Abstract

Social networking sites (SNSs) are significantly gaining the attention of academic and scholarly researchers, fascinated by participants widespread consumption practices and the technological affordances that facilitate these. The social media stream within the Debates of Social Media and Online Communities, convenes together literature and empirical studies on this emerging phenomenon. In the introduction, we provide contextual background information on SNSs and define overarching key concepts. We present the leading argument through the thesis; the proliferation of social networks, including Facebook has profoundly changed the way people connect and generate relationships in the digital public sphere. Drawing upon pre-existing bodies of academic research and literature in relation to SNSs, findings indicate that this transformative shift is facilitated through three distinct segments including; the social affordances of ‘friending’ online, the performative behaviours afforded by technology, and constructing one’s virtual identity. Counter arguments presented will further explore contrasting perspectives and issues raised, concluding with an outcome of the research.

Introduction

Since the early 1990’s, social networks have arisen exponentially through communication technologies and permeated the realm of the digital public sphere. More specifically, in the Western context, a popular contemporary digital networking platform Facebook, has facilitated a multitude of new practices and behaviours in the process of social development and forming relationships. Firstly, Boyd and Ellison articulate that social networks sites are web-located services that permit individual users to design and construct a public profile, display a list of users that they share connections with, and view other’s networks enacted within the platform (Boyd and Ellison, 2007). Moreover, according to Habermas in 1992, the conceptual framework of the new public sphere is based on the notion that communication contexts, through discursive opinion and the public will of inter-generational citizens, perpetuate the new public sphere (Haines, 2013). Prior to communication technologies and social networks, the public sphere was recognised in spatial and dialogical terms, meaning participants would meet and engage in face-to-face interactions in a common, physical location. Now in the context of the 21^st century, the new public sphere is asymmetrical and fragmented, by contrast it is not located to any specific spatial-temporal locations, non-dialogical, open and visible, whereby there is unequal participation and symbolic mediated forms can be disseminated and received by a greater amount of other non-present individuals on a global scale (Haines, 2013). In the discipline Debates within Social Media and Online Communities, within the parameters of the Social Media stream, this paper will critically analyse, examine and argue the thesis; the proliferation of social networks, such as Facebook has profoundly changed the way people connect and establish relationships in the digital public sphere. This will be explored through critical discussion of collated clusters of key emerging trends, drawing upon pre-existing empirical bodies of academic literature and scholarly journal articles. These will be segmented into three distinct components. 1. The social affordances of ‘friending’ online and the notion of a new meaning of the multifaceted term ‘friend’. 2. Performative behaviours afforded by technology such as the public display of connections, and constructing one’s virtual identity. 3. Counter arguments that will explore in contrast, the social cognitive and behavioural sides of social networks, privacy concerns raised, identity deception, and the potential for online disconnection.

Social Affordances Perspective

The proliferation of Social Networks, such as Facebook has radically changed the way people connect and form relationships in the digital public sphere. Firstly, Facebook is an American online social networking site where participants can post comments, like, upload and share photographs and videos, provide status updates, check-in geographical locations, repost links, engage in dialogue through text messaging and connect with friends upon accepting friend requests (Nadkarni and Hofmann, 2012). Key emerging trends within the digital public sphere and research studies conducted using Facebook, indicates there is a shift in relation to the multifaceted meaning of friendship and what constitutes a ‘friend’ “Facebook is known for challenging conventional connotations of ‘friendship’ by lumping all of ones’ social connections, including remote acquaintances, into one uniform ‘friend’ category” (Vallor, 2012. p.186). This can be interpreted as the social affordance approach, whereby the social network interfaces both allow and encourage homogeneity, with no distinct relationship boundaries or categories. The term social affordance was first referred to by psychologists as “the human ability of understanding how the intrinsic properties of objects allow them to be used for a variety of purposes” (Boase, 2008. p.1). Moreover, in a technological context, this term can also be denoted as “to describe what material artifacts such as media technologies allow people to do” (Bucher and Helmond, 2017. p.3). Secondly, prior to the rapid expansion of social networks, the term ‘friend’ was previously considered as a mutually exclusive bond between two individuals, who provided emotional support, shared common interests and connected in the physical realm. Now in post-modern society, according to Boyd, utilising mundane vernacular refers to a friend as “a relationship that involves some degree of mutual love or admiration” (Boyd, 2006. p.1).

