Thesis Title: Subtitle

Social Networking Sites: The Story so Far

Existing literature on SNS draws heavily on previous theories of technology like those proposed by Meyrowitz to help shape its analysis. Similarly, previous empirical works support the assertion that SNS offers similar affordances to mobile technology emphasising that SNS are primarily aimed at supporting the maintenance of pre-existing social networks (boyd and Ellison 2007). What differentiates SNS from previous technologies of connection is not that they enable users to meet strangers, but that they articulate and make visible their offline relationships and networks. The structure of SNS primarily facilitates connections between people who also share an offline connection (boyd and Ellison 2007; Ellison, Lampe, Steinfield and Vitak 2011). Unlike other online spaces, SNS users’ identities are frequently anchored in shared relationships, institutional affiliations and physical proximities in a way that mirrors the offline aspects of people’s lives (Hargittai and Hsieh 2011).

To date there is limited qualitative research that examines the intersection of Facebook and social relationships, specifically friendship. However, there is an extensive amount of quantitative research, although it is largely fragmented, and focuses on single demographics with no comparative research across demographics. Research has focused primarily on the generalised benefits of social networking websites such as their potential to increase trust and intimacy (Pierce and Lovrich 2003; Livingstone 2008). Scholarship concerning social networking sites has also examined other foundational issues, such as privacy (Pierce and Lovrich 2003), social capital (Ellison, Lampe, Steinfield and Vitak 2011), personality (Buffardi and Campbell 2008), self-presentation and identity (Liu 2008). The literature that does examine social relationships is sparse and has focused quantitatively on the effect of Facebook’s visual cues (like profile photos) on a users’

friending behaviours (Wang et al. 2010). There are even fewer studies that qualitatively examine friendship and Facebook from an adult’s perspective. This is important to note, as previous research has sampled groups that are at a very specific stage of their life course such as teenagers (boyd 2008; Horst 2008) or have particular, and possibly unique, characteristics (US university undergraduates). This means that these groups have different constraints and affordances on their social relationships, and may use Facebook in substantively different ways. My research aims to address some of these gaps by using a variety of methodological approaches to extend our knowledge of Facebook beyond the well-researched ‘youth’ demographics.

With the increasing popularity of SNS, there are also growing public concerns that participation in social media sites undermines the traditional structure of social relations, weakens ties between individuals as well as isolating them from meaningful social interactions concerns, which are at the heart of ongoing debates about the detraditionalisation and individualisation of contemporary life (Pierce and Lovrich 2003; Turkle 2010). This is closely linked to the debates regarding individualisation and the detraditionalisation, or disembedding of social life. It is also argued that SNS are merely avenues for self-promotion that encourage narcissism and a large number of shallow relationships (Buffardi and Campbell 2008). Buffardi and Campbell (2008: 1304) define narcissism as follows:

“Narcissism refers to a personality trait reflecting a grandiose and inflated self- concept. Specifically, narcissism is associated with positive and inflated self-views of agentic traits like intelligence, power, and physical attractiveness.”

While Buffardi and Campbell (2008) acknowledge that deeper relationships can also be sustained via SNS, they argue that the primary attraction of SNS is the ability to manage a large number of relationships at once, which they believe appeal to people with narcissistic tendencies. Mehdizadeh (2010) also examines the relationship between Facebook use and narcissism and found that Facebook use and narcissistic traits were positively correlated. However, Mehdizadeh (2010) acknowledges that the nonymous environment of Facebook does place constraints on the identity claims that individuals are able to engage in. Mehdizadeh (2010), like Buffardi and Campbell (2008), contends that Facebook represents an attractive environment for narcissists as it can be used to

maintain a large amount of connections, and the user is mostly able to control the information they present about themselves.

Mendelson and Papacharissi (2011) also examined the link between SNS and narcissism. Specifically, they sought to examine the relationship between college students’ Facebook photo galleries and narcissism. Mendelson and Papacharissi (2011) argue that Facebook provides its users with a performative palette by enabling users to list interests, post comments, status, and photos of oneself and one’s friends. They further posit that photo galleries are particularly important instruments of self-presentation as they can be intentionally created and curated on Facebook like never before (Mendelson and Papacharissi 2011). Following from Liu (2008), Mendelson and Papacharissi (2011: 253) argue that Facebook is about:

establishing, presenting, and negotiating identity, thought the tastes and interests expressed, those who we friend and highlight (Donath and boyd 2004), through the applications we add to our SNS pages, and through the pictures of us and our friends (boyd 2004; Donath 2008)…these identity presentations are supported by comments from other users [citations in original].

