain my confusion further.

Beer’s article entitled “Social Network(ing) Sites…revisiting the story so far: A response to danah boyd and Nicole Ellison” was not, as he makes clear, an effort to “re-write the history that they develop in (their) article” (517), but a reconsideration of their proposed historical, and future, analyis of social media.

In his first section, he allocates his analytic efforts to “revisiting” boyd and Ellison’s proposed definitions and differentiations between social network sites and social networking sites, calling into question boyd and Ellison’s necessitating of the distinction between the two. For boyd and Ellison, networking is suggestive of a certain discourse that exists between strangers, further suggesting that social networking sites seek to initiate conversation and relationships between those who do not know each other, as opposed to network sites, which function to reaffirm, strengthen, or reinforce relationships already established in the physical world, be it the strongest or weakest of latent ties. By using the term social network sites (SNS), and further, rejecting the -ing and thus all that is implied by the word ending, the authors carefully construct the subject of their argument by refusing sites characterized by the formation of new ties between strangers.

Beer takes issue with how they frame their argumentation. He deems SNS too broad a category; boyd and Ellison are, according to Beer’s understanding of their definitions, specific in what kinds of discourse are not included in SNS, but fail to make clear the kinds of discussion that is. For Beer, this limits the definition of SNS to the three points they introduce at the very start of their piece, that which allows users to: 1. construct public/semi-public profiles; 2. articulate networks; 3. view others’ networks and allow others to view theirs’. In using this definition as a rubric by which to classify social media, Beer thinks this particular definition “stands in for too many things” (519). According to his critique, SNS is being used here as an ‘umbrella’ term to encompass all “user-generated content”, which itself fails to recognize the “networking” functions and capabilities that user-generated sites like Youtube, whose technological allowances enable such ties to manifest, maintain, although it would arguably fall under boyd and Ellison’s category of an SNS.

I personally think that over time, SNS developers have become increasingly aware of the attractive nature of interactive features of technology, and so, have responded to demand for these capabilities by introducing these features to their sites, thus affording their users the kinds of ties that boyd and Ellison’s definition of SNS would not permit. Therefore, I think that boyd and Ellison’s refusal of the term networking is no longer applicable, in that these ties are nowadays seemingly inevitable.

Beer also takes issue with the way boyd and Ellison differentiate between online ‘Friends’ and physical world ‘friends’. This is the point of my confusion. As Beer delineates his argument, that “we cannot think of friendship on SNS as entirely different and disconnected from our actual friends and notions of friendship” (520), I felt as though he was echoing arguments that I’d just previously read in the contested authors’ piece. In other words, I don’t think boyd and Ellison made such a black and white distinction between online and offline friendships as Beer suggests. On the contrary, on page 211, the authors state that “what makes social network sites unique is not that they allow individuals to meet strangers, but rather that they enable users to articulate and make visible their social networks.” They continue, “these meetings are frequently between “latent ties” who share some offline connection. … They are primarily communicating with people who are already a part of their extended social network.” In Beer’s piece, he understands boyd and Ellison’s “contention here (to be) that ‘ “Friends” on SNSs are not the same as “friends” in the everyday sense” (520). Ultimately, my understanding of this rationalization was not that they were entirely diverging or contrasting arguments, but indeed parallels of one another.

Perhaps I misunderstood Beer’s main argument. I thought his complication, or his suggestion of a further complication of boyd and Ellison’s inquiry to include capitalism and the economic ramifications of the sites was interesting, and indubitably provocative. However, I think that his argument surrounding boyd and Ellison’s differentiation (or lack thereof) between ‘friends’ and ‘Friends’ could have been make more clear. What do you guys think?

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by joeyjohnsen on February 3, 2012  •  Permalink
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Defining and Commenting on Social Network Sites

In response to the 2007 Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication article by boyd & Ellison, titled “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship,” Dr. David Beer of the York St John University provided his response in 2008, aptly titled “Social network(ing)… revisiting the story so far: A response to danah boyd & Nicole Ellison.” In his response, Beer notes and expands on several aspects that he finds to be problematic with boyd & Ellison’s definition, such as the distinction made between “network” and “networking,” offline and online spheres, and the scope of questions asked in the field. Granted, the questions that Beer poses are valid; however, some of the assertions made can be deemed problematic in certain perspectives.

