Social media have created new ways for individuals to communicate and share information. Technologies such as blogs, Twitter, social networking sites (e.g. Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Orkut, etc.), wikis, Second Life, digg, Last.fm, FlickR, etc. have become increasingly pervasive. Social media are being used by celebrities, athletes, journalists, politicians, TV personalities, musicians, scholars, news organizations, businesses, marketers, and more. How does the use of social media change the ways we think about identity, community, and interpersonal communication? In what ways are social media being used for political purposes, for collective action, and news aggregates? How does receiving a Twitter message on your cell phone from Shaquille O'Neal or NPR's Scott Simon erode boundaries between public and private or change conceptualizations of intimacy? Are blogs and other social media challenging journalism's traditional gatekeeping and agenda-setting functions? Should we be concerned about issues of privacy and free speech? How are certain social media technologies being gendered, classed, racialized, and policed? And as is the case with all forms of media, we must be careful to ask who is denied access and to what effect?
We are interested to hear what the Flow community thinks about social media technologies: uses and users, popular discourses and rhetoric, and the ways in which social media challenge concepts of identity, community, friendship, public/private, creativity, surveillance, and more.
Please send submissions of between 1000-1500 words to Jacqueline Vickery (jvickery183@gmail.com) and Anne Petersen (annehelenpetersen@gmail.com) no later than May 18th, 2009. Flow has a longstanding policy of encouraging non-jargony, highly readable pieces and ample incorporation of images and video. For examples, please visit FlowTV.org.
The OU/Texas Tech Game Ball was dedicated to the fans after the 65-21 win
The NCAA bylaws have been updated to restrict the ways in which universities (and by extension boosters, fans, and alumni) are allowed to interact with potential recruits via social networking sites such as Facebook.
According to rules created in 2006 and updated each of the past two years, "any communication via message boards, chat rooms, walls, comments, blogs, IM, etc. is not permissible.
Phone, e-mail and faxing are the only acceptable forms of direct communication with recruits, with restrictions placed on how many times a school representative can initiate the contact.
And the NCAA uses a broad definition of "representatives of a university" - in addition to coaches and athletics staff, it also includes boosters, season-ticket holders, alumni, donors and even current students, according to Stacey Osburn, the NCAA's director for media relations.
Interestingly this means seemingly innocent Facebook groups about a particular player are not allowed, especially if the recruit is currently uncommitted. I think it is interesting to consider the ways in which the NCAA is responding to social networking sites, but equally as interesting to consider the expanding definition of "booster" which basically just means "fan". In a preemptive move to protect themselves and their fans, the University of Oklahoma has published guidelines of appropriate and inappropriate fan behavior on social networking sites. I'm sure other schools are doing this as well. Certainly it is becoming increasingly difficult to regulate and enforce such policies, especially when the guidelines not only apply to coaches but to individual fans.
Texas fans lobbying for right to play in Big XII Championship
Fans have always had an emotional and personal investment with their teams and to a certain degree have always felt a sense of "ownership" of the team. Recent controversies with the BCS have provided fodder for fans to exercise their "rights" to influence and govern their teams. When the Texas Longhorns failed to secure the Big XII South title (and therefore a chance to play in the Conference and National Championships), fans did not just feel as though their team had been cheated, but rather felt that they personally had been cheated. This led to a lot of politicking and lobbying from fans on behalf of the team, both online (such as the 45-35 Facebook group which still boasts over 60,000 members) and offline (such as the 45-35 plane planner). Coaches and players also acknowledge their commitment to the fans, for example when they dedicate a game ball to the fans as was the case in the OU/Texas Tech game in 2008. Or when they acknowledge a sense of obligation they have to the fans, for example by apologizing not only to the team, but also to fans after a disappointing loss (think Tim Tebow's overplayed apology after the Ole Miss loss).
Fans identification with their teams is nothing new, in fact it is an inherent part of fandom, but what is changing are the ways in which fans can interact with their teams, the players, the coaches, and each other. New media technologies such as blogs, Twitter, chat rooms, and social networking sites serve to diminish the gap between fan and team. I believe with the increasing level of intimacy comes a greater sense of fans "ownership" and investment. As such, it is not surprising that greater investment is likely to lead to greater control and policing of fans' behaviors (inappropriate contact with a recruit could mean a fans' season tickets are revoked), as well as players' behaviors on such sites. One extreme example is the case of the Texas player who was dismissed from the team because of a remark on his Facebook account.
Mike Leach's Twitter page
Placing restrictions on the ways in which coaches can communicate with recruits (as well as the frequency) is a necessary policy, but in our contemporary media environment it is increasingly difficult to actually regulate what constitutes "recruitment" and "communication". A Trojan friend of mine recently alerted me to Pete Carroll's blog, which he described as, "an outright recruiting tool masked as a 'fan' site". Several NCAA coaches also have Twitter accounts (Pete Carroll and Mike Leach update on a frequent basis) where they send updates about practices, pep talks, interviews, games, etc. Seeing how Twitter is not considered "private" communication, I'm guessing it falls outside of NCAA's recruitment regulation.
