In this thesis I address the fundamental elements of Facebook’s makeup that affect resulting social behaviors from participation with the site. In my exploration I first define the relationship between communication and social realities. It is through this relationship we begin to understand Facebook’s significance in our culture. I then consider the forms of communication media by which Facebook exists and their qualities. After briefly describing the inclination of news media interactions to embody entertainment, I argue for Facebook’s presence as a news media platform. Once establishing this I discuss inconsistencies in the site’s social qualification and legitimacy due to the localization of users’ participation within the realm of a vast network of the possibly accessible information. Facebook space is qualified; that is, it has degrees of value that differ among users. These inconsistencies are the cause of new yet subtle movements within socially acceptable behaviors. It is the trust and reliance of other users to give and gain information, inter-user dependency, which realizes and perpetuates these movements.

1. Legitimacy and Depe ndency: Qualificatio ns of
Social Re alities on F acebook
by
Genevieve Costello
A Thesis Submitted in Par tial F ulfillment
of the Requireme nts for the
Degree of Bache lor of Arts
Departme nt of Visual and Critic al Studies
The Schoo l of the Art Institute of Chicago
2010
1

2. Abstract
In this thesis I address the fundamental elements of Facebook’s makeup
that affect resulting social behaviors from participation with the site. In my
exploration I first define the relationship between communication and social
realities. It is through this relationship we begin to understand Facebook’s
significance in our culture. I then consider the forms of communication media by
which Facebook exists and their qualities. After briefly describing the inclination
of news media interactions to embody entertainment, I argue for Facebook’s
presence as a news media platform. Once establishing this I discuss
inconsistencies in the site’s social qualification and legitimacy due to the
localization of users’ participation within the realm of a vast network of the
possibly accessible information. Facebook space is qualified; that is, it has
degrees of value that differ among users. These inconsistencies are the cause of
new yet subtle movements within socially acceptable behaviors. It is the trust and
reliance of other users to give and gain information, inter-user dependency, which
realizes and perpetuates these movements.
2

3. Conte nts
4 Introduction
13 Section I.
13 I.I On the Formation of Social Realities
16 I.II Mass Media, Broadcast Media, News Media, and Internet
20 I.III Click-Causality
24 I.IV Dissemination
29 I.V News as Entertainment
31 Section II.
31 II.I Facebook as News Platform
36 II.II Localization
39 II.III Legitimacy
39 II.IV Qualification
43 II.V Function of Dependency
49 Closing
55 Works Cited
3

4. Introduc tion
Established in 2004, Facebook’s popularity boomed in my older brother’s
freshman year of college. When I finally received my .edu email address I
created my own account and began “friending.” About six months later I deleted
it. I was turned off by being friended by people who ignored me offline,
perpetuating shallow relations, and wasting time on the site when I felt as though
I already wasted enough time looking into people’s open windows. It appeared to
be a socially acceptable platform for the festering of unnecessary, insignificant,
and complicating gossip and weak interactions. Instead of my peers and I
attempting to grow up and become better communicators, the site offered a social
platform requiring little to no effort to extenuate qualities of judgment,
exhibitionism, listlessness, procrastination, voyeurism, gossiping, etc. It appeared
to me as though Facebook seduced its masses through the exploitation of the
“flaws” in human nature thus ensuring its pandemic usage by playing on the
social necessity of conformity. As co-founder of Facebook, Chris Hughes, puts it
best:
If you don't have a Facebook profile, you don't have an online identity… It
doesn't mean that you are antisocial, or you are a bad person, but where
are the traces of your existence in this college community? You don't
exist-online, at least. That's why we get so many people to join up. You
need to be on it (Cassidy).
4

5. During my years of being a vocally avid hater of the social networking
site, though, I intermittently re-logged into my old account for about three
minutes, just enough time to permit a thorough peek at an ex-boyfriend’s page. I
realized that despite my horrific hypocrisy, the site was undeniably addictive.
When peers began openly discussing obsessively looking at strangers’ profiles,
popularly known as “Facebook stalking,” the little shame originally associated
with the activity quickly disappeared. Though it may seem obvious that a site that
gives users a place to practice the above-listed perceived human faults would
become socially popular, I was taken by the way in which it maintained such a
thriving level of cooperation between users in such an indefinite space. That is,
while a group of three girlfriends were getting on and creeping others' profiles six
times a day and their affiliated friends on and offline were acting in an opposing
manner, somehow, despite conflicts in the relevance of the site and how seriously
it was taken in reference to life offline, few were aborting participation. Any
other time I had been in a setting filled with drama, vanity, gossip, and other such
things, which I believed the site to nurture, people reacted. They would hang out
with different people or at least change something about the situation. Nothing of
this sort seemed to be occurring, despite people being aware of and discussing the
negative effects of Facebook participation, which seemed mostly a result of
miscommunication or fickle treatment of the site’s value in reference to social
life.
About three and a half years later, after much deliberation, many an anti-
Facebook rant, a full semester of anti-Facebook - dedicated research, and an anti-
5

6. Facebook term paper and presentation, I realized that I am a contemporary and
my quick moral judgments of the most popular social networking site should be
fully critiqued before being put into practice. I wanted to observe the site’s social
effects instead of scoffing at it with disdain.
My previous account was under an email no longer active so I started from
the beginning. The site had changed quite a bit, with significant application
additions such as the News Feed and status updates. Within the few years of my
absence previously hush hush behaviors that would have been only discussed with
a small group of girlfriends, like Facebook stalking, were now openly accepted. I
noticed in-person conversations would begin as if from the middle of an already-
had conversation, only, there was no original conversation. People were
seamlessly integrating information picked up from online profile “noticing” (or
stalking, depending on the situation) and inserting it directly into their offline
communication. This integration was not acknowledged or discussed among my
peers, but it was first-hand evidence of the simultaneous moving of social
information from completely different communication platforms and moving of
acceptable social behaviors. We observe these movements of social information
and acceptable behaviors between online text-based and face-to-face vocalization
as well as the change from Facebook stalking being a shameful and private
activity to it being no longer stalking but a common practice for keeping up with
your “friends,” or anyone with loose privacy settings for that matter.
In Winter 2009, my friend Adam told me excitedly about this girl Kate he
had recently met and started dating. It had been about two or three weeks. He
6

7. told me about all the good, new stuff, the fun freshness that comes from finding
someone you really like. It was about thirty minutes into the conversation when
he said, “…but there are a few red flags.” The first red flag consisted of direct
Facebookstalker confrontation. Now, as someone who has been executing
complete examination of the site for many months, I am not quick to call anyone a
Facebookstalker. But, there are a few factors that definitely affect the possible
stalker-label. Asking on a first date, before being Facebook friends, before ever
hanging out at all before, inquiring, “who is ‘Haley,’” is still considered socially
inappropriate (Haley is Adam’s on and off again ex-girlfriend. And she is indeed
all over Adam’s Facebook page). The actual stalking activity is no longer
inappropriate by normal standards, but vocalizing that activity to a stranger/dating
prospect, particularly due to the fact that in advance to their meeting she made a
decent effort to get onto and take note of particular presences on his page,
pictures, wall posts, etc., is again, not yet a popularly established behavior. After
my initial reaction of surprise (i.e. Kate’s a creeper), I realized that if Adam’s
privacy settings permit non-friend access to his page and linked media, then this
exposing sort of premature stalker behavior shouldn’t be so surprising. I then
realized that though Adam referred to this as a “red flag,” it was the last piece of
information he brought up after half an hour of talking about how great this girl is,
thus showing that it wasn’t weird enough, or socially unacceptable enough, for
him to really react, but was still bizarre enough to consider and discuss. I also
realized that this behavior of clear exposure is merely not socially acceptable yet.
7

