All discourse is social

The Survey Geek (AKA Reg Baker) has an interesting post about the way that people’s Facebook and Tweets are taking on the nature of a performance. Towards the end of the post Reg comments “if people we listen to in social media are not true selfs but selfs constructed for our consumption, it raises some pretty significant challenges for working with social media information”.

Much I respect Reg, I think he has a slightly odd view of ‘real’ life if he thinks that the selves we present are not equally created for consumption by others.

Below is the comment I added to his post.

Whilst not everybody is going to rush over to a post-modern, post-structualist position, surely there are a few things that most of us will agree with:

1) All discourse is social

2) Meaning is not that which was intended, but that which is constructed by the parties involved

3) Social events have more than one meaning, either we accept there are multiple truths or that there are no truths

4) Most people are highly skilled at discourse, which results in much of the meaning that is created not being specifically spelled out in the text

One great example of the way all discourse is social is the group of sounds we make when we are on our own, in public. For example you are walking down the street and you stub your toe and utter "ouch" or you nearly drop something and say "oops" - these utterances are produced with amazing speed, at a time of stress, and are a message to the other people on the street that a minor something is happening, you have noticed it, you have it under control, and there is no need for them to be involved, but a bit of sympathy might not go amiss.

The point for research is that all social personas are constructed, as are all other aspects of our life. Some of the issues in social media may be different from other aspects of life, but I doubt that the issues are bigger in social media than in more traditional arenas.

 

Comments

[4dblogging.wordpress.com]

This is a really important discussion. As people, we all definitely 'perform' different identities that are appropriate to how we want to be seen by different audiences. Blogs for example are always very carefully considered and scrutinized before they are posted, probably because us professionals are acutely aware of how quick we are to judge any online presence. I know I do this - within 60 seconds I have already decided what I think of that person's work or capabilities - which although unfair - is just human nature.

[Tsnol]

Interesting points Ray. I think that online people do have a greater degree of control. Construction of the ‘virtual self’ is much more considered than the identity we present in traditional areas. Anonymity, less immediate social ‘traction’ such as embarrassment, confusion, judgment etc. may lead to a more measured projection of ‘self’ online.

http://www.latitudeinsights.com.au/parallelinsights/2010/11/i-can-be-googled-therefore-i-am/

[JHenning]

All discourse is social. Who can disagree? But as researchers our job is to dig deep and figure out not what people say but what they do and why they do it. We know from the survey methods literature that people answer differently when allowed to fill out a questionnaire themselves with a promise of anonymity than they do when a human being asks the same question. And we know across a variety of topics that the answers they give in self administration are more truthful than those they give to an interviewer. They invent a new self for that moment in time. On social media the moments are much longer and more sustained. It is more performance art than honest communication.

[Patt AtHome]

I heartily agree, and suspect that this derives, at least in part, from a need for attention; and for contact in lives that are becoming increasingly disconnected, for a variety of reasons, from the "human touch".
A generation, whose brains were hard-wired in bites of information; beginning with Sesame Street and continuing with video games and gaming are naturally comfortable with this as a social environment; for those of us who are a bit older it is more an acquired but no less desirable and even needed outlet for connection and more importantly creativity.
My own current pet peeve is with facebook; where each new improvement reduces the ability for personalization, homogenizing content and reducing the opportunity to "perform".