In a media environment which continues to blur boundaries between public and private, it becomes ever more difficult to actually regulate and enforce policies intended to restrict communication. It will be interesting to see the ways in which fans continue to interact in a more personal manner with coaches, athletes, and other fans. As with all new mediated technologies, new challenges will arise which regulations have yet to address. Policies are always a few steps behind behaviors and in an environment in which fans have an increasing sense of ownership over their teams, I think it will become more difficult to actually regulate interactions between coaches, (future) players, and fans.
Screen shot from the Second Life Virginia Tech Memorial
I came across an article (on Fark) today about funeral homes selling virtual memorials to family members of the deceased. They are intended to be spaces where friends and family can virtually remember loved ones, complete with virtual flowers, benches, and other items available for purchase. The company will even send reminder emails about birthdays of the deceased so friends can remember to call the widow etc. Apparently future plans would also allow for people to purchase their own pre-death virtual memorials/profiles. I guess we shouldn't be surprised that funeral homes have found a way to capitalize upon virtual memorials, grief, and people's desire to preserve the memory of their loved ones.
More organic examples of virtual memorials can be found on MySpace, Facebook, and Second Life. While I'm sure earlier examples exist, the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings resulted in a lot of these kinds of memorials. You can view a video of the Second Life Virginia Tech Memorial here:
Linden Labs, creator of Second Life, has recently launched a Memorial Park within Second Life as a virtual park dedicated to victims of Katrina, Virginia Tech, and other tragedies which affect members of the Second Life community. A 9/11 memorial was also set up in Second Life on the seventh anniversary of the tragedy. From what I have read, the event was rather sombre, quiet, and respectful.
I remember after the Virginia Tech shooting many of the victims' names were released via Facebook profiles prior to the mainstream media release of their names. Despite the fact that my Facebook network does not include Virginia Tech, I still came across the victim's names on Facebook, hours before the media released them. Many of their profile pages included public messages from friends offering condolences and sharing memories about the person. The profiles functioned as makeshift memorials honoring the victims. Additionally many Facebook groups were started as a way to share information, grieve, and come together as a community in a virtual space.
September 11 Memorial in Second Life
Since then Facebook and MySpace now have official Memorial pages set up to honor users who have died. After a user dies family members can request that the page become a memorial and they gain access to the person's page. There are many examples of such pages, although I feel a bit exploitative posting them here since I do not personally know the people (just do a Google search for Facebook/MySpace memorials if you really want to see some examples). A site called MyDeathSpace functions as an archival space for obituaries and memorials of deceased MySpace members and also includes a discussion forum for friends and family members to pay their respects.
In an environment in which more and more people express their identities and find communities via mediated communication, it really should come as no surprise that even in death individuals turn to digital media to express grief, condolences, and to find support. Although I do wonder about funeral homes capitalizing upon these virtual spaces. Facebook, MySpace, and Second Life are free to use and have a more organic feel to them. Paying a couple hundred dollars for a funeral home to set up a virtual memorial in honor of a loved one feels a bit too opportunistic to me. Why spend $35 on virtual flowers or a park bench?
Fox's Memorial to Dr. Kutner of House
Last week I wrote an article for FlowTV calledHouse MD: A Consideration of Convergence Marketing in which I analyzed the ways Fox used the death of a fictional character, Dr. Kutner of House, as a creative marketing ploy. A virtual memorial was set up in his honor which then led users to a Facebook page. While my focus within that article was to consider the ways on-air and virtual marketing are converging, I think it is also important to consider the fictional memorial in light of virtual memorials intended to honor real people. Does something such as a memorial dedicated to Dr. Kutner somehow cheapen the memorials of actual individuals whose loved ones have chosen to virtually memorialize them?
While I think it might be easy to dismiss both kinds of virtual memorials -fictional and actual individuals - as merely virtual and therefore somehow trivial, silly, banal, or even cheesy, I think it's important to recognize and appreciate the symbolic relationship individuals have within these spaces. Essentially all memorials are merely symbolic - a way for family members and friends to remember loved ones and honor their memory in death. Memorials also serve as spaces for individuals to gather and grieve together, to leave notes, tributes, and other symbolic items. In this way physical memorials and virtual memorials are really not so different in terms of function and symbolic meaning. Whether you are leaving a note and flower on a physical wall of a Facebook wall, the intent really isn't so different. I think such examples are further evidence of the ways in which boundaries between virtual and offline worlds are continually being eroded. What does concern me though are the ways in which the virtual spaces are becoming increasingly commercialized and profit-driven, which can serve to undermine the intended sacred symbolism of the virtual memorials.
