Friend Me if You

Facebook
E.J. Westlake
 Game
(Logo Quiz)
History of Facebook
February 2004

Mark Zuckerberg - Harvard

undergraduate

Chris Hughes and Dustin Moskovitz

Online network to help Harvard

students get to know each other

2006 - open Facebook to everyone

 Myspace
August 2003
Official launch: 2004
75.9 million unique visitors
by December 2008

Medium for bullying and

scandals
MySpace Facebook
Online journal Slam book
social utility that helps people
Connects withs friends and meet better understand the world
new people around them
... join the networks that reflect
Like a blog your real-life communities to learn
more about the people who work,
Greater online creativity live, or study around you.
School or geographically specific
Promotional tool
News Feeds
... every move (well, almost every
move) is seen by all my Facebook
friends

News Feeds announce information

that people had to look up for

More conscious of the way they act

on Facebook

How Can I Stalk People When

There Is News Feed
Performativity of
Social
Networking
Performativity of Social Networking
The internet has changed the way we read texts or read each others
performances.

The web invites the readers to choose the path and order of text to read, as
driven by the readers own desire and cognitive processing style.

This carries over into Facebooks structure.

Performativity of Social Networking
The internet creates a writerly text.

Ronald Barthes used the terms readerly and writerly (in his book S/Z) to
distinguish, respectively, between texts that are straightforward and those
who demand special effort to understand.

readerly - the text is pretty much the same for each person who reads it

writerly - ourselves writing, readers participate in producing meaning(s)

Performativity of Social Networking
As the web developed in 1990s, several sites began to offer free space to
people who wanted to create their webpages.

Microsoft Word was upgraded to allow regular users to save documents in

html. Now anyone can create text on the internet, link it to other texts, and
create forums where others can add comments, responses, and corrections.
Performativity of Social Networking
What makes Facebook often unintelligible to some comes down to preferred
modes of communication for people of different generations:

Silent generation (1925-1942)

Baby Boomers (1945-1960)

Thirteenth generation or Generation X (1961-1981)

Echo Boomers or Generation Y - younger generation

*(According to Strauss and Howes Generation)
Performativity of Social Networking
Older internet users (older than 1982) are more comfortable with email or
telephone for communication, while Generation Y, with chatting or texting or
altering their profile content.

For Y-ers, Facebook provides a forum for immediate social interaction,

creating a collaborative, interactive, and performative text.
Performativity of Social Networking
Erving Goffmans analyzation of the performance of self in the interest:

all the activity of an individual which occurs during a period marked by his
continuous presence before a particular set of observers and which has some
influence on the observers
Performativity of Social Networking
Performances in Facebook

Profile page

Messaging

Group forums

Poking

Fake profiles
Performativity of Social Networking
Facebook has created its own subculture and language.

Many sociologists worry that the increased internet use by Generation Y will
result in their lacking socialization needed to function in society.
Performativity of Social Networking
According to Brignall II and Valey:

If individuals move to use online forms of interaction as the primary way to

communicate, the rules of online communication will begin to compete with and
perhaps dominate those of face-to-face social interactions. For contemporary
adults, this should not be problematic. They should have sufficient face-to-face
interaction skills for them to move among the different modes of communication.
However, this may not be the case with some cyberkids who have not properly
developed their face-to-face interaction skills. Consequently, they may have
problems when engaging in real face-to-face interactions.
Performativity of Social Networking
Recent research suggests that the computer-mediated contact does not
replace more traditional modes of interaction.

Facebook features suggests that Facebook is not a substitute for social

interactions.