Examining how college-aged young people use photographs to engage in self- presentation is significant as it is indicative of recent cultural and technological shifts. Until recently, adults had control over how young people were photographically represented, as they controlled the means of production (the camera) and the albums themselves (Mendelson and Papacharissi 2011). Recently, the advent of digital technology placed photography in the hands of young people (often via their mobile phone). In addition to this, online spaces such as Facebook, Flickr and more recently, Instagram provide users with space in which they can display these images that are within their control (Mendelson and Papacharissi 2011).

Using semiotic techniques, Mendelson and Papacharissi (2011) analysed college students’ photographs. Using qualitative techniques to analyse these photographs meant that the more subtle aspects of self-presentation would be analysed, including the culture context of meaning in which they occur. In doing this, Mendelson and Papacharissi used a framework that interprets the photographs on to axes, events and components. This was further broken down into five further components: participants, topic, setting, message

form and code. Using these five elements helped account for the obvious and symbolic aspects of the pictures analysed, including those in the photo, its composition, subject matter and intended audience (Mendelson and Papacharissi 2011). Mendelson and Papacharissi found that relationships formed the vast majority of photographic content, with most photos containing pairings or groups of friends (Mendelson and Papacharissi 2011). Further, these photographs were strongly gendered with women being most commonly photographed with women, and men with men. Additionally, the most photographed events were what Mendelson and Papacharissi (2011: 260) describe as

“typical planned high school and college activities or rituals: parties, road trips with friends, dances and proms, school-year holidays…college sporting events and…professional sporting events.”

Participating in, and photographing these rituals appeared to be gender neutral, with both men and women participating in, and documenting these events in equal numbers. For those with a significant other, this relationship became the primary focus of the “photographic narrative” (Mendelson and Papacharissi 2011). While self-portrait or ‘selfies’ were present, they did not outnumber photographs of group activities (Mendelson and Papacharissi 2011). Overall, the focus of the photographic narrative was on positive life events, with some embarrassing or ‘bad’ photos present because of their symbolic value.

Mendelson and Papacharissi (2011) argue that the focus of college students’ photographs on group activities is a way of fostering community integration through the sharing of common experiences and values. This, they argue, accounts for the sameness and commonality amongst the photographs they examined. Photographs posted on Facebook are a way for college students to ‘talk’ to each other and establish proof of an authentic college experience filled with activities valued by their peer group. These photographs also reinforce the importance of the peer group while establishing one’s independence from family and childhood (Mendelson and Papacharissi 2011). Mendelson and Papacharissi (2011) further argue that these images emphasise the primacy of relationships and connections for college students, particularly among same-sex friends. These photographs then, are directed towards one’s immediate social circle, with contextual information about location and time largely absent, as the photos help facilitate the recall of existing memories (Mendelson and Papacharissi 2011). Alongside the emphasis on collective sociality, college student’s photos also bring the self to the centre. Mendelson and

Papacharissi (2011) state that the lack of context means that the self becomes the focal point of the photograph. They also claim that this collectively performed and self-referential behaviour

“reflects a collectively performed narcissism, through which a single of multiple subjects exhibit self-referential behaviour, that is then exponentially tagged, re- tagged, commented, and referenced in further introspective moments that culminate to group cohesion” (2010: 269).

However, Mendelson and Papacharissi (2011) further propose that these narcissistic lapses are not indicative of self-absorption, but rather steps towards self-reflection and self-actualisation. While Mendelson and Papacharissi’s (2011) investigation of college students’ Facebook photos is interesting, it is also necessarily limited by its specificity. As Mendelson and Papacharissi (2011) acknowledge, their sample is not representative of all college students use of Facebook photos and they make no claims that these finding are applicable to those who are not college students.

One of the reasons why concerns about the narcissistic nature of Facebook users are prevalent in popular discourse and consequently examined in academic work may be due to ‘traditional’ ideas concerning intimacy and privacy. Traditionally, it has been held that the creation of intimacy requires privacy, and that ‘real’ friendships require intimacy to flourish and that SNS does not allow space for either of these. Turkle (2011) argues that technologies such as SNS cause us to expect less of each other, as it facilitates more, but that shallower connections deprive us of genuine intimacy. SNS makes available an audience with whom to share feelings and experiences, which appear to indicate an increased level of intimacy. This readily available audience gives rise to a more collaborative construction of the self, although it is unclear how the concept of a collaborative self sits in relation to arguments that technology creates and sustains multiple ‘selves’ or ‘lives’ (Turkle 2011).