Addressing the distinction that is made by boyd & Ellison with regards to the need for distinguishing “network” from “networking,” the duo state that such a distinction is made on account of the fact that, according to them, the “network” is the concept of pre-existing relations, whereas “networking” is the concept of creating new ones. What Beer contends, though, is that the term SNS is too broad a word, in which it will create problems moving forward with regards to classifying new web applications. Beer also notes that the more specific term “social networking site” may be more appropriate as it gives way to the creation of other terms that, like it, are specific and descriptive. In effect, the blurred lines that Beer alludes to between platforms will not exist, and everything will therefore be viewed in a more black/white sense. The problem that I find with Beer’s assertions begin with the idea that “social network sites” will become too big an umbrella term. From a non-academic standpoint, I have far too often seen a confusion of terms; “social media” to most people seems to encompass these networks of which we speak and at times, so much more, and other times, so much less. The problematic word that we should be addressing, then, is not SNS, but rather, “social media.”

The term “social media” is more a buzz word of sorts to describe a wide range of communication tools that have a social element, but as we are quick to see, all media, in effect contains some instance of socializing (because of its nature). The term “SNS” seems to be thrown around more so as a specific allusion of sorts to websites that are popular and interactive, such as Facebook and YouTube, but is given no particular grounds in popular culture.

The three stipulations that boyd & Ellison propose with regards to what constitutes as a SNS is most certainly key in defining and separating platforms from one another. In some sense, we, in popular culture, have also created our own lines of separation between platforms with terms that include “microblog” “wikis,” and “online dating.” That said, Beer certainly has a point when he says that we could have more specific divisions or classifications for websites; an example that he provides is describing YouTube as a “folksonomy.” But to springboard from that assertion, it doesn’t seem as though creating terms and definitions is the route to go as we continue to find technologies evolving. Rather, we ought to go the route that boyd & Ellison have chosen, which is to assess a similar collective set of technologies and build a definition from there. I say this simply because there are applications/platforms that already exist and modify themselves as new technology comes their way; it is to say that without assessing a relative history of sorts and to create a new word, there is no support for it to be a particular field of study. An immediate example that comes to mind is that of online dating platforms; there has been a much longer than expected history of online dating, but there has not (to date) been some type of concrete definition (not even by Ellison, whose focus is actually on this particular phenomenon) in an academic journal. In effect, what we then have is a confusion of sorts as to where particular platforms, such as online dating, lie. From personal experience, I’ve had academics address OkCupid as a social network site, and the argument to present that it does not belong in the SNS category is by means of passing it through the SNS deinition and then subsequently placing it in a sphere where popular culture dictates its role.

That said, Beer is certainly correct in his assertion that the differentiation that boyd & Ellison makes about online friends and offline friends is problematic. It can be inferred from boyd & Ellison’s article that the online friends and offline friends are two separate groups, which is not the case in actuality. In fact, according to a June 2011 Pew report, social network sites are more often than not used to maintain current relationships, as opposed to creating new ones. In which case, we find this notion of the “online” and “offline” to be incredibly problematic in discussions; it would be more apt to distinguish “physical” and “online” worlds, since they communicate a differentiation between tangibility, but do not group away persons.

Overall, boyd & Ellison’s contribution has been positively received; it is works like these that provide some sort of construct and structure in dealing with new media. After all, new media isn’t spontaneous, it can be traced to older platforms and technologies that have similar threads, which in turn, can lead to better understanding of particular applications and behaviours.

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by Barb Leung on February 3, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by Barb Leung on February 3, 2012

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Blog Post 1: Biting the Tail

The definition of “social network” as provided by Boyd and Ellison is split into three parts. First, a social network site (SNS) must “construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system” which is exemplified by Facebook’s “Walls” and more recently the “Timeline” feature. Second, SNS must “articulate a list of other users whom they share a connection” which Twitter does well with the “Followers / Following” lists.  Lastly, a social network site must allow users to “view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system.”  Beer has a problem with the way Boyd and Ellison go about analyzing social media sites, due to a variety of reasons.

One of the more major points that Beer disagrees with is the distinction that Boyd and Ellison make between “Friends” and “friends.” Boyd and Ellison say that “Friends” (with a capital F) are friends when they are online while “friends” are the friends you associate with face to face, or with unmediated communication. Beer’s response to this is that there is no such thing as unmediated communication. All forms of communication are mediated in some way, according to Beer, because we filter ourselves depending on situations we’re in.   Once the point that unmediated communication does not exist, the distinction between “Friends” and “friends” becomes much less clear. Even if the communication we have with our “Friends” is slightly more mediated because it is going through a medium that is not as personal as face to face communication, the relationships are founded on the same type of communication. I find myself agreeing with this point.

