The social norm that I find interesting is the “Wall” type features found on many online profiles, namely, Facebook and Myspace. On Facebook, The Wall feature allows friends to post on each others’ profiles. On Myspace the analogous feature says to “Leave a Comment.” On both websites the posters profile picture appears next to the post, clicking on the photo will bring you to that users own page.
The reason why I chose to analyze the same feature on both websites is that the social norm seems to differ although the functionality is congruous. On Facebook, the convention followed by most wall posters is to post mostly positive, PG rated comments. This makes sense because these posts are public; everyone in that person’s network can see the post, and even if the person does have a limited profile available, the comments left are still visible to all of their friends (and as people tend to have many “friends” on Facebook, the comment will still be visible to many users). When friends joke around with each other and leave more negative comments, they are usually obviously sarcastic and still not vulgar in nature. However, on Myspace, the wall is often used quite differently. You will often see extremely vulgar posts that unlike Facebook can also include videos and pictures. Many users on Myspace seem to give no thought to censoring their comments, which I find interesting since in general Myspace profiles seem to be more easily available for others to read, given Myspace’s search-ability through engines and given that most users can see everyone else’s profile.
Users come to know the norm on both of these websites in similar manners. The initial "sign on the door", is the User Agreement found on both websites. After joining they see what others post on each others wall. If a faux pas is made, such as commenting on your own wall, writing too formally (especially on Myspace), etc, usually a friend with a "raised eyebrown" will post back pointing out your “noobishness.” I think a big reason why the types of wall posts acceptable vary between these two sites is how they were initially marketed. Facebook opened at first to universities only, everyone in the same school identified with the same group, which seemed to lead to positive posts you wouldn’t mind all of your peers seeing. Myspace however, was opened to anyone and everyone all at once, and many of the users are in their teens, thinking nothing of posting vulgarities.
The Leviathan in both these scenarios are moderators who can remove a users profile if they don’t adhere to the rules. To a greater extent, peers act as the Leviathan as Wallace mentions with the idea of self governing; observing the social norm and conforming seems to be what usually causes people to censor (or in the case of Myspace, not censor) their wall posts.
http://comm245yellow.blogspot.com/2007/10/assignment-61-hunting-leviathan-on-ebay.html
http://comm245yellow.blogspot.com/2007/10/damn-leviathan.html
3 comments:
Yeah, I definitely find it interesting that MySpace seems less constrained by a Leviathan than does Facebook, given that the former is much more public and unrestricted. Items posted on MySpace are far more likely to be easily found through a Google search, so the natural conclusion would be that this significantly decreased anonymity would lead to more conformity. However, the fact that MySpace doesn’t restrict its membership may also lead to a dilution