..people who communicate frequently use multiple media to do so. The more
contact by one medium, the more contact by others.
Performativity of Social Networking

Rules of social interaction are continuously shifting. Generation Y will take

what older generations view as a social disadvantage and create new norms for
performances of self online.
Performativity of Social Networking

People fail to comprehend that Generation Ys proficiency with the internet

and the other new technologies make them comfortable using these means in
tandem with their face-to-face interactions.
Performativity of Social Networking

Generation Y are willing to offer themselves up for surveillance through

performance and to act as the mechanism of surveillance.
 Game
(Logo Quiz)
Surveillance
 Internet
Predators
Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/11165576/ns/
nbc_nightly_news_with_brian_williams/t/myspace-facebook-attract-
online-predators/#.WA4iFvp97IU
 Deleting Online Predators Act

Source: https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/house-bill/
5319
State Surveillance
 USA PATRIOT Act

Source: https://www.justice.gov/archive/ll/
what_is_the_patriot_act.pdf
Surveillance? Oks lang
Generation Y-ers perform in a way that bother their elders. Given the danger
attributed to internet predators and state surveillance, the Generation y-ers still
use Facebook as if there are none.

Teens today grow up in a state of constant surveillance where there is no privacy.

So they cant really have an idea of it being lost -Danah Boyd
Performative
Surveillance
Performative Surveillance
Foucaults discipline

Internet as a discipline

Panoptic gaze

Concept of a masked power watching the

content of electronic communication

True efficiency of Panopticon

 Anyone may come and exercise in the
central tower the functions of surveillance,
and that, this being the case, he can gain a
clear idea of the way in which the
surveillance is practiced
-Faucault
Panopticon
Works because it is dispersed
Productive increase of power can be
assured only if:
It can be continuously exercised
Domain
Whole region of irregular
bodies
Details, movements,
forces, and spatial
relations
Physics of relational and
multiple power
Users
Police facebook deviants

Code of Conduct

Safety and help pages

Inform users about policies

Users
Fake profiles

Deliberately under surveillance

Real or fiction

Distinguished based on email

address used

Eventually became harder to detect

Prohibition is stated and can be seen on

the Code of Conduct and Terms of
Use
Bring Back Fake Profiles
When the individual presents himself before
others, his performance will tend to
incorporate and exemplify the officially
accredited values of the society, more so, in
fact, than does his behavior as a whole
-Goffman
Goffman
Performance of self involve idealization

Observed how individuals act according to

prescribed roles

Different social groupings = Different ways of expression

Obtain necessary characteristics and maintain standards

of conduct and appearance

Performance online = Performance in person

Facebook as a forum
Panopticon
Individuals are directly punished by
other users

Surveillance

From users encounters on the internet

Ex.

Having too few friends VS too

many friends
Users
Facebook News Feed controversy

Reveals that Generation Y is uncomfortable with uncertain and extreme public exposure

Demonstrate Foucaults internalized panopticon

Watch own behavior

Justin Berton
San Francisco Chronicle

Interviewed people

Generation Ys personal information exposed in public

Nadir Vissanjy

Our generation is open with things such as MySpace

and Facebook and these other networks, so it seems
like theyre OK with the public knowing what youre
doing, but there are some things that the government
should not intrude on, such as private calls, text
messaging, and e-mails.
Justin Berton
Interviewed people

Kristopher Tate

The realization that people can find you online isnt that threatening to this generation.
But theres a difference between giving up information like whats on MySpace and the
government listening to a phone conversation
Generation Y
Generation Ys limit

Trust technology

Address issues that matter to them

Deeply engaged and motivated

Surpass early generations

Due to signs
Strauss and Howe
New Millennial service ethic

Collegial action

Support for civic institutions

Tangible doing of good deeds

Strauss and Howe
Generation Y

More liberal

Favors negotiation and compromise over

confrontation

Work with incorporated political process

Trust and are optimistic about the government

Millenials Rising
Abolish the Patriot Act Now!

One of the largest Facebook groups

Educate and take actions on political

issues
Social Cohesion

Privacy
Private and Public
Social construct that changes over time

Generation Y
Perform and offer for surveillance for chosen audience

Profiles in continuous transition

Users continue to play with identity
Epilogue