8. Before exploring the nature of these changes we must first have a general
comprehension as to the functions of the site. Upon signing into the site, you see
your homepage that includes the News Feed (this can be sorted by top news or
most recent updates), access to messages, events, photos, friends, application,
games, groups, etc. The News Feed consists of friends updates, including status
updates, event RSVPs, changes to profiles, etc. I am able to “hide” people’s
updates if I don’t care to read about certain people and I am able to control what
personal information or changes show up on others’ News Feeds. If I have any
new messages, friend requests, photo comments, wall comments, etc., there will
be a little red notification next to the according icon. Here is what my homepage
looks like:
(Homepage).
I am able to “go online” by clicking on the chat option in the bottom right corner
and instant message with my other friends who are online. Only I can see my
8

9. News Feed. My friends and other users are able to see my profile. What my
friends and other users may see depends on my privacy settings that may change
in the Account section (to change my account settings I click on “Account” in the
upper right corner). The blue bar at the top of the Homepage screenshot remains
the same no matter what page I am on. This is my profile and my profile wall,
info, and photos. These are the pages that other people see when they look at me
on the site. My friends and I are able to post comments, photos, links, and
updates on my wall. Facebook also offers the ability to join groups, make events,
make notes, add videos, become fans of pages, and add various applications to
your page. Extra applications are often seen at the top of my profile where the +
icon is, next to wall, info, and photos. Applications are vast and greatly vary,
such as the honesty box (where people anonymously write what they think about
you) or the game Mafia Wars. I could also potentially link other social
communication sites, such as Twitter or Digg, to my Facebook account. The
Facebook arena offers much more than what I have explained but for the purpose
of this paper what is most important is the basic understanding of the functions of
the site. Below what others see when they come to my profile page.
9

10. (Profile with Chat)
10

11. (Profile Info)
11

12. (Profile Photos)
This primary composition of Facebook is the platform upon which the social
behavioral effects cultivate. I address the fundamental elements that affect on and
offline social behaviors from participation with the site. In Section I I define the
relationship between communication and social realities. It is through this
relationship we begin to understand Facebook’s significance in our culture. I then
consider the forms of communication media by which Facebook exists and their
qualities. After briefly describing the inclination of news media interactions to
embody entertainment, I commence Section II by arguing that Facebook has
12

13. presence as a news media platform. Once establishing this I discuss
inconsistencies in the site’s social qualification and legitimacy due to the
localization of users’ participation within the realm of a vast network of the
possibly accessible information. Facebook space is qualified; that is, it has
degrees of value that differ among users. These inconsistencies are the cause of
new yet subtle movements within socially acceptable behaviors. It is the trust and
reliance of other users to give and gain information, inter-user dependency, which
realizes and perpetuates these movements.
Section I.
I.I On the Formation of Social Realities
Facts do not represent the singular material occurrence[s] of actions made
known to many. Reporting formulates an event, from which facts can be drawn;
facts do not construct. People observe information from a source provider [this
can direct and immediate viewing of the singular material occurrences] and
interpret, in many ways unconsciously, what they see or believe happens; what is
factual to them; thus creating a truth. Facts can create many different truths. In
short,
The telling of
singular material occurrence[s] of actions
CAN but does NOT ALWAYS equate to
facts
which CAN and ALMOST ALWAYS will induce
social and individual truths.
For example: I am in a café with a friend. I knock down a glass by
accident due to a physical gesture made during a conversation. There are other
people in the café who experience the action of the glass falling [the singular
13

14. material occurrence]. The waiter who comes to help clean it up, other guests-
those closer to my table experience the action differently than those farther away,
either noticing the occurrence more while those far away merely hear something
and don’t see the action at all. If my friend and I never talk about that event,
don’t react to it when it the physical motions of the material event take place, do
not tell anyone we both know, and we never think about it in our lives [do not
recall or remember it because of its minute nature to us], then to us, it can be
considered, there is no fact of the event, therefore no truth of it. Despite me
actually causing the singular material occurrence of knocking the glass down, if it
is not represented to me, I cannot draw anything from it. The event is relative,
therefore, while there is no event in my life of the glass being knocked over, the
liquid in the glass may have hit the feet of the person next to me, thus staining and
destroying their prized vintage Salvatore Ferragamo suede shoes. Completely
irreplaceable, the shoes are dead. This day will forever be burned in this person’s
mind, the date of a harrowing event caused by a stranger. This person complains
about what happened to family, friends, pets, and coworkers. This person
broadcasts the occurrence to every person they know, thus inducing facts and
truths in others about an event they did not directly experience but affects their
life. Through the relationship of me knocking over the glass, this person may
think mean things about me. This person may also develop ideas about people
who talk with their hands, about the wait staff at the restaurant, about the café
table locations, about having only paper towels in bathrooms and not air dryers,
etc. From these thoughts, all stemming back to the glass being knocked over,
14

15. come opinions, or just the faintest trodden path of what could be an opinion, or a
thought that hadn’t been conscious before, or the ground of nursing an already
existent thought, etc.: i.e. relative truths. This generalized and brief consideration
of the development of represented events, facts, and truths gives framing to social
news sharing, the movement of information in a society, and the mapping of the
development of social and individual realities.
Imagine this simplified description of reality shaping, occurring multiple
times a minute, amongst over 400 million established identities (think about the
example, the event came to being from the action of a complete stranger).
According to Facebook statistics, about 30% of all users, or 120,000,000, of users
are U.S. citizens, thus, with a population of about 310, 232, 863 according to the
US Census Bureau, roughly 39% of US citizens are active users. Facebook
affects a massive amount of American youth and young adult realities, thus
making it a notable player in such participants’ on and offline activity as well as
in defining popular social behaviors, standards, and cultural roles.
Popular cultural communication mediums often dramatize and exaggerate
for publication, but almost always derive from some sort of embodiment of what
can be identified with socially, that is to say, what observable, recordable, and
replicable social realities. We can see in earlier decades of the 20th century
through today the incredible influence upon social realities the television, radio,
films, newspapers, etc. maintain. These popularized communication forms
represent, change, and define social behaviors, norms, and expectations, thus it is
necessary to recognize social networking sites, especially the most popular,
15

16. Facebook, as a new and incredibly influential space occurring within the most
accessible popular communication media, the Internet. What manifests within
this space spreads quickly to a large number of participants and they react on and
offline. A significant changing factor is what qualifies as newsworthy, what gains
reactions, and who broadcasts the justified information. These changes occur on
account of the nature of the site.
I.II Mass Media, Broadca st Media, N ews Media, and
Internet
Mass media is a form of communication made to reach a large amount of
people. Within mass media exists broadcast media, which can be interpreted
many ways; often it is considered to be the transmission of sound and video
through radio and television. Often people draw lines between print media,
broadcast media, and internet media, but I believe that the term itself, “broadcast
media,” represents a better comprehension of what it is: media that casts broadly,
to broad audiences. I believe maintaining the view that broadcast media refers
only to television and radio similar to if the terms music “albums” and music
“records” were exclusively used in reference to a vinyl record, as this medium of
mass music production came before tapes, eight-tracks, cds, mp3s, etc. This is
not the case though. An umbrella term is created for referencing various forms of
communication and usually does not conclude once newer communication
technology develops and popularizes. By default, any media that offers the
widely accessible electronic transmission of information falls into the category of
16

17. broadcast media, as it is under these conditions where the term came into
existence. Within broadcast media falls news media, which concentrates on
reporting relatively current information its conductors consider to be news, or at
least “newsworthy,” thus transforming relatively current information into news
through its presentation to a large amount of people within diverse broadcasting
programs. I believe “news media” is incorrectly termed in that media refers to
something larger than news. It is the technological mode of communication.
News is the content. Although the medium of communication forms the context
of what it translates, the context never becomes the media. It should be noted that
we do not restrain any particular medium to sharing news, thus news merely
inhabits within broadcast media. This leaves us with the idea of news programs: a
performance, an agenda, a show, an organized presentation of current information
deemed worth reporting. Because of the compartmentalization and localization of
our society, news is flexible. The value of current and important changes through
social planes, individual interests, popular interests, sub-cultural interests,
political interests, is combined with the incredible accessibility of current
communication media. This innumerable medium, literally, existing as a means
by which information is carried, communicated, expressed, also intertwines with
the American culture tradition of entertainment appeal. Because disparate social
standards mobilize individual notions of what constitutes proper news it is
important to comprehend the inconsistent nature of relevance and the relation of
ideas of relevance to the specific program of news and its form of broadcast.
17