I’ve been able to experience firsthand this lack of distinction. Finding friends online and building the relationship through the Internet as a medium is just as rewarding or maybe even slightly more rewarding than making friends in person. This is because when you find friends online, it is usually due to a mutual interest, and the rise of fan forums online is a perfect example. Soshified, a fan forum for a very popular pop group in South Korea Girls’ Generation, brings together fans and allows them to communicate with one another. This strong common interest that the forum’s members share allows an easy way to form strong friendships. Often these online relationships become personal friendships through “meet ups” organized through the site.

Beer also thinks that Boyd and Ellison address the situation from the wrong viewpoint. The question should not be how people are using social media. Beer suggests that we should be asking broader questions and using social media as a tool to answer them. From an anthropological standpoint I think that this is a very interesting point. Social media is a huge part of our culture at the present time, so do we analyze it as a part of our identity or do we use it to answer questions about our identity. Beer is suggesting that we use part of our identity to find out more of our identity and I agree, mostly. I think that understanding how we are using SNS is important, not only for the companies running these sites and making money, but also to gain an understanding that I think both Beer and Boyd and Ellison are all trying to grasp. The questions Beer wants us to ask are ones that should come out of our understanding how we use social media. Boyd and Ellison provide the first step to satisfying Beer, and it confuses me that Beer is opposed to Boyd and Ellison because I think that they work together.

For example, a trend in social media that has been rising recently is using social media as a news source or for gathering information. In an interesting article from Social Media Today an example of how the use of social media is helping to ask the right questions can be found. Students and parents alike are using social media to find information on potential college choices. This is leading to the creation of SNS tailored to high school students looking to go to college such as Mytonomy which allows current college students to upload video or written testimonies on certain topics for high school students to watch and read and respond to with questions. With this use of social media pinned down, the question can be asked, “Why are students in America trying to hard to get into secondary education?” Once the question is asked, spawned from the understanding of the use of social media, social media can once again be used to answer the question.

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by ChrisChoiCSMT on February 3, 2012  •  Permalink
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friends, Friends, Facebook friends

Truth.

In 2008, when social network(ing) sites had become one of the most popular ways for people to communicate, scholars danah m. boyd and Nicole B. Ellison, using an academic approach, not only defined social network sites (SNS), but also raised questions regarding SNS that sparked numerous discussions within the academic community. One of the most interesting arguments made was by Dr. David Beer, who challenges numerous points made by boyd and Ellison regarding their definition of SNS and offers his two cents on where he believes future research on SNS should be headed.

One argument Beer makes is regarding boyd and Ellison’s preference over the use of network rather than networking. According to boyd and Ellison, the word networking implies that users are actively initiating relationships with other users and even though this may occur on some SNS, it is not widely practiced enough so they choose to exclude it from their definition believing this decision will broaden the scope of their study. Beer strongly disagrees with the decision and argues that SNS should not be differentiated by whether its prime focus is for creating networks or not; in doing this, boyd and Ellison have made the term SNS too broad. Beer calls for a new classification of these SNS, and rather than blending their differences under a broad term, we should celebrate their differences with more distinct classifications.

In this regard, I have to side with Beer in that classifying all these social sites as SNS do not do them justice. A huge selling point for more unique SNS such as Catster, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Facebook is that they all bring sometime different to the table. Why else would one person sign up for multiple accounts? And because they are all different, users also behave differently on each site, which is something I think sociologists may miss if they continue to study SNS in the direction that boyd and Ellison point them in. The easiest example of this would be how one acts on LinkedIn. Because LinkedIn is designed especially for people to meet and establish online relationships with professionals, the behavior, including one’s profile, one’s pictures and one’s status updates most likely differ extremely from what they upload on more casual sites such as Facebook.

Is there even a reason to fight?

Another point Beer brings up is boyd and Ellison’s explanation of the difference between friends and Friends. boyd and Ellision define friends as the people one has a relationship with in the offline world and Friends as the people one has a relationship with in the online world. However they do admit that sometimes friends and Friends overlap, but they believe that the friendships formed with Friends are not the same as friendships in the “everyday vernacular sense.” Beer argues that this particular differentiation impacts the general direction of SNS research. It draws a very clear line between our offline lives and our online lives, which is becoming more and more intertwined as more and more users use SNS. Beer also brings up another point in that he believes the very definition of “friend” is changing, in which I couldn’t agree more.