In many ways, Dominick’s (1999) preliminary research about the function of personal webpages echoes more recent literature regarding SNS. Like personal webpages, SNS allow users to define themselves through public acts of connection (Donath and boyd 2004). Similarly, they provide a way to gain a measure of personal insight by listing interests, likes and dislikes, as well as displaying basic information like gender, age and

relationship status. Unlike personal webpages, SNS have evolved to be a much more dynamic form of self-presentation, as they are primarily concerned with ongoing asynchronous and synchronous communication in a way that personal webpages as discussed by Dominick (1999) do not allow.

Despite the fact that Facebook is nonymous space linked to offline identities, the idea that representation of the self online is flexible and fluid has persisted. The idea of a fluid self, facilitated by computer mediated communication is still influential and is echoed by Papacharissi (2012: 207) who explains that:

The self, in late modern societies, is expressed as fluid abstraction, reified through the individual’s association with a reality that may be equally flexible. The process of self-presentation becomes an ever-evolving cycle through which individual identity is presented, compared, adjusted, or defended against a constellation of social, cultural, economic, or political realities.

The above quote from Papacharissi, succinctly encapsulates many contemporary attitudes towards the self in late modernity. The self in late modernity argues Papacharissi (2012: 207) “traverses distinct yet connected planes of interaction or networks. Technology may provide the stage for this interaction, linking the individual, separately or simultaneously, with multiple audiences.” In constructing this definition, Papacharissi (2012) borrows from Goffman (1959:13) who describes this process as “a potentially infinite cycle of concealment, discovery, false revelation, and rediscovery.” This approach to the self places the individual at the centre, often as a reaction to contemporary social developments, which have destabilized the institutions through which the self was previously constituted. In the late modern space, Papacharissi (2012) argues that individuals have the capacity to combine the affordances of old and new media to construct their own social sphere, which provides them with autonomy and fluidity in managing their sociality. Papacharissi (2012) argues that SNS, which have properties that specifically facilitate self-presentation, spanning text, multimedia and social connection are spaces in which to present the self and negotiate identity. Of these, Papacharissi argues that connection – specifically friends – are the most important as they are used to authenticate identity and a way to introduce the self reflexively through social connections. What this proposal means is that both individual and collective identities are presented

and promoted in convergent spaces that facilitate the overlap between distinct social circles (Papacharissi 2012).

While it is acknowledged that Facebook and other SNS are far more grounded than the MUDs described by Turkle, they are still represented as spaces for deliberative identity work (Robards and Bennett 2011). However, the emphasis on the self-conscious presentation of the self is present across work that analyses SNS (boyd 2007; Hall, Pennington and Lueder 2013), dating sites (Ellison, Hancock and Toma 2011) and personal homepages (Dominick 1999; Papacharissi 2002). The idea that self-presentation online is more self-conscious and deliberately constructed and ephemeral than self- presentation offline has been quite persistent. Research by Robards and Bennett (2010) found that young people’s behaviour on social networking sites mirror their offline interests and replicate patterns of communication that already exist face-to-face. While the participants interviewed for Robards and Bennett’s (2010) research describe their social networking profiles as sites of identity work, the type of self-presentation they found is not the multiplicitous and saturated self-described by Turkle (1996). In contrast, this presentation of self described by Robards and Bennett (2011) is irrevocably linked to the offline world via Facebook which limits the fluidity of identity. It is coherent, while still being multiple, fluid and eclectic. The participants in Robards and Bennett’s (2011) research still spoke of SNS as a place for the conscious performance of identity, framing their construction of self on these sites as a form of self-portraiture. Robards and Bennett argue that:

social network sites require individuals to piece together what they constitute as self- identity, and it is to be expected that this reflexive process will intensify the need for young people to develop a coherent sense of self in order to participate in digital culture (2011: 313).

Thus, social network sites become places where this sense of self, as constructed across multiple categories, can consciously emerge. This is unsurprising as young people are in a unique stage of their development, in which attempting to establish themselves as individuals separate from the family unit is of key concern (Furlong and Cartmel 1997).

However, as the focus of Robards and Bennett (2011) was on young people’s experience, this still leaves space for further work, which examines how adults create and conceive their self-presentation online.