18. As Thoreau states in Walden, “We are in great haste to construct a
magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have
nothing important to communicate” (36). This may have been true before the
possibility of sharing information, but as soon as Maine heard about the “Bumpit”
they began constructing as many telegraph poles as fast as they could.1 What is
missing from Thoreau’s thought is there might be nothing important to
communicate yet. Once the opportunity is there to know, we want to know. It is
like not caring about knowing what the secret is before we are aware a secret
exists, but once we are aware of it we want to be apart of it. News is relative; it is
relevant current information that would otherwise be unknown unless transferred
to listener[s] or observer[s] by other people or by communication mediums, which
are almost always controlled by people. Widespread usage determines the
legitimacy of a medium; acceptance of the information from the medium then
affects a large amount of people, creating widespread notions of what is currently
occurring, thus shaping the world in which we believe we live. If we believe
something and react to it, applying our reactions into social decisions
(determining aspects such as behaviors and/or lifestyles), then there is no longer a
distinguishing factor between what we believe to be reality and our actual reality;
if we live in it and of it, it is indeed our reality, and the many forms of news
media which inform it should be recognized.
The medium and type of program determines the presentation of news. A
newspaper headline has very few words to express something that intends to catch
1
Popularized by infomercials, “Bumpit” is a plastic hair accessory used to create the illusion of
volume.
18

19. someone’s attention quickly while a news channel must translate according to a
different time frame, possibly to a different audience, at a different time during
the day. What we expect to see in printed news media depends on the newspaper,
just as what we see on televised news reports depends on the channel from which
it airs and at what time it airs. It is not bizarre for us to hear an adultery-ridden
voicemail of Tiger Woods, “Tainted Love,” and then a 30 second update on
health care before commercials on our favorite radio station at 7:30 AM. The
media of translation shapes the program-type and from the program observers
know what kinds of news and presentation to expect, though, a popular
consistency within news media proves to be the rapidity of dispatch.
There is a striking association of speed with news update and delivery in
our culture. The idea that “faster is better” does not derive from its catchiness
(though possibly its use sustains because of it), but that faster really is better for
retaining attention. Faster not only nurtures naturally short attention spans, but it
also creates an aura of excitement, enticing viewers with fresh nibble of
something we want to know, and we want to know because of its brevity,
catchiness, and ease of interpretation. We see this in nearly all popular media,
and it is within this nature of quick communication develops the inclination of
news media melding into entertainment media, for popular entertainment quickly
draws interest, retains attention, and instigates excitement.
19

20. I.III Click-Causality
In many ways the speed at which we experience the visual world now,
especially when moving on the Internet, is comparable to the idea of interpreting
visual transparencies. I made up the phrase “visual transparencies” to specifically
reference when we are on the Internet and moving between multiple tabs in our
Internet browser, a few windows either up or minimized, and a few different
windows of other basic computer applications like Microsoft Word. Though we
usually concentrate on one or two windows at a time we maintain conscious
awareness of what the other tabs and windows contain and know of their
relationship to one another or to what we are trying to accomplish. We change
what windows and pages we are concentrating on and intermittently move
amongst them. The information of these windows and pages visually translate
has a sense of transparency, though of different opacities, thus, I refer to them as
visual transparencies. Below is an example of my current screen of visual
transparencies:
20

21. Visual Transparency Example.
To articulate the character of movement used when moving among visual
transparencies I will use my term “click-causality.”2 Click-causality refers to
what could be considered “surfing” the Internet. I believe there is an important
distinction in that when surfing one merely moves from page to page, while
navigating amongst many Internet windows with various tabs in each, clicking
among them in a less “forward” motion than surfing suggests. Click-causality
specifically references the necessary comfort and confidence in the explorative
spaces of and in between sites and the movement, where the movement is directly
between the cause and effect of the click. Surfing the Internet requires less
knowledge and speed; it can be thought of in this way: a grandparent who spends
little but occasional time on the Internet may surf with comfort, at their speed of
2
To maximize the use of this term while best maintaining the spirit of its definition I will use
click-causality as a noun and a verb for lack of better phrasing.
21

22. choice. To present said grandparent with a relatively simple problem to solve
occurring within multiple Internet pages and explain the plan for resolution would
be quite confusing and time-consuming. Imagine that you are visiting a friend’s
apartment and can’t remember a band name that you are trying to recommend to
your friend. You know that you saw the band play at a certain venue in your
home city, the name of the venue you also don’t remember, in a recently passed
month with another band, the name of which you do remember, so you Google
search for the remembered band’s name and attempt to find the backlog of their
shows. You find the corresponding page but it does not list the names of the
bands with whom they played. You remember you are friends with the band on
your Myspace, so you then move to the new site, keeping the old page up in case
you need to access the venue’s name that was listed. You are unable to log into
your Myspace account because your friend’s computer won’t let you capitalize a
letter in your password, so instead your friend gets on their Myspace account,
clicks on your Myspace profile, clicks on your friend list, and scrolls through until
the band’s name jumps out at you. This process which took about ten and a half
lines to describe occurred in under a minute and the only words necessary are,
“can you log into your Myspace account,” which could also be eliminated by
using the right gesture.
I use the term click-causality to emphasize the nature of the clicking, not
the speed, for it is a casual movement, that of volitive fluidity. To label
everything we see during such motions is unnecessary as it is ever changing;
between the other sites that come up during a Google search, the ads on the side
22

23. of every page, the information presented to us that we don’t need. We cut it away
like the fatty parts on meat. It doesn’t bother us because we are accustom to its
presence and we effortlessly filter. This idea seems to be a progression from the
chaotic experience of the masses and commodities in the urban setting of the early
20th century, commencing forth from the Industrial Revolution’s mass production.
Theses collisions of images and objects are a developed electronic experience, a
conglomeration of commodified information, whether it be seeing that according
to Quiz Monster, if your cousin was a Muppet she would be ‘Animal’ because for
her, “life is all about a rock and roll lifestyle,” that Borders is having a 25% off
sale on the Twilight series, and that a Chicago mom lost 47lbs following one rule
in your Gmail inbox. We experience these random visual bombardments, with
commonality only of a shared space-location [physical or virtual] in which you
happen to view it. In contemporary culture we still regularly experience physical
inundations of random commodities, such as at the point of purchase in the
grocery store. We see our personally selected items such as toilet paper and
oranges, amongst celebrity tabloids, Martha Stewart Living, teeth whitening gum,
berry gum, Snickers bars, batteries, car air fresheners, chapstick, FUZE drink, etc.
In our conditioning to such atmospheres, we are little bothered by the extension of
this idea as represented by pop up pages when traversing online. We know that
when spending time on the Internet they are an almost promised encounter but we
would never not use the Internet because of them. Whatever their message, we
glide through them seamlessly, soaking in the commodities seemingly
23

24. independent presentation with less awareness than that given to billboards on the
highway. 3
I.IV Dissemination
The spreading of information is similar to how animals spread seeds;
when users visit an online page frequently we often carry something from it to
another place, online or not, thus developing a bounty of budding presences.
Within this come some issues of privacy, but the overall theme of connectivity is
one of reciprocal dependence and desire. The most popular search engines and
social networking site grasped onto this inclination of users and now encourage
independent website integration. For example, Facebook offers an “imported
stories” application, meaning any activity done on other sites in which you
participate will be posted simultaneously on your Facebook profile as well as your
friends’ News Feeds. The available sites include Flickr, Digg, Picasa, Delicious,
Yelp, Google Reader, YouTube, Last.fm, Pandora, Photobucket, hulu, Blog/RSS,
Kiva, Yahoo, etc. What this fluidity between such popular sites entails goes
beyond the mere cooperation for the sake of the user. As communication theorist
James Carey articulates, “…each modern media has increased the capacity for
controlling space…by reducing the signaling time (the gap between the time a
message is sent and the time it is received) between persons and places” (Carey,
104). Even if participation is free, the controlling of communication on sites
commodifies the information. Most appealing is that this information is of social
3
In Section II.IV I explain how users qualify social spaces and information on those spaces.
Because of this users are in a sense also commodifying these things, thus speaking to the
similarities between offline materials and online social media participation.
24