The meaning behind the word “friend” is definitely changing—but not in the way Beer thought it would. Beer believed as we increasingly engaged with SNS, more and more people would be willing to describe what boyd and Ellison call “Friends” as their “friends,” because the meaning behind friend would grow less intimate however I think the opposite effect is actually occurring. For the past few years as we’ve watched our number of friends grow, we’ve grown more detached to our online friends simply because there are too many of them to keep track of. I remember running into a guy from high school last summer who I am still “friends” with on Facebook, but when my mother asked why I didn’t say hello, I told her it was because we weren’t friends, we were just Facebook friends. And as for my “real” friends, it’s come to the point where we’ve realized that SNS don’t compensate for spending time with each in the same room. I’d say we have hit a saturation point where we (or at least I) are unable to part with SNS, but we are aware of how much time we spend on it (too much time) and that we are willing to force ourselves to step back from it by creating games such as cell phone stacking.

The cruelest game ever created.

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by Amanda Au on February 3, 2012  •  Permalink
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How Should We ‘Follow’ Social Networks?

In his article “Social network(ing) sites…revisiting the story so far: A response to danah boyd and Nicole Ellison,” Dr. David Beer provides a criticism of boyd and Ellison’s article on Social Network Sites. Some of his main issues with their initial analysis of Social Network Sites include that using the term Social Network Sites as something similar and yet distinct from Social Networking Sites is problematic, as it is too broad a category for such a topic. This, he argues, leads to a limit on how closely the SNS can be studied. Another issue Beer finds is that boyd and Ellison consider the online and offline worlds as two separate arenas, whereas he feels that the two are continuously merging together more and more. Along with this, Beer finds that considering situations in the ‘offline world’ to be unmediated, whereas all interactions are mediated in some way. Finally, Beer goes on to discuss how SNS should be studied in the future. He feels that researchers need to become more involved in the SNS to have more of an understanding of who is using them and how, and believes that SNS need to be understood as a player in the world of capitalism above all else, as the data these companies collect is highly valuable.

While boyd and Ellison’s article is quite thorough, Beer makes several valid observations here. For instance, the idea of taking the online and offline world as two completely separate concepts is a fairly bold concept from boyd and Ellison, and Beer’s point that these two worlds are actually quite connected is very much true. While I think it is still important to consider differences in how people present themselves in online versus offline situations, researchers should also think about those in between times, such as when a person is at a concert with friends and uploading a picture to Facebook. Should this be considered an online or offline moment? Regardless, Beer does make a very valid point that there are essentially no interactions that are in some way mediated. The great sociologist Erving Goffman would certainly agree with this, as he points to the metaphor of the ‘self’ as something represented on stage for the public in his book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. With this in mind, it is quite surprising that boyd and Ellison would consider such a claim that there could be ‘unmediated interactions.’

Since this response was written in 2008, the iPhone had been released just a few months earlier, and Twitter was just starting to catch on. Along with a slew of other new products and platforms, these clearly changed the way many people interact with the offline world. Nowadays, people are constantly checking their phones to see what their friends are up to and to share their own thoughts and experiences online. In fact, the urge to Tweet or check emails has been found to be more addictive than smoking or alcohol. While this may have been the case with email back in 2008, the penetration of smartphones in the US, although still not the majority, has undoubtedly led to an increase of this. I think this blur between the online and offline world should be something that scholars should focus on while studying social networks: how people act when they are participating in both ‘worlds’ at the same time.

Another important discourse I think scholars should pay attention to when studying social media is that of the capitalist nature of SNS. As users become more and more concerned about what is being done with their data and how these sites are making money (Facebook even released a page explaining how it all works), the privacy anxiety that comes with the capitalist aspect is very interesting. Aside from the methods Beer, boyd, and Ellison mention, I think a study of why people migrate between SNS can reveal a significant amount about why people use the sites, and what they expect from them. For instance, a recent study has shown that many teens are leaving Facebook for Twitter, often for privacy issues. A more in-depth look into this could show why these shifts among networks happen, and how popular culture decides which ones are ‘cool’ (we all remember what happened to Myspace).

Obviously social media will continue to change, but studying the types of networks people use and why should provide an insight into how social people really want to be with their SNS. It will also shed light on how big of an issue privacy, authenticity, and other matters are for users.