In addition, sociologists denote this as “friendship is an informal category without clear boundaries (like “co-workers”) or mutual responsibilities (like “family”) (Boyd, 2006. p.1). Boyd further ascertains that the discourse surrounding the term ‘friend’ has different connotations and meaning online, in comparison to the physical realm “When people articulate their relations on social network sites, they are not simply projecting their internal model of tie strength. The public nature of these sites requires participants to perform their relationship to others, not unlike the examples given above. Based on an internal understanding of the audience, participants override the term “Friend” to make room for a variety of different relationships so that they may properly show face. Their choice in how to do this is deeply influenced by the technological affordances of a given system and their perception of who might be looking” (Boyd, 2006. p.1). This demonstrates an example of how technology and social networks provide social affordance, meaning their structural elements and interfaces allow users to recalibrate the meaning of a ‘friend’ and removes the heterogenic nature of friendships within the physical realm. This can further be interpreted as online ‘friends’ are egocentrically driven and performative, due to the underlying social hierarchies afforded by technology, and the desire to establish perceived status by increasing the number of friends and followers, in order to construct influential, individual identities online. For instance, by rejecting a ‘friend request’ on Facebook, users face potential social consequences from both the rejected individual, and other users online, as this limits growth of one’s number of friends and/or following (Boyd, 2006). Moreover, in academic research, Boase argues that social network sites present a new regulating mechanism for developing context “Instead of slicing interest first and people second, the Friending process allows people to choose people first and interests second. People define their community egocentrically. Their list of Friends defines the context and this, in turn, defines the audience that they believe they are addressing whenever they modify their Profile or post a bulletin” (Boase, 2006. p.1). Therefore, this can be interpreted as the re-structuring of social clusters within friendship and personal networks, allowing for a new method to build social context and develop relationships online, that was not previously a possibility in the physical public sphere (Boyd, 2006).

In conjunction with the notion of ‘friending’, Boyd articulates that “Friends on Social Networks are not the same as “friends” in the everyday sense; instead, Friends provide context by offering users an imagined audience to guide behavioral norms” (Boyd, 2006. p.1). According to Huberman, Romero and Wu attention is scarce within social networks, thus people only engage with online members that provide reciprocal attention “a recent study of Facebook showed that users only poke and message a small number of people while they have a large number of declared friends” (Huberman, Romero and Wu, 2009. p.1). Therefore, this indicates that the notion of reciprocity plays a central role in individual determinants of who to engage with and ‘follow’ online “On Facebook, for example, reciprocity comes in many forms: the initial exchange involving a ‘friend request’ and the corresponding acceptance of this invitation, the giving and receiving of comments or simple indications of ‘liking’ in response to friends’ posts, the ability to share photos and videos and electronically ‘tag’ the friends who appear in them, and in the opportunity to use third-party applications to engage in a wide range of other reciprocal activities, from having a virtual food fight with a friend to giving personalized virtual gifts” (Vallor, 2012. p.189). This suggests reciprocal attention and engagement are social processes afforded by technology, such as Facebook, whereby participants are more inclined to interact and communicate with virtual ‘friends’ who demonstrate a certain degree of engagement with their online consumption practices and activity, rather than based on the premise of their level of friendship, both online or offline. For these reasons, social network sites, such as Facebook have profoundly transformed the way people connect and establish relationships in the mediated public sphere.

Performative Aspects

In conjunction with the notion of the shifted meaning of the term ‘friend’, the expansion of social network sites, specifically Facebook, has changed the way people connect and develop relationships in the digital public realm. In particular, there is an increasing recalibration towards visibility of perceived online identity that correlates with performative behaviours. Boyd argues that social network interfaces afford the construction and self-presentation of virtual identities, whereby signify meaningful relationships with others. Boyd contends that social network sites are differentiated from other digital communication sites, through the network’s feature that enables participants to publicly display their connections to others within the system. This allows users to browse others’ profiles, send a friendship request, and accept or decline requests from others. The friends list often exhibits a list of photos with links to that individuals’ profile. This can be interpreted as participants are afforded the ability to surf social network sites and multiple profiles of ‘friendship’ through a chain of links (Boyd, 2006). Thus, the visible chain of friendship suggests that social networking sites promote people to select friends based on the premise of what they want visible or public “While Friending is a social act, the actual collection of Friends and the display of Top Friends provides space for people to engage in identity performance” (Boyd, 2006. p.1). This idea is also referred to as the Public Display of Connections. For instance, Facebook users can project an online identity by “writing themselves into being” (Boyd, 2006. p.1) through not only the display of their friend’s list, but through their profile images, comments and likes, engagement with other users, instant messaging and by tagging individuals in other forms of media within the social network (Nadkarni and Hofmann, 2012). Furthermore, Boyd and Ellison argue that social network sites help strangers to connect online, who share common interests and views “Sites like MySpace allow users to choose whether they want their profile to be public or “Friends only.” Facebook takes a different approach—by default, users who are part of the same “network” can view each other’s profiles, unless a profile owner has decided to deny permission to those in their network” (Boyd and Ellison, 2007. p.1). Therefore, this reinforces the notion that social networks have transformed the ways people establish friendships, due to increased visibility of one’s profile and digital media consumption practices. However, this also raises ethical concerns surrounding privacy issues, as increased visibility leads to a reduction in privacy. Nonetheless, it can be seen that the way people connect and establish relationships through the digital public sphere has changed, due to the proliferation of social networks.