25. value, not particular to a function, but literally conducting social effects which
subtly infiltrate and evolve realities in popular culture through drawing in mass
amounts of people who further spread at an incredible rate the popularity, usage,
and influence of the site.
The way we interpret mass amounts of virtual visual information is
through ambient awareness, “…this sort of incessant online contact…it is very
much like being physically near someone and picking up on his mood through the
little things he does…out of the corner of your eye” (Thompson, 2). New York
Times and Wired writer Clive Thompson coined the term “ambient awareness” in
his article “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy” published in Fall 2008,
referring to websites like Twitter or the News Feed homepage on Facebook.
Users keep updated through ambient awareness because it is faster, easier, and all-
inclusive; the consistent and neutral presentation equalizes information. The
flattening of presentation decontextualizes within the already bizarre aggregation
of information. The personalized “omnipresent knowledge” that the News Feed
provides is incredibly arousing, addicting, and easily swallowed because of
ambient awareness. We are able to read these updates, tabloid-style, like a
newspaper on the train on the way to work; scan over, remember key points of
interest (Kevin is now listed as “single”), and go on with your day with the feeling
of social happenings without dedicating any effort. The persisting immediacy of
documentation and permanent recording of social information is a new
phenomenon due to accessibility. In earlier communication history, the
cataloging of events were those of broadcast media, such as TV or newspapers, or
25

26. infrequently popularized private diaries of the individual. The social activity
recorded on the Internet requires such little effort and represents such a large
demographic of menial activity, its brewing effect on the state of contemporary
and future historical materialism should be acknowledged. After only a little bit
the dialogue within our virtual habitats amass and become “…an invisible
dimension floating over everyday life” (Thompson, 2).
Interpreting all of this extremely different information consolidated
through simultaneous presentation loosens the construction of what previously
would have been the foundation for relationships of depth; Facebook’s News
Feed and “tweeting” corrodes distinctions of newsworthiness and plays into the
fact that previously irrelevant and menial occurrences can now be treated as
events, worthy of broadcasting to the average user’s 130 friends. As Henry David
Thoreau responds to the telegraph in “Walden,”
We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the old world some
weeks nearer to the new; but perchance the first news that will leak
through into the broad flapping American ear will be that Princess
Adelaide has the whooping cough (36).
It is quite entertaining to consider Thoreau’s quote in reference to the available
and popularized sharing of information on the Internet, but more importantly we
can draw from this quote the integral role of the attributes and function of popular
communication mediums, an idea popularized by communication theorist
Marshall McLuhan.
Media theorist Neil Postman argues in his book Amusing Ourselves to
Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business that “the telegraph made a
three-pronged attack on typography’s definition of discourse, introducing on a
26

27. large scale irrelevance, impotence, and incoherence…aroused by the fact that
telegraphy gave a form of legitimacy to the idea of context-free information” (65).
Ignoring Postman’s negative tone, he addresses issues of communication
mediums that have remained the same for over a century, but are irrelevant
themselves, proven by the latter part of the quote. Upon their popularization, fast-
paced, cheap, and easily accessible communication mediums legitimize their
content, therefore no matter the content; it reflects its carrier’s function. From
this we can view virtual places like Facebook and examine how it reels us in with
the speed at which we can acceptably attain social information that would
otherwise be considered inappropriate; it is this change in what is socially
acceptable in which we see the extension of McLuhan’s argument.
McLuhan states that “electric circuitry has overthrown the regime of
‘”time” and “space” and pours upon us instantly and continuously the concerns of
all other men” (16); though the Internet does perpetually pump information
through us like the high-speed artery we-never-had, this statement is problematic.4
There is a current collapsing of space through fluidity between communication
places, that is, how a social networking site exists at home on the desktop
computer, on the laptop computer at the coffee shop, on your cell phone on the
train, in conversation with a friend, etc. but most social networking sites and
social media sharing sites record activity through exact time and dates. There is
not a time structure unique to such sites and they are infinitely accessible but the
sites do record user activity according to the 24-hour day, 365-day year, etc. The
4
I acknowledge that McLuhan preceded the Internet and its popularization by decades I believe
most of his arguments are strikingly applicable in examining this later form of communication.
27

28. documentation of site participation is a common reference feature that plays into
the sites connectivity between the planes of social relations that were previously
distinguished; a recurrent phrase of this differentiation often includes something
akin to “different worlds.”
There are many variations of situations that exemplify the interaction
between time and place, a simple yet popular scenario usually involving an
employee taking a sick day [i.e., any sort of obligation avoidance] and a friend
tagging them in photos at a theme park, posted that day; or the friend posts on
their wall the morning of the skipped day, “hey don’t forget to bring the beers for
the ride up to Six Flags, way to bail on your big meeting playa, woo woo!” The
physical world and electronic world are no longer oil and water. There may be
more of a mess to sift through on account of the incessant hum of information
sharing but the flow still functions with the familiar reference of time. We
integrate new places into time while space simultaneously stretches and tightens
like an endless pulling of a Chinese finger trap. The Internet offers seemingly
infinite space yet the more information and communication that occurs within-
through-on it the closer the information and communication becomes. The more
videos of kittens playing with mittens added onto YouTube [expansion] the more
likely they will consist of the first links appearing on Google when you search
“kitten mittens, which will lead you not only to the YouTube page of postings but
also the many pages on which people have embedded the video[s], connecting
you to more people who like kitten mitten searches [compression]. This broad
horizon has led you to places you would have never been otherwise while
28

29. tightening your connectivity with others, thus making the world smaller through
expansion.
I.V News as Entertainment
During our daily routine we frequently encounter images of people who
are “in the public eye;” a generalized term for this is “celebrity,” and can include
politicians, movie stars, soap stars, a local football hero, etc. These include
American newscasters; news corporations publicize and brand their social actors,
produced to represent a specific news program. Similar to being able to
distinguish a Ralph Lauren ad from a Betsey Johnson ad, news networks put up
ads on billboards, television commercials, at bus stops, train stops, etc. to
encourage familiarization with their representatives, their newscasters. Networks
celebritize, that is, the making of a celebrity in their roles as social
representatives. 5 We can google their names, and find lovely photos such as this:
(Juliebee, 02 News Billboard).
5
I realize that there is not yet a “real” verb form of the noun celebrity, but despite this I will use
my verb “to celebritize” and all reasonable forms of it, such as celebritization or celebritizing, in
my work because of its relevant nature to my topic and actual presence in the media world; thus,
please recognize: Celebritize; (v) to make a celebrity.
29

30. American’s are quite accustomed to the dramatic airbrushing of our news
representatives, but it is important to recognize the “show biz” quality of
presentation. News flows through many filters, and it is our celebritized
presenters who merely represent the icing on the nature of news creation. It is
important to recall that we create news; news does not exist in and of itself. Thus,
it can be thought that the conductors of news discernment must manipulate
unfiltered information to fit into their program.
The development of society’s obsession of being “newsmakers” and
surrounding ourselves with instant updates through the opportunities from
technological advancement speaks to the attributes of the utilized platforms and
freedom for anyone to become a broadcaster.
An article published in American Sociological Review in 1974 suggests
“…one approach to mass media is to look not for reality but for purposes which
underlie the strategies of creating one reality instead of another” (Lester,
Molotoch, 111). By rendering “…otherwise remote happenings observable and
meaningful” (Lester, Molotch, 101), broadcasters are able to show what they
think will peak interest. Internet media provides the best yet realm for our interest
in “trivial” news, however because of its widespread practice, it is no longer
trivial. As sociologists Lester and Molotch state, “All events are socially
constructed and their “newsworthiness” is not contained in their objective
features” (110). This shows that any event has the possibility of being broadcast-
worthy. Qualities of entertainment pervade, and I suggest we no longer consider
this to be an issue but rather a neutral attribute our culture prefers and perpetuates,
30