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by Matt Gorman on February 3, 2012  •  Permalink
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Beer vs. boyd & Ellison vs. me

Beer’s response to boyd and Ellison’s article was composed of three arguments. First, he says that using “social network sites” was too broad of a term for all sites that boyd and Ellison consider to be SNS. He warns that using too broad of a term is too safe and would only make studying social media more difficult, as different platforms have different elements that make them distinct. Beer suggests that using more narrow terms would allow us to “work towards a more descriptive analysis” (Beer 518). Secondly, Beer criticizes boyd and Ellison for separating online and offline friends. He argues that they are inseparable because “young people grow up and are informed by the connections they make on SNS” (Beer 520). Lastly, Beer points out that many of boyd and Ellison’s questions may be answered by simply making social media a part of their every day lives. He continues to say that the concept of capitalism cannot be disregarded. He says that it has “sunk into the background as a sort of analytic given with no or little explanatory sociological purchase,” but capitalism has all the influence on a consumer’s actions as a consumer’s actions in social media has on capitalism (Beer 524).

Though sometimes unnecessarily lengthy, Beer’s article offers a reasonable critique of boyd and Ellison’s piece. I agree that we shouldn’t describe every social media site as an SNS, but I don’t think what we coin social media sites really matter. We all have an implicit understanding of what a social network site entails and have in common—members that form a network. From that simplistic core defining factor, we can branch off and study more specific elements that differentiate each site from one another. Frankly, I think he makes too big of a deal about the name boyd and Ellison chose. Additionally, boyd and Ellison were right to make the distinction between social network and social networking sites, because networking does imply individual instigation.

When it comes to online and offline friends, I fall somewhere in the middle of Beer’s and b&E’s arguments. It’s hard to generalize that all online relationships are like or unlike offline relationships. Online and offline relationships depend on circumstance. They can often resemble real, offline relationships, but  they often do not. For instance, I have plenty of friends on Facebook who I’ve only met once or talked to a couple of times. However, I am much more comfortable just randomly chatting with them on FB than I would be doing so in real life. Facebook is able to mediate these undeveloped real-life relationships because it enables us to feel comfortable with creating a new relationship in an old, familiar space. These relationships, however, don’t necessarily transfer to your offline life because they are sporadic and almost always intrinsically meaningless. Perhaps we need to develop genres for different types of relationships (real life close friends, real life acquaintances, strictly online friends, friends of friends, etc.) and study social media on a genre-by-genre basis to understand online and offline interactions more accurately.

I absolutely agree with Beer when he argues that we need to participate in social media to really understand it. Pure observation does no good because you won’t be able to grasp why someone would “like” or “retweet” something if you haven’t had that impulse to do so yourself. Considering capitalism in social media studies is also crucial because we are a highly consumer-driven society, and we, as “netizens,” have become marketable products. The information that we inadvertently “sell” to social media data analyzers is in turn fed back to us, which we spit back out again to those marketers, making it a cyclical process revved by our capitalistic mindsets.

Beyond Beer’s criticisms, I think that boyd and Ellison should examine the types of users that SNS draw in and what their reasoning for joining is, as that may speak to the cultural need the site is fulfilling. Facebook may drive people to its site because it keeps members connected with almost everyone they know or may have met. Twitter promotes people who like to share their entire lives with others to do so and has also become a medium in which we can get news that we couldn’t have possibly gotten in any other way before. LinkedIn allows you to actually network and stay connected with useful contacts that can help in developing your career. All of these sites help mediate your relationship with people who you know or know of in the real world. But what about the “other” types of social networks such as Second Life, which is quite literally an online world, different from ours, in which you can be whomever or whatever you want?

What kind of social purpose do those type of sites fulfill? Can those sites be considered SNS because they do form very large networks of people? Or does SNS need to resemble some sort of relation to the real world and real social circumstances? While Beer believes b&E’s argument is perhaps too broad, I believe it may be too narrow and should extend to include all types of social media, mainstream or not.

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by mss543 on February 3, 2012  •  Permalink
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Social Network Sites and their Ability to Rewire Our Existence

In Dr. David Beer’s “Social network(ing) sites…revisiting the story so far: A response to danah boyd & Nicole Ellison­”­­­­,­ he critiques boyd & Ellison’s “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship.”  He argues that although the differentiate social networking sites from social network sites, the term “social network sites” is still too broad as it encompasses too “vast (of a) range of often quite different applications” that each of these is meant for (519).  He believes that all though they do in fact do a lot of the same things, we are at a point where we need more classifications for them as opposed to less.  Beer believes that although dated, the term “Web 2.0” is much better overall at describing many subsets of user-generated content, social network sites being one of them.