Counter Arguments

In contrast, the counter-arguments will explore the social cognitive and behavioural sides of social networks, the issues of privacy, identity deception, and online disconnection. In particular, Boase articulates the social dimensions of cognitive and behaviour are the driving factors in establishing and maintaining relationships online, rather than determined by the assumption of technological affordance “Social ties have two important dimensions: cognition and behaviour. The cognitive dimension includes the belief that a social tie exists, as well as feelings of closeness, memory of past interaction and knowledge about that tie” (Boase, 2008. p.1). Boase further ascertains that “The behavioural dimension is interaction that typically occurs by way of mediated and unmediated communication. When thinking of ties in this way it is clear that the social significance of communication technology lies not in how it alters ties as an external force, but rather in the fact that it is embedded in behaviour that is essential to the existence of ties” (Boase, 2008. p.1). Moreover, Boyd similarly argues that there is an inter-connected link between mediated social network spaces and physical spaces “Social network sites are not digital spaces disconnected from other social venues — it is a modeling of one aspect of participants’ social worlds and that model is evaluated in other social contexts” (Boyd, 2006. p.1). These ideas can be interpreted as social exchanges and behaviours that potentially already existed in the physical realm, and are now being mirrored through a mediated space. This suggests that micro social norms, behaviours and relationships in the physical realm, have not necessarily changed, but rather create and sustain the foundations in which people engage and interact online.

In addition to the notion of social cognitive and behavioural aspects, increasing visibility of oneself online has potentially adverse consequences. According to Boyd and Ellison “SNSs are also challenging legal conceptions of privacy. For example, do police officers have the right to access content posted to Facebook without a warrant? The legality of this hinges on users’ expectation of privacy and whether or not Facebook profiles are considered public or private” (Boyd and Ellison, 2007. P.1). The duo further expressed concerns about the digital privacy paradox, as research reported that students using Facebook, there is a disconnect between the desire to protect privacy and their online behaviours (Boyd and Ellison, 2007. p.1). According to Donath and Boyd, the pair similarly express concern articulating that “By making all of one’s connections visible to all the others, social networking sites remove the privacy barriers that people keep between different aspects of their lives” (Donath and Boyd, 2004. p.7). Although raising ethical and safety concerns for social network users, is this perhaps plausible for a participant to create a fake profile and remain anonymous online? Donath and Boyd provide insightful analysis into this issue “It is possible that the connections listed are not real people. There is often little or no verification of people when they sign up to join most networking sites. It is easy to create a false persona; the costs lie in building the network. The determined deceiver can create a series of false profiles and have them link to each other, creating the illusion of a network of well-connected participants” (Donath and Boyd, 2004. p.5) therefore, falsified profiles and identity deception on the one hand, perhaps might solve the issue of privacy, however, produces another ethical issue debate. Moreover, Molz argues within the context of flashpackers, that technologies afford a ‘disconnect’ from both localised experiences, and online (Molz, 2013). Molz expressed that “constant Internet access as an obstacle to ‘real’ connections.” (Molz, 2013. p.1), therefore this notion can be interpreted as technologies and social networks designed to connect people, perhaps may have the opposite of the intended effect, resulting in decreased social connections and isolation. For these reasons, there are several counter-arguments that debate and challenge the dominant argument that the growth of social networks, such as Facebook has profoundly transformed the way people connect and build relationships in the digital public sphere.

Conclusion

Consequently, the proliferation of social networks, including Facebook, has changed the way people connect and establish relationships in the digital public sphere through the dominant notions of a new meaning and understanding of the multifaceted term ‘friend’ and performative aspects afforded by technology such as the public display of connections and constructing one’s virtual identity. In contrast, the counter arguments examined the social cognitive and behavioural sides of social networks, privacy issues, identity deception, and concerns of disconnection. It can be seen that mediated spaces and social networks have to some extent transformed the behaviours, methodology and discourses surrounding social connectivity and establishing relationships. However, it is not without its limitations and concerns, as this remains a topical issue of debate within academic research. Thus, poses the question how will social networks and communication technologies impact users’ relationships in the future?

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