31. from which we interpret effects of the good-bad value scale. As communication
theorist James Carey articulates, no matter the
…invented cultural form, news both forms and reflects a particular
“hunger for experience”...news is not information but drama. It does not
describe the world but portrays an arena of dramatic forces and action…it
invites our participation on the basis of our assuming, often vicariously,
social roles within it (17).
I must again emphasize that there can be no “true” or “pure” interpretation of the
world, and what Carey refers to as, “an arena of dramatic forces and action” is our
world; and it is our world, not the world, in which our realities take place.
Section II.
II.I Facebook as News Platform
Facebook is a space based on connectivity. In the most stripped
comprehension of the site, users provide personal information and learn of others’
information. Information-availability varies, but ultimately, if no one shared
personal information none would be gained. Facebook is titled as a social
networking site, and though this is true, because of the personalized ceaseless
flow of current information it offers a space for individually relevant news. This
sort of news directly affects our daily lives and informs the gestures of our social
participation. It must be recognized as a news platform that provides localized
and grand presentations to a simultaneous broadcasting network and audience of
over 400 million people, 120 million Americans; its medium is the Internet. The
flow of information is immediate, consistent, accessible, incredibly easy to
swallow, and hand-crafted to be of interest to users in that we only see the activity
31

32. of those we choose. The News Feed displays only our friends’ activity, and if we
don’t care about certain friends’ activity, we may change our settings so it doesn’t
show up on our Feed. We not only have come to enjoy the passing update of
what our co-worker had for lunch, but we are able to see what group they just
joined, in which we might see a tagged photo of someone whose name we didn’t
know but face we recognize, whose profile we might click on, on whose wall we
might notice a photo of a tree in the park one block away from our apartment,
from which we might be inclined to ask if they live in Logan Square by Unity
Park next time we haphazardly or purposefully bump into each other [depending
on their privacy settings we might be able to see their status, updated 3 minutes
ago, which might say “representin’ at Two Way”]. Having the ability to move
from person to person is exciting, controlling our visibility, means being the
ultimate news conductor, interpreter, and producer. Facebook simulates the
teenage sensation of hanging out at the mall on a Saturday afternoon; users are
able to cruise around the community site and feel a sense of “…hanging out in
public…of seeing and being seen…You’re with friends, but you’re also creating
the possibility that you’ll bump into someone else, in which case you might meet
them, or at least be noticed by them” (Cassidy, 10). Instead of food courts and
Hot Topic, it is Facebook that molds the setting in which we cruise. You may
meander alone, with the “online mode” turned off so no one can see that you are
on; you can be online but not talking directly to anyone; you can send messages,
directly communicating, you can alter your profile, write on others walls, and all
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33. the while your choices are visible to all you care to see, creating a broadcast of
previously menial social movements.
In our published activity we build our social credibility, our presence. We
self-celebritize. Seeing posted photographs of yourself that are made visible to
friends establishes an event from what once would have been mere participation
in social engagement. Looking at others’ profiles isn’t even necessary to feel a
sense of connectivity and presence. Users reconfirm what sort of social person
we are through obvious yet significant elements within the image such as time,
setting, location, dress, facial-expression, relationship to others in image, etc., but
have public documentation of a social and individual self. You reaffirm to
yourself your presence, existence, and significance in relationship to others,
which is pertinent for the social experience of nearly all-coexisting beings. You
have documentation that helps you evaluate what others think of you, and you
have a good amount of control in specific self-representation within the social
boundaries of the site, such as not de-tagging bad photos of yourself. A friend of
a friend, Kristin Farina, tagged me in the photo below.
33

34. (Caitlyn and Genevieve, Two-Way)
This immediately provides links from me to her, her networks of
Richmond, VA, Virginia Commonwealth University, those prospective shared
friends and anyone else who is able to see the photo depending on privacy
settings. This photo exists among 25 other tagged photos of me, and because of
the small number it can be thought that any viewers will be more likely to glance
if not click through those photos; thus the contents and attributes of this photo and
what it entails will be countered or aided by that of the other photos. There are
the obvious factors, such as the title of the album, when it was uploaded, the
background outlined in tacky string lights, a pool table and line of liquor bottles
distinguishes the setting to be a bar, the pale sweater-clad girls indicating the bar
to be more of a dive, most likely not in Lincoln Park, the pictures in the rest of the
album [it appears to be from a “visiting – friend” trip, discerned through photos at
34

35. the Bean, at the Lincoln Park Zoo, a visit to the Sears Tower-as she titles the
photo, not in ironic quotes, among others], etc. This information can be viewed,
interpreted, and stored within 30-40 seconds, depending on the level of interest.
In addition to those more atmospheric observations I see the emotions of the
photo, that of fun, silliness, tipsiness, possibly low-key due to dress and setting.
These quick connotations affect observers' thoughts on dive bars, girls going out
in chunky sweater, stick-on animals, the peace sign, scrunched noses, whiteness
of teeth, hair styles, and so on; the relationship to the photographed, the
documenter, and up-loader alters the degrees of affect and can also encourage
purposeful efforts to either increase or decrease the degree of that relationship as
well. 6
The fast pace at which the stream of relevant changes [to YOUR life] and
the movement of information are a personalized collection of images that we see,
consciously and subconsciously. This is like advertisements in between television
shows; even if we don’t care about the ad we retain some sort of cultural nod. If
we were asked to describe basic elements of TV commercials that are broadcasted
during a show we watch regularly, no matter our interest or lack thereof in the
advertisements, we could indeed provide some sort of recollection. We see
images of text, communicating activities, participation; we see images of
ourselves, friends, acquaintances, strangers of interest, family, professors; we see
images for advertisements, friend suggestions, questionnaires, and fan pages. The
movement of current activity is relentless yet effortless, subtle, and comforting.
6
Information is modulated and repeated in many different areas of the site, such as a profile photo
update. The photo changes on your page, it can be announced on the News Feed and
simultaneously posted on someone else’s wall.
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36. Whatever we don’t care to interpret becomes a slight background buzz while
Kim’s new photo album surfaces, quickly to be replaced by the infoMania fan
page. Cultural conditioning through fast images effect the ways in which we see,
look, consider, and act and we have adapted; not only in moving seamlessly
through according behaviors of different mediums but by storing social
connotations. As Postman states, “Americans no longer talk to each other, they
entertain each other. They no longer exchange ideas; they exchange images. They
do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities and
commercials” (92-93). I believe this statement is not wholly true, but does
indicate the importance of image flow through the entertainment-bedazzled
communication media. We now unfurl our social selves through ever-updated
constructed presences based on the dissemination of purveyed particularities.
II.II Localization
I grew up in Richmond, Virginia but moved to Georgia for some time
and then Chicago, IL. I have been in Chicago for about two and a half years now
but only in the past year have I made friends with people originally from Chicago
(most of my friends had moved to Chicago from other states or countries for
school specifically). This past September I met and started hanging out with a
boy from Northbrook, Illinois. As we had mutual friends and lived within a four
blocks of one another we saw each other quite frequently and in November we
started dating. Now, I had met many of his friends, but only in social outings
such as at bars and parties, usually after 11PM on Saturdays. Though I was
36

37. familiar and friendly with the people he grew up with, his general social circle, I
was not aware of certain behaviors that often differ from city to city. Though
some differences were nonchalantly and humorously discussed, such as “pop”
versus “soda,” there was a whole world of uncertainty as to what was acceptable
and normal of which I could not inquire. I could not inquire, “if we are dating, is
it okay to add you as my boyfriend on Facebook,” or, “if you leave me a wall
comment on Thursday about going to a party Friday night but you don’t give me
explicit details as to the address and it is Friday afternoon should I ask you via
comment to your comment on my wall, a new comment on your wall, message
you, text you, call you, ask a friend who may also be going, or wait to see if you
contact me in some additional way.”7 These may seem to be general uncertainties
typical of the early dating stage, and though they are of that genre, they occurred
on Facebook and must be considered how they are different because of that.
Most people are aware of not only what is socially normal behavior among
their group of friends but also the norms associated with correlating ages of
groups in reasonable proximities. For example, if I went to the local university in
downtown Richmond and started hanging out with a boy from a different high
school, county, group of friends, etc. I would most likely have at least an idea as
to the answer of these questions, and if I didn’t I’d know someone who I could
discreetly ask. I would know instinctively to respond via text but definitely not
call or respond via Facebook because most people in your group of friends are not
7
It could be argued that I wasn’t restricted from inquiring. Though this is true, it would be
incredibly awkward socially and most likely hinder my somewhat tender relationship not only
with the boy but with associated friends as well. Also, for the purpose of being clear, the two
questions I have provided are more tangible than many related to situations such as this. Often
such uncertainties are too abstract and subtle to formulate a statement or question about them.
37

38. the biggest of Facebook frequenters, and definitely not waiting to hear from you
again because if you contacted me via Facebook in the first place it was super
casual, like a last minute thought.8 Instead, I had these questions in a setting
displaced from my local awareness and had to wait out the tender situation.9
In Section I, I outlined how social realities are relative. It is through
examples such as the one just described that we are able to understand the role of
social locale in participation on the site. We can break down what occurs in the
example through this structure:
Localized social truths [ realities] [refer to section I, On the Formation of
Social Realities]10
Determine
The terms of qualification of the social space
Which determine
The legitimacy of social behaviors
Thus we observe
Inconsistent behavioral norms.
8
These sort of uncertainties are, of course, extremely varied and can be quite intricate among even
a localized group. I use this simple and obvious situation for the sake of providing a clear
example.
9
After me changing my relationship status from being nonexistent on my profile to “in a
relationship” about a week after we had the boyfriend-girlfriend talk, I waited to see his response.
There was no response and no change to his non-existent relationship status after about a month so
I deleted mine. About two weeks later he added “in a relationship” to his profile and about a week
later I added “in a relationship” back to my profile and asked him to accept my relationship status
request, which he accepted. Thus, after about two months of us seeing each other all the time,
talking about everyone under the sun, and in general being very much privately and publicly new-
relationship infatuated, we never once vocalized this online relationship dance. I did bring it up a
few months later when I decided to write about it.
10
The telling of singular material occurrence[s] of actions CAN but does NOT ALWAYS equate
to facts which CAN and ALMOST ALWAYS will induce social and individual truths which
ultimately create social realities
38

39. II.III Legitimacy
I came to the term legitimate from political theorist Chantal Mouffe usage
of it in her work “The Democratic Paradox,” where she applies it to the idea of a
political adversary. I find “legitimacy” useful due to her characteristics of it, such
as the respectability of something even if you do not agree with it or act in such a
way. Though Mouffe uses this term for referencing a kind of enemy, the
acceptability or appropriateness of social behaviors directs whether we are able to
respect its presence or practice. The behaviors are usually not adversarial or at
extreme odds, but they do cause the sort of movement among which Mouffe
suggests should occur within ongoing confrontation. Facebook acts as the
platform for this movement.
II.IV Qualification
Social truths are localized because they are specific to smaller groups of
people.11 Therefore, there will be differing expectations and desires among these
localized groups when considering social spaces, i.e., terms of qualification. For
example, if you accidentally fall out of a window and hurt your foot terribly, you
go to your medical doctor as you most likely feel unable to determine the severity
of damage and proper care (assuming that the severity of the injury is clearly
beyond popping an Advil, propping up foot, icing foot, etc.). The doctor
examines your foot and takes x-rays. He is concerned about something he sees in
11
I realize that some social truths can be relatively true on a larger scale, such as the
appropriateness of fashion trends or human rights. The general acceptance and use of Facebook as
a site for social networking is a large-scale social reality, still considering certain countries and
different age groups.
39

40. the x-rays and sends you to a podiatrist for another examination from someone he
feels is better qualified to determine the injury. This example shows the function
of qualification; we know the regular medical doctor is qualified because they
earned a degree at medical school within our country and work at an established
doctor’s office. They may be considered more qualified after many active years
in their profession. We know they treat general medical issues and trust that they
will send us to a foot doctor if a complicated injury specific to an area outside
their general comprehension occurs. We believe that the foot doctor will be better
qualified to determine the injury due to their earned degree specific to the foot.
We would not go to the foot doctor if we have the flu because, though they went
to medical school, our regular doctor is better qualified to treat general illness.
We evaluate social spaces with the same use of qualification. If the majority of
my friends were in bands and mostly used Myspace for their band sites, I would
be inclined to also use Myspace for music sharing. In this situation, friend’s
music is the commonality and most significant shared aspect among the small
group of people. This aspect serves as a social truth among the small group of
people. When considering the various online social spaces, this small group of
people will determine what best suits them by noting which site offers the best
space for sharing their music. Thus, as you trust the doctor is better qualified to
determine an injury than you because of his medical degree earned at Johns
Hopkins, you trust Myspace is better qualified to serve you and your friends than
Facebook because of its better interface for music sharing.
40

41. The qualification of a social space also occurs through inclinations of how
seriously we consider activity on the site, how relative it is to other sectors of our
lives, specific areas within the site, etc. For example, a group of eighth-grade
girlfriends on Facebook will use the site differently than a group of college-aged
friends. Breaking up with a boyfriend via a relationship status change may be less
appropriate in a group of college students than it is with the group of eighth grade
girls. While it may be socially acceptable for eighth grade girls to post thirty
photos of various hairclips and ponytails from a sleepover night, have fifteen
siblings, eight children, and two parents all consisting of your twenty-five best
friends, or claiming a birthday six years prior to the actual day, such actions
would be somewhat uncommon and weird if enacted in the group of college-aged
friends. The purpose of the site is accepted by nearly all users, to “help you
connect and share with the people in your life” (Facebook.com), but various
interpretations of the qualification of the site directly conflicts with the
fundamental function of dependency among users. These examples are more
obvious than social differences found among people in similar age groups but are
still worthwhile to consider as they contextualize the basic idea of inconsistent
legitimacy of social behavior, stemming from the site, but relevant on and off the
site. I will now give an example of a less distinguishable inconsistency among
people in the same age group.
The other day a boy who I have had exactly two class sessions with
friended me on Facebook mid-week between our second class and upcoming third
class. We had only spoken briefly once before, talking about the class we shared
41

42. during a break. I accepted his Facebook friend request, and looked at his page for
a quick spell, during which I noticed we shared the same birthday and said so by
commenting on his wall. About twenty minutes after I caught an elevator in the
school building, he got on and I immediately and excitedly said, “Hey we have
the same birthday”! I was only able to know that because he friended me on
Facebook and by saying the statement, in person, I made it known that I had
accepted his friend request and had also looked at his profile. I am comfortable
with obvious Facebook on and offline person-to-person integration and willingly
make such statements. The boy reacted very surprised and slightly taken aback
by my quick response and openness about my personal time taken to look at his
profile to his online request. Below is a visual diagram of these unfolding of
these occurrences.
(Birthday-Elevator Example)
42

43. Within this exchange we see the slight schism in the possible qualifications of the
site and its effects on legitimacy of behaviors in a relatively localized setting.
To me the site is qualified to exist as a site for somewhat fluid social
communication. It is not self-contained. If I RSVP “attending” to an event, on or
offline, I mean I will be there. If someone friends me, I believe that it means I am
welcome to look at their profile or notice and recall a status updates that catch my
eye, to which I may bring up in conversation if worthy of verbalizing if we
haphazardly encounter one another while walking to class. I will not use the site
to search for my third grade best friend. I do not determine to be a part of my
interpretation of what qualifies the site as a communication platform. This
interpretation of the site is not consistent. For many the site is qualified to find all
fifteen of their third grade best friends but completely inappropriate, i.e., not
legitimate, to let on they notice someone’s status update, in an offline
conversation. Despite these skewed planes of qualification and legitimacy, users
still depend on one another to give enough and get enough. Because of these
inconsistencies, this mode of dependency can be problematic yet pluralistic.
II.V Function of Dependency
The desire for human connectivity fuels this cycle of social networking
spaces of which commodification seems to always pursue since the mass
production of communication mediums.12 The interest of the self, the other, and
12
Qualification of Facebook space and relations among users stands as a form of
commodification.
43

44. reliance on one another for such communal relations nurses the growth of
communication mediums. Because of the dependent nature of communication
relationships issues of public and private accessibility persist. Though McLuhan
believes, “electrical information devices for universal, tyrannical womb-to-tomb
surveillance are causing a very serious dilemma between our claim to privacy and
the community’s need to know” (10), it seems as though we willingly give up
privacy for community. We experience this community gained from less privacy
on online social network communities as well as participation on sharing-based
sites including photo sharing, video sharing, business information sharing,
product information sharing, etc. These spaces inform our realities because we
want to share norms to feel comfort in a recognizable identity, even if it is the
mere trust in a product review on Amazon or a job posting on Craigslist because
of the fact that the site functions on the integrity of the participant. People
identify through, within, and amongst one another, and we want our traces to be
documented, desired, and recognizable. Popular American culture idolizes
celebrities, encourages popularity, and pursues material mass production of our
idols. The Internet offers a place for not just the few elite to control what is
worthy of broadcasting but instead offers a fully accepted, integrated, and
appropriate venue for what would have been previously considered shameless
self-promotion or stalker-like behaviors. We want to participate because of the
accessibility and ultimately we control what information is publicly accessible-
it’s just a matter of awareness. Internet spaces offer the buzz of ambient love,
reassurance that you are not the only person awake at four AM, not the only
44

45. person with semen anxiety, not the only person who needs to double check how
long meat lasts in the freezer, not the only person who searches for kitten mittens,
not the only person who wants to illegally download “Three Ninjas.” As James
Carey states, it is not “…the extension of messages in space but…the
maintenance of society in time; not the act of imparting information but the
representation of shared beliefs” (15) which communication mediums embody.
The movement of information between cultural spaces must resonate in the
expansion of communication production. It is the mass virtualization of the
everyman’s learned social co-ordination that embeds our historical presence,
updated by the millisecond.
It is the dependency among the mass amounts of users for personal gain
that facilitates and maintains the site. This self-enhancing induced reciprocation
is not selfish or negative, though it could become such, but instead an innate
element of organized social relation spaces. For example, in established and safe
structures of social relations, such as a graduate thesis group, two core aspects of
successful functioning of the group involve the co-creation and perpetuation of
the setting and the personal gain that evolves from the setting.13 There is a trust
amongst participants that each will put forth corresponding individual efforts.
Through the dependency for personal gain comes inclusive space no matter
differences in thought or relation, thus representing a safe territory for possible
contestation. As described in Section IV, it is the inconsistencies of Facebook’s
qualification and legitimacy, or in this example, the ideas in the grad thesis group,
13
This example of offline relations is important in exploring online relations as it takes precedent
and offers a firm reflection of relational behaviors that may occur off and online.
45

46. that induce movement (of behaviors or ideas). Though there are many aspects of
how this could fail, the most basic is that someone will not put in the expected or
desired efforts. How Facebook avoids such failure is by offering no expected
efforts. Localized expectations affect Facebook participation and by no means
must participation to be evenly distributed among groups or individual users. As
Internet technology writer and consultant Clay Shirky states,
The most active contributor to a Wikipedia article, the most avid tagger of
Flickr photos, and the most vocal participant in a mailing list all tend to be
much more active than the median participant, so active in fact that any
measure of “average” participation becomes meaningless…though the
average is easy to calculate, it doesn’t tell you much about any given
participant.
Though Shirky describes different social communication sites, he encapsulates the
pertinent fact that users of like-sites are inconsistent in their activity. Again, this
speaks to differing qualification and legitimacy of Facebook space, which
perpetuates from the unnecessary unification of such participation and
interpretation.
The localization of expectations is fluid; that is, Facebook space moves
information by user volition. Yes, the site does its best to nurse users’ desires to
move information, but ultimately if no one cared about other users and self-
perception, the space would cease to exist. Facebook friends, usually those who
we most communicate with on and/or offline, articulate participation
expectations. It is in this setting that a sense of social pluralism formulates. Art
critic Grant Kester’s assertion that, “…dialogical exchange [is] based on
reciprocal openness …see[ing] the identity of the...[relations, participant to
participant]… as produced through situational encounters…” (90), reiterates this
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47. idea. Localized relations act as suggestive guidelines for acceptable behavior in
situational encounters.
The terrain of Facebook could be considered as one based on likeness, not
conflict, but the purpose of the site is neither, serving to give “… people the
power to share and make the world more open and connected”
(www.Facebook.com). It is true that people often connect through likeness and
the space of one’s profile offers a brief on who one is, or, rather, how they want to
appear. There have been studies done to prove people mostly manipulate their
profiles as well as that profiles do indeed well – represent the user. Exploration
into the accuracy of self-to-profile representation is unnecessary to this current
exploration.14 People frequently alter self-representation, on and offline, and
though in extreme cases the detachment between shades of identity can be
troublesome, accuracy of profile identity does not dictate the activity on the site; it
commences as neutral space. It is not grand-scale likeness that perpetuates the
social pluralism practiced on the site. There does remain the common shared
intention of connectivity, but is the most general commonality. The localization
of participation quality and self-controlled exposure, to others and what you see
of others, affects users. Most people participate because their friends, known
14
See Patrick, Costello. "Facebooksurvey." My3q.com. 11 Apr. 2009
<http://www.my3q.com/view/viewSummary.phtml?questid=117109>. The
survey conducted in June 2006 asks 102 college students, 45% male and 55% female,
about their Facebook experience and reasons for membership. The survey also questions
users about any expected responses as Facebook becomes more commercialized; and
Parker Pope, Tara. "Is Your Facebook Personality Genuine?" New York Times 2 Dec.
2009: n. pag. Web. 2 Dec. 2009. <http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/
02/is-your-facebook-personality-genuine/?hp>. University of Texas study
done with 236 Facebook profiles of young adults exploring the accuracy of
profiles to offline user personality. The collected research suggests that
participants do indeed well - represent offline identities, not their ideal
personality traits.
47

48. offline, participate. Once people add online relations to their offline relations,
they instigate a new space for interaction. This may seem like an insignificant
addition and change, and most people do not acknowledge this effect, but the new
social space indeed commences many kinds of confrontations. These
confrontations are often considered and treated as trivial, frequently not openly
discussed, but it is these “trivialities” that now bring changes to social realities;
changes in acceptable behaviors, expectations, roles, etc. There are significant
issues supported or attacked in Facebook groups but it is the usually disregarded
subtle social conflicts that speak to the agonistic nature of the communication
documented on the site. Varieties of confrontations occur between user and user
(ex. my friend and I), between user and localized acceptable behavior (ex.
relationship status confirmations and readings), between user and Facebook
interface (ex. lack of “dislike” buttons, changes in News Feed), and between user
and stranger (ex. photo sharing privacy settings; user may be tagged in 45 photos
but a friend of theirs may only be able to see 19). It is the perpetual movement
between these documented social conflicts in which the push and pull among
user’s divergent qualification of the site bubbles, thus encouraging changes in
social standards of different scales and in different social arenas.
This flux and flow of possible forms of communication and representation
within an established space creates disparate interpretations of what relations are
legitimate, but because the space itself sustains non-conclusive and documented
relations, no matter the sundry shades of participation, there is a core legitimacy
gained from the participation, in and of itself.
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49. Closing
Understanding the nature of Facebook and its effects on social behavioral
norms is significant because from these norms have come cultural communication
trends. My examination helps explain this contemporary form of transporting
information. We see differently, thus we interpret differently. These changes in
how we interpret are subtle, fast-paced, and widespread. Ideas of privacy have
been recently redefined because of sharing-based online communities like
Facebook. Privacy has become secondary to the spreading of social information.
We give and take information quicker and with less effort, and we want it enough
to not be bothered by the inconsistent behavioral norms.
It seems that not a day goes by, though, without a new blog post or
editorial harping on Facebook’s privacy “issues.” However, despite all the
blowback, the majority of users don’t care about their privacy (or at least don’t
care enough or yet). The individuals that do care merely put in the extra effort to
change their settings every time Facebook creates a function that affects privacy
settings. Social media researcher danah boyd argues that, “most people signed up
for Facebook with the understanding that their information would be available
only to an approved circle of friends” (Worthman). Even if that was their
original understanding, the changes in Facebook over the years have been to
enhance visual capabilities of as much as possible. Meanwhile, Facebook user
numbers have risen dramatically. This idea of Facebook users signing up to only
give and have access to an “approved” circle of friends seems incorrect as well.
According to Facebook.com, the average number of friends is 130 and if we
49

50. consider the Clay Shirky quote in section II.V, “…though the average is easy to
calculate, it doesn’t tell you much about any given participant,” this isn’t saying
much. I have been a member of Facebook for only eight months and out of my
140 friends, the majority of them have between 400 and 900 friends.15 These
numbers don’t seem to fit into the modest idea of a “an approved circle of
friends,” but rather a giant network of varying levels of acquaintances, classmates,
coworkers, general people we have some awareness of, as well as actual friends.
If we think about the changes Facebook has conducted in the past few years they
have nearly all been to enhance user visibility. One of these changes pertains to
wall comments. If a friend wrote on my wall a few years ago I would have to
either click “see wall-to-wall” or would have to go to their page to comment
back. Now, a friend (or I) can write on my wall and I (or any of my friends) can
comment on their comment. Any friend of mine can comment on other comments
on my wall, even if two friends of mine aren’t friends themselves. I act as a
neutral “base” as a mutual friend among disparate friends. If one of them posts
and tags me in a photo, that photo will show up on my friends’ News Feeds even
if they are not friends with my friend who posted the photo. They will not be able
to comment on a non-friend photo even if they are able to see it unless it is posted
on my wall. Though this may seem like a ramble of insignificant particulars,
much information can be observed from these particulars. These additions to the
site have not been among the popularly complained topics. In fact, I have never
once heard of anyone acknowledge the usefulness of visibility to non-friends that
15
These are not Facebook-obsessed people, but average life-offline participatory people with
work, school, family, friends, hobbies, etc
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51. the comment-on-comment addition provides, but I have heard the recognition and
discussion of previously unknown people, events, and information gained from
reading comment-on-comments and seeing tagged photos from a specific albums.
These smaller changes move popular concepts of privacy and the concept of the
stranger, while enhancing our comprehension and motions from visual
transparencies.
For the resulting transferences of visual transparencies, those of click-
causality, I will play on the idea of word of mouth and call them “word of
visualizing” tendencies.16 I use “visualizing” and not “visual” because
participants indirectly give and take the images, interpret, and give flat images of
words meaning. Word of mouth doesn’t need to be “word of talking” because the
sharer directly vocalizes the words. A example of word of visualizing is when I
see on my News Feed a friend became a fan of a page of which I was previously
unaware of and I go ahead and join because the page was of interest to me. It is
important to realize the use of word of mouth marketing in business, because by a
new and widespread practice of word of visual in the social arena, there is a new
arena within which marketing can play. Word of visualizing derived from
Facebook functions and user volition within those functions, and outside
businesses recognized this new transference and decided to use it. This past Earth
Day Starbucks created a page promoting a cup of free coffee for people who
visited a store with a personal mug. Though Starbucks could have stayed with
16
Postman’s previously used quote on page 33 is another excellent reference for the necessity of
this term, word of visualizing, for this sort of trusted information transference. Postman’s quote
refers to supposedly superficial and a negative movement but I am considering his statement more
generally and positively, the visual transference of social information.
51

52. advertising posted on the side of users’ Facebook pages, the store took advantage
of word of visualizing and made an open event, “Make a Difference and get
FREE Coffee.” Because the event was open, users didn’t have to be invited to
join. This group reached out to at least 672,364 users. This number only includes
the people who were invited and responded, many were able to look and take note
and not join and still participate and tell other people. By advertising the brand
and the free coffee promotion this way, actively engaging with users’ social
realities instead of passively posting ads for hyper-targeted consumers, Starbucks
avoids the “stranger” identity to users. The slew of privacy complaints about
“strangers” tapping into our Facebook profiles reference actual individuals we do
not know, non-friends, as well as corporations attempting to collect personalized
user data.
“The stranger” has been ingrained in us during our childhood as someone
unknown, scary, suspicious, etc. Though when we click-causality through
Facebook, we sift through our friends and often their friends who we may not be
friends with. There is the popular concept of “six degrees of separation” and
similar thought can be applied to how we end up on peoples’ pages we don’t
know personally. Though we may not know them, we come to know them
through people we do know. To refer to this relationship as one of “strangers”
does not seem to fit. It is more like feasible-acquaintances; people we could per-
chance be familiar with through established relations but don't necessarily ever
come into contact with offline. It is the companies that take information from our
52

53. profiles to advertise more specifically to users, referred to as focused ads and
hypertargeting, which seem to disturb certain users.
Though it may not appear a groundbreaking concept for companies and
businesses to create Facebook fan pages, group pages, or events, but the actual
effort of it indirectly places the companies and business as a brand into the social
reality of the user. Facebook doesn’t allow non-persons to create a personal page
there remains the distinction between a users and a company/business/store, etc.,
but nonetheless by becoming an active participant, not just a side advertisement,
the company enables the localization of its own identity through integration with
users. Starbucks has its fan page and it creates events. No one is oblivious to the
enormity of the company but when a Starbucks event is wedged between “Ladies
Who Lunch,” “All School Meeting,” and “Party City! Block Party Film
Screening,” in my Facebook Events calendar, it has become apart of my localized
reality. In doing so is becomes socially qualified, given some sort of legitimacy,
and settles in with various behavioral norms. In the advertising mindset,
Facebook gives users the opportunity to rebrand any previous notions of
Starbucks identity once it becomes apart of our social realities within the
Facebook platform. Though people who become fans of Starbucks on Facebook
or RSVP to its event already have some sense of Starbucks in their general social
realities, when the company participates within the specific social platform of
Facebook it subtly creates new, more specific, user-created brand identity through
users’ identity.
53

54. This thesis is meant to provide insight to an area of culture in a way that
doesn’t demean the popular spirits of social and youthful communication.
Whether you are in marketing and want to critically evaluate social media sites to
gain a better understanding as to how the ever-loved functions can be best utilized
to promote businesses and products or if you are an over-pensive Facebook user
who wants to better understand the cultural behavioral relevance of the site, this
thesis is meant to speak to you both. The explored Facebook-derived social
realities, their foundation and their massive breadth, should be respected at least
for their impact and influence on the contemporary mass culture. We cannot deny
the usefulness of Facebook and its innovative play on popular social participation.
My thesis offers conception of how the largest social networking site engages
users social realities, how the movement of communication on the site relates to
notions of acknowledged media, and how we should define recognizable
attributes of Facebook relations. In understanding these fundamental gears users
are able to be conscious of their participation on a larger, cultural scale, as well as
better comprehend how business act as birds and squirrels within users’ social
networking tree. How users choose to respond to a new presence of advertising
and the role of marketing strategies integrating into the movement of originally
purely social seedlings should be individually decided, but indeed should be
decided. Users’ site navigation derived from natural inclination, from which
Facebook responded and expanded its offered functions. The shifts in user
behaviors from Facebook participation may be localized but have been influential
on a global scale in all aspects of contemporary communication culture.
54

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