Additionally, he discusses how instead of boyd & Ellison’s idea of differentiating ‘friends’ online from ‘friends’ offline, we need to realize that we are living in a time when the two work together to build relationships: “we might need to engage with sociological studies of friendship (Pahl, 2000) to understand how friendship changes as it inter- faces with such technologies” (520). At the base of this argument is the notion that technologies like social network sites and what comes with them should be examined not as their own entity but in the context that they have become integral parts of our everyday life.
Beer continues by explaining that it is important to do research on SNS reasons other than simply user information, specifically noting that knowing capitalism is displayed by the usage of SNS, “with the information being used to predict things about us, to find us out with recommendations, or even to discriminate between us as customers” (525).  He points out the important fact that with SNS, information that was never before so readily available about people and their habits is easy to find in a variety of ways.  To conclude, he continues with this thought to point out that there is a vast amount of knowledge to be gained and researched and that it is incredibly important that we study specifically the consumption information and knowledge of people themselves that is now available through SNS.

Overall, I agree with Beer’s criticisms of boyd and Ellison’s work, especially his point that “social network site” is too narrow of a term to describe the vast variety of social sites and uses of them.  While facebook certainly fits into this category, I believe sites like youtube do not; that is, while it does depend on user-generated content and at times smaller social networks may build and grow within it, the basis of the site of my opinion is still for entertainment.  To be fair, of course, we must note that that much of the arguments on what sites are and are not are just that: opinions. Everyone uses sites in different ways and thus is likely to categorize them more for how they use them and perhaps not what they were intended for.

The hardest part about the study of social media is how rapidly changing it is.  In the past four years alone since Beer’s article was published, a countless new number of social sites have flourished and new ones are being introduced every day.  Even more importantly, something that Beer touches upon to an extent, is just how ingrained social media has become in our lives.  With the rapidly spreading use of Internet-on-the-go (in the US alone, studies show that around “44 percent of Americans now own smartphones” – this does not include phones and other wireless devices that are capable of Internet access,) there are few moments nowadays when people, most importantly and specifically active Internet users are not connected to online content.  Thus, I think an important scholarly approach on the study of social media in 2012 and beyond is how it is changing what we do and how we do it.  For example, as a college student, SNS (I will continue to use this term in the broad sense that boyd and Ellison use it in) such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest are ingrained in my brain as part of my existence.  Although it may sometimes not be what we I want to admit, not only do I turn to these sites when I stumble across an interesting article, funny video or good music, but (and I believe this to be much more of an interesting subject) also, the moment good news arises, something funny happens in my life or I come up with an interesting or note-worthy idea, I turn to my online network to share it.  As Beer discusses in his piece, our online and offline selves (especially in younger generations) are rapidly becoming intertwined.  This can affect us in a countless number of ways, perhaps not always positively as Brianne Garcia discusses in “How Facebook Has Changed The Way Young Girls View Themselves.”  Thus, I would be interested in studying how the deep integration of SNS in our lives may affect not only how we live, but also our mental and emotional states in general, and how this can be both positive and negative.

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by ariellemoskow on February 3, 2012  •  Permalink
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Changing too Fast to Define?

Dr. David Beer wrote a strong response to danah m. boyd and Nicole B. Ellison’s article, “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship.” Boyd and Ellison define what they believe a social network is as, “web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system” (boyd & Ellison 211). Although Beer does praise boyd and Ellison for their research into social networks, he believes that their definition is too broad, that their example of online and offline living is incorrect, and that they are asking the wrong questions for future research.

Boyd and Ellison gives such a strong definition for “social network sites” that they also felt compelled to define “social networking sites” as those that are not created for the purpose of connection with people you know, like YouTube. The problem Beer finds with this distinction is that it creates the wrong type of umbrella for analytical research. While I agree with Beer that defining these two creates more of a problem than a solution, I believe that giving one definition to any site by its original purpose isn’t the right way to go about it.

As we saw in boyd and Ellison’s article showcasing the evolution of SNS from Six Degrees.com in 1997 to Twitter in 2006, SNS are always changing, growing, or dying.  that their definition and distinction between “Social network sites” and “social networking sites” is actually limiting because all sites that allow people to connect evolve and what they may have done in 2007 is completely different than what they do today.