It's hard not to notice the sudden obsession mainstream media have with Twitter lately. Just the other day the New York Times had three, yes three, Twitter stories on the same day. I'm not sure why Twitter is suddenly generating so much attention, some attribute it to Oprah but I noticed it prior to that as well. Like most "new" media, a lot of the articles and stories are merely trying to make sense of why and how people are using the technology/application. And as we have seen, a lot of this attention seems to be a bit negative or dismissive. I came across this article (on Twitter nonetheless) which offers a witty yet poignant discussion of Twitter: How the Other Half Writes: In Defense of Twitter. My two favorite lines are:
"...she [Dowd] describes Twitter as something 'for bored celebrities and high-school girls' – well, first of all, who says high-school girls aren't supposed to write? And why is it anyone else's business if a bored person, who happens also to be famous, decides to share random thoughts with the world?"
Interestingly there exists a long discursive history of girls' relationship to writing, originally because they were confined to the home and thus encouraged to "sit around and scribble in a book" but also because girls' education also took place within the home. Of course men have always written as well, but historically their writings were considered more "important" biographical or historical accounts than were girls' "personal" writings. The article goes on to say,
"Now that suburban housewives in Missouri are letting their thoughts be known via Twitter, it's as if writing itself is thought to be under attack, invaded from all sides by the unwashed masses whose thoughts have not been sanctioned as Literature™."
The sarcastic remarks draw attention to the ways in which "panics" about new media technologies and users are always already embedded within larger anxieties related to class, race, gender, and politics. The author is right, who cares if people want to Tweet inane thoughts to one another, it's not "threatening the way we live" or the "quality of writing" nor do I think it's indicative of increasing narcissism as many would have us believe. And furthermore, by merely focusing on "inane narcissistic thoughts" most critics fail to recognize the larger social, political, and cultural implications of the media technology. For example, consider the innovative ways Twitter was used during the recent Mumbai terrorist attacks; it's hard to deny the significance of the technology.
Personally I use Twitter for so much more than just following my friends (who often post witty comments), but rather I also follow journalists, politicians, athletes, scholars, and bloggers. In this way I tend to use Twitter more like a news aggregator than a social technology. Many of the interesting articles and editorials I read on a daily basis I came across because of my Twitter network. Like all media, there are good uses and bad, but I really struggle with critiques that dismiss the "mundane" uses as somehow insignificant. Our lives are comprised of "mundane" "ordinary" interactions that are chock-full of importance.
I maintained a personal blog for about five years when I was in college and I loved it and I loved the community I found from blogging; it was definitely my most successful blogging experience. When I started grad school though I began to feel a bit awkward having my name associated with the blog. I certainly censored myself and kept the blog very "public friendly", but at that time in my life I figured the only people who would be Googling me and stumbling upon the blog were either personal friends/acquaintances or strangers - and I was ok with either. Grad school of course changed all that because I realized that going to conferences and getting published etc. meant that my name was going to be a lot more Googleable (yes I like to use Google as a verb). Even though there wasn't anything on the personal blog that I felt I needed to hide, I just wasn't comfortable with fellow scholars (future employers?) reading about my life in such a personal manner. So, I stopped blogging.
The sabbatical only lasted about a year; I just missed blogging too much not to do it. So I decided to solve my problem by maintaining two blogs - one anonymous personal blog and one more "academic" blog. I was a bit naive - this clearly required way too much time. I updated the personal a lot and got plugged in with a community, but this meant the academic one suffered. I was trying to maintain two separate blogging identities and I found it increasingly difficult to separate the "academic" me from the "social" me. But here I go again, with a new blog and a new framework. Rather than attempting to separate my academic research interests and my social/personal life, I'm going to allow the two to converge, obviously policing the personal more than I would were it anonymous, but nonetheless using this space to discuss both. The distinction was a rather arbitrary one to begin with, my personal interests are so deeply embedded within my research and vice versa.
As such the name of the blog has a bit of a double meaning. On the one hand it describes the convergence of my social and academic identities, but on the other it also describes my research. I know I should be narrowing my research interests rather than expanding them, but that just isn't happening. The longer I'm in grad school the more areas I want to study. However, if I must come up with an umbrella term I think it would be "convergence media". The last academic blog I had was called gURLculture because at the time I was working on my Master's thesis about girls' use of anonymous blogs as spaces for identity formation and community building. I still research girls and my research is always framed with a feminist perspective, but by naming the blog something so specific I felt I had unnecessarily limited the use of the blog. Hopefully "Social Convergence" will be broad enough to allow me to blog about all of my research interests, current and future.
Phew! That was a rather lengthy introduction. I'm excited to be blogging again and hope to update one a regular basis.
I am a PhD student in the department of Radio-TV-Film at the University of Texas at Austin. My research interests include the social, cultural, and political aspects of new media. I am currently the Co-Coordinating editor of FlowTV and co-facilitator for the Teen Reporter Intern Program at Latinitas.
Other interests include college football (Boomer Sooner!), training for marathons, playing with my dog, and trying new beers.
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