Interactive Culture
Posted on | February 4, 2009 | No Comments
How do people interact with their networks?
Blogs, Podcasts and Vidcasts have been heralded as the New Media, and indeed they are for now. But the value of the media isn’t the content any longer but the conversations they engender. Fantastic Podcasts can have hordes of listeners but if their is no conversation then the new media can not make the jump to Social Media.The problem with Monikers like new media is that sooner or later the new media smell just isn’t there anymore. All that’s left is the value of the content vs the effort it takes to get it.
Today the terms are used interchangeably, Social is not new, but new can be social. The way in which we relate to one another has not changed since the dawn of time but the tools we use to do it has.
Social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and Myspace take a different slant on Interactivity. The conversations are much less static, and the relationships go deeper. You interact with these people and choose to friend or follow them based off of the value they add to your conversation. Whether you realize this or not each choice to follow, friend or interact with people is predicated on an internal cost benefit analysis of the relationship. Some people are much more open and honest about how they use these networks.
Using twitter as the example here, but with slight modifications most of the rules can be applied elsewhere as well.
I would be willing to bet that the average number of friends on twitter is around 20, and follows is only slightly higher. So who makes up the rest of the equation? If the vast majority of twitter users only interact with a small circle of friends and family, updating their What are you doing? who are the rest? For the record right now I follow around 500 or so people, and try to keep a roughly even level on following back.
What is a Big Twitter?
- Clebrities
- Networkers
- Self promoters
- Conversationalist
Celebrities, large and small use the network to extend their celebrity that much further, they have large followings and only follow the people back who interest them directly. Some take the time to relate back to the questions posed to them, but their stream remains clean unless they look for the conversation. Celebrities have to operate on a look but don’t touch level for safety sake, and probably sanity’s sake as well. If you knew that your favorite author was on twitter and you followed him, writing fan mail, and derisive mail is only 140 characters and a click away. No one needs that type of pressure.
Then you have the networkers, people who follow as a courtesy and to expand their network for business, or pleasure purposes. Even well documented cases of Political figures using the service have lent themselves to this approach, build and attempt to interact with as many people as possible. Sometimes the growth is premeditated, sometimes its due to preexisting cache Networkers get the power of twitter, they understand that the more people you reach, and the more people who you interact with that the more powerful your interests become.
The self promoters think they get the service, following as many people as they can but they lack the conversation, they broadcast their blog posts and their photographs to the masses, like a form of TV for your cell phone, it might work for some people but I personally don’t follow anyone like this, I enjoy the conversation.
Conversationalists. I live here. My network has organically grown through observing other people’s streams. if i see a person whose commentary i value adding to the conversation of another frequently. I head on over to that persons stream and evaluate them as a potential conversation partner. Empathy, interest and humor attract me to following random people. Hopefully i provide a bit of the same, with a good dash of random rant thrown in.
Where did this come from?
The ability to interact at all is one of the basic human advances over any other creatures on this planet, well that and the whole thumb thing we’re doing quite well for ourselves.Community, communication and interactive media are some of the basic cornerstones of the various civilizations throughout history?
Interactive media? seems a bit out of place, doesn’t it. Think about it this way. You’re a fine upstanding Pharaoh and you would like someone who isn’t standing right in front of to learn the story of your gods, honor their accomplishments. A Temple is constructed to do just that, the population as a whole interacts with the structure as a place of worship, a public works building, and in some ancient civilizations a brewery as well.
Cathedrals did the same but dropped the breweries. They allowed an illiterate populace to experience the religious traditions of the realm. Fascinating as this may be we need to jump forward past the Gutenberg Bible, Radio, TV and the Tamagochi craze to hit the topic we see here today.
Humans haven’t changed the basic tenants of our society, their is no evolution of the masses, but the range of our influence is extending and the reach of our tools has long outstripped the spear.
Its going to be interesting to see what comes next and the usage patterns that emerge as Twitter, facebook and Myspace to a lesser extent grow up. People on whole interact with their small circle of friends and coworkers, but there have always been those who extended their reach. With social networks the rampant democratization of the tools allows us to study the interactions on a much broader scale.
Fandom and its repercusions online
Posted on | February 2, 2009 | No Comments
With the culmination of American Football Season in the Superbowl, I thought it might be interesting to look into how Sports affect our interaction in Social media differently than in real life.
Sports is a polarizing area to discuss, no matter which way your approach the subject. On whole people generally have three different reactions to the very existence of professional sports.
- Fans: People who follow at least one team, diligently if not fervently
- Casuals: People who will watch a game if its on, or support a local team if they’re doing well. But its not a high priority
- Disinterested: People who either can’t understand the fascination with the pastime, or lament the wasted money and energy that goes into their enjoyment.
As with anything there is a good deal of gradation in each of the categories. Fans can range from the mild cheering if they catch a game on TV to the incredibly devoted who have mortgaged houses to pay for season tickets. The disinterested can also range from those who h0nestly don’t care a lick one way or another, to the violently and boisterously opposed to the very existence of the organizations. As with most things the bulk of the population finds themselves as casual or moderate on the scale.
Digital Self vs Tactile Self
Depending on the social network you travel in in real life you may or may not have a chance to interact with groups of people cheering during a sporting event. It can be quite an experience and the noise of the crowd can sweep normally calm introverted people up in its wake. You need not be a super fan to yell scream and boo with reckless abandon, you just have to have a couple people near you leading the way.
Online there can be two schools of thought as to how people show their affiliation, some people find themselves more open about their devotion, while others are afraid of alienating other teams fans. Sports is about conflict and on some level most people understand this and relish the chance at an encounter with an opposing fan. Online anonymity only extends so far, and the more people become familiar with you the less likely they are to behave badly. Notice on Bulletin boards and blogs where anonymous or un-moderated comments are allowed there is a much higher frequency of trolling, ie people lurking beneath the surface of a discussion only to pop up to spout incendiary comments.
However in Social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and Myspace the level of civility in the conversation is raised. You interact with these people and choose to friend or follow them based off of the value they add to your conversation. the more value you place in the conversation as a whole the less likely you are to go off message, spouting obscenities or derogatory comments, if that is something you wouldn’t normally do.
More and more our Digital selves are becoming extensions of the tactile selves. Online actions have repercussions in real life, and while you may be excited that your team is doing well, most people who recognize the long lasting legacy of online content withhold the true comment gems for offline use only. As a result the dialog between fans of different allegiances stays cleaner, and in the end more fruitful for all parties involved.
The one thing left to consider is how you appear to those who have disdain for professional sports in general, more often than not they will remove themselves from the conversation, by unfollowing or ignoring you until such time as you regain your sanity. If you provided enough value in your interaction outside of the contest then they might come back. If you were an obnoxious boar as a fan, then they are probably a little less likely to come back around.
The disinterested have a low threshold for acceptance of fans, more often than not they feel put upon that their tax dollars go to fund stadiums they don’t want, their media coverage is canvased by millionaires they don’t care about and their town swept up into frenzies by a pastime, that is alien or even wasteful to them. These people are much less likely to deal with your fan foibles in virtual space, when they can cleanse their content stream by eliminating your chatter about topics uninteresting to them.
Sports as a whole has been reduced through explaination as a way of controlling the masses through distraction and escapism, or on the other hand has been identified as a unifying force in civic pride. Love them or hate them they seem to be here to stay along with their inflated salaries and opulent venues. The one thing that you can’t argue is that love them or hate them they can change the way people interact and observe each other a good deal. Be conscious of that fact, and enjoy the ballgame, or not. Its your choice.
Digital Anthropology
Posted on | January 27, 2009 | No Comments
Anthropology is the study of humanity, and it has historically been broken down into 4 different branches of study. Cultural, Linguistic, Physical, Biological. Pretty basic when it comes right down to it. I’ve spent time in all four disciplines in the classroom, all have fascinating lessons to impart to the very same humanity they seek to study. However two have always called to me stronger than the others, Cultural and Physical. I have had the wonderful opportunity to work on an archaeological dig and work in a archeology lab as well. Without that experience I don’t think I could have made the career decisions I had to.
Cultural Anthropology on the other hand, gave me a unique set of skills which I use every day of my life. Pattern recognition, data categorization, set management and my new found organizational skills. Research is a part of any job, but anthropology gave me a set of tools to bring to the table that my colleges with CS degrees can’t match. I taught myself everything I know about fixing and managing computers and servers. With this blog I hope to tap into that tool-set to bring a different viewpoint to the Internet. There are plenty of anthropologists online, some are even adapt enough to walk in both worlds as I do. Its refreshing to see so many new perspectives online popping up.
Stop back periodically… I hope to make it worth your time
Tags: basis > bias > cultural anthropology > digital anthropology > digital culture > digital is my analogue
Welcome
Posted on | June 5, 2008 | No Comments
We live in a world with ever expanding borders. Sometimes its hard to even find everywhere that You are. This is my Web Presence Index. I started it to keep track of all of the different profiles, content and networks that I am involved in as a way for people from different networks to find out more about me, and link up on other networks. Enjoy. And try not to make a mess, I’m also the Janitor you know
Tags: CaffiNation > Paul R Muller > Paul Rj Muller > Puzzle Piece Productions > Web Presence Index > WPI