For example, Facebook was first created in 2004 to connect the students of Harvard University, limiting the users to an intimate private community (boyd & Ellison 218). But today, Facebook has grown exponentially to allow anyone in the world to connect to each other, to allow companies to promote products, and other advertising purposes.

Here is an article from the Observer that captures Facebook’s mission statements from 2004 to 2009.

We can see here that it is hard to define any website as one thing, when over the course of time its mission or purpose could completely evolve. This also ties in with Beer’s critique of “Friends” or “friends” online. Boyd and Ellison create a distinction between online living and offline living, claiming that online friends are not the same as real life friends. When I first started my Pinterest site, I only had 2 other friends that were on the site, so I defaulted to “following” people I did not know in order to gain more content. But this was a mutual agreement by both parties. As the site grew, I was able to connect with more of my friends but still follow my new online connections.

While I do believe that making a distinction between “Friends” and “friends” on SNS is important, I don’t agree that you your offline and online friends are different. I know going into certain sites what my audience is and whether or not I am connecting with “friends” or “Friends.” Boyd & Ellison were correct in making a distinction, as we can see the new privacy settings on facebook allow for us to create “lists” so we can control what group of people see what. But I believe SNS can be an extension of who we know offline, allowing us to connect online as well.

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by tntrottier on February 3, 2012  •  Permalink
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We May Be Friends, But I Don’t Have to Like You

In their piece “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship”, Danah M. Boyd and Nicole B. Ellison provide a fairly thorough account of the rise of these types of sites and the various user demographics that engage with them, and also begin to scratch the surface of potential issues and concerns surrounding their usage with a rudimentary analysis. In his response to Boyd and Ellison, “Social Network(ing) Sites…Revisiting The Story So Far”, Dr. David Beer begins by praising their original piece for the work it does laying the foundation for further analysis, and then proceeds to pick apart aspects of their work that he finds problematic.

The first aspect of Boyd and Ellison’s piece that Beer takes issue with is their use of the terms “social network site” and social networking site”. For Boyd and Ellison, a social networking site is one whose primary purpose is networking; they “emphasize relationship initiation, often between strangers. On the other hand, social network sites “enable users to articulate and make visible their social networks”; “while networking is possible on these sites, it is not the primary practice on many of them, nor is it what differentiates them from other forms of computer-mediated communication.”

Beer’s first criticism, which I agree with, is that the term “social network site” can then be used to refer to almost anything. Recalling our discussion in class, it took over 45 minutes to list dozens of social networks, and that list was nowhere near complete. Additionally, debate sprang up over whether this site or that site qualifies under the “social network site” criteria. Beer levels the charge that Boyd and Ellison put forth this vague terminology for the purpose of conveniently capturing too many vastly different applications under one umbrella. As he says, “it is intended to do too much of the analytical work”. In today’s social climate, where everyday I receive invitations in my inbox to join xyz new sites and pleas to follow all my friends, it seems elementary to try and gather so many examples under one heading. In my opinion, my interest in a blogging platform (WordPress for example) has little to nothing to do with my participation on Twitter, despite them both being considered social network sites. Or, for a more humorous example, Barack Obama’s activity on his Twitter feed is not indicative of his maintaining a page on Make Out Club, as he is not, to my knowledge, an “indierocker” or “hardcore kid”, as their tagline implies. Simplistic classifications inhibit in-depth analysis of trends, especially in a constantly evolving setting like the Web.

Another of Beer’s criticisms of Boyd and Ellison is their division of online and offline life, and by extension, the existence of “friends” on social network sites that differ from “real life” friends. I am not aware of the ages of any of these authors, but speaking for anyone I’m acquainted with in my generation, if someone isn’t your friend on Facebook, but they have a Facebook account, they’re not your real-life friend, period. They probably aren’t even your acquaintance. In my experience, a brief meeting or friend-of-a-friend intro is certainly enough to warrant Facebook friend status. The terms of a “friendship” have completely changed following the advent of the “friend” feature of social networks. The broadened connotation of the term means that lines of who constitutes one’s friends are blurred beyond recognition. There are hordes of people that have access to my Facebook page that I wouldn’t dream of talking to in real life. And yet, by Facebook’s (and by extension the Facebook user community’s) standards, that person qualifies as my friend.

Perhaps the largest issue I have with Boyd and Ellison’s piece, and one that Dr. Beer also outlines, is their assertion that there exists somewhere/sometimes segments of life that go “unmediated”. To me, in today’s world an unmediated scenario is mythical. Social media and the internet are so sewn into our daily lives that to pretend there are times when it literally has no effect whatsoever seems almost irresponsible or ignorant on the part of communications researchers. I recently read a piece on Thought Catalog by Brianne Garcia called “How Facebook Has Changed the Way Young Girls View Themselves”. In it, she explains her belief that Facebook and the omnipresent likelihood of photographic online exposure of a particular event have overhauled the mindset of young girls. Garcia notes, “ I never cared or even considered what I looked like from the side until Facebook taught me to.” This technological determinist viewpoint is one that I’m inclined to agree with.

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by ljp282 on February 3, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by ljp282 on February 3, 2012

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The Friendships, They Are A-Changin’

Boyd and Ellison define Social Networks as “web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. “

They make the point that social networks can be used for networking purposes, ie meeting new people, but in fact many do not use them for that purpose.  They go on to further discuss the different aspects of social networks; how people present themselves, which people use which social network, privacy settings for different social networks, and how sites are structured.

Dr. David Beer responds to their article, arguing that their definition of social networking sites is too broad.  He goes on to argue many of their points, one of which being that offline friends can also be online “Friends”.  He suggests that rather than differentiate the two types of friends, instead maybe study the role of increasing technology in friendships.

In general, I found Boyd and Ellison’s article informative from a historical perspective.  It was fascinating to learn the origins about the many social networks, and interesting to read about those I hadn’t even heard of (Cyworld, Orkut, for example).  The problem with the Boyd and Ellison piece, which Beer touches upon, is that it presents itself as the end all article about social networking and does not present itself as what it actually is: a look at social networks at a specific time in history.

Five years later, Boyd and Ellison’s article is almost comical at moments due to how outdated it reads.  When they suggest people’s friends online are different from their friends offline, I could not help but smile at how times have changed.  Now, on Facebook and Twitter, you generally are only friends with people you know, save for the random celebrities you follow.  In fact, getting a friend request from someone you do not know may beg one to ask out loud, “who the hell is this and why are they friending me?”.  It is an odd state of paranoia that some social network users live in, worrying that the random person that just requested them is either a)only interested in sex b)fake or c) some sort of scam or virus.

I would argue that the days Boyd and Ellison talk about, where people request to be friends with other random people based solely on their interests, are coming to an end.  With privacy settings nowadays on Facebook and Twitter, you can completely block anyone but your closest, “off-line as well” friends from seeing anything about you.  Social “Networking” is almost a misnomer now, except in the cases of sites like Match.com or LinkedIn.  Social Networks feel like Social Circles now; you spend the most time on the Facebook pages or the Twitters of the people you spend the most time with offline.  Social Networks, now, are simply an extension of the social process.

Beer makes an interesting point when he wonders if, “we might need to engage with sociological studies of friendship…to understand how friendship changes as it interfaces with such technologies.”  It is something that I whole-heartedly agree with him on.  The idea of friendship is changing and it is because of technology.  Years ago, friends from home would go off to college, and keep in touch via the telephone and letter writing, Now, friends do not even have to spend a day without physically seeing each other thanks to technology like Skype or Facebook Video Chat.  Texting, and cell phones in general, keep friends in touch more so than ever.

A sociological study of social media should occur on a grand scale to maybe confirm what many of us already know, or bring to light new things that no one ever thought of.  Perhaps scholars can, with permission from the participants of course, keep track of how the participants use social media (on their mobile device, computer etc), how often they use it, who they connect with and how often.  For example, for a college student, measure time spent on the pages of friends they see offline versus time spent on pages of friends from home who attend different colleges.  Or perhaps for the out-of-college participant, study how much time they spend communicating with friends from college who they may not see offline for years at a time due to geographical distance versus how much time they spend on the pages of “newer” offline friends and compare all of this data to other “friend factors” such as family members, older, longtime friends, and co-workers.  It would not only help us understand how people use social media, but perhaps for what reason; do they want to connect with older friends more than current?  Or is it a mixture of both.

Regardless of results, the fact that this debate is even taking place should in itself show that friendships as we know them are changing.  No longer will that one friend from years ago fade from memory and phonebooks.  They’re always a page click away to catch up with.

-Simon Higgins

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by shiggins311 on February 3, 2012  •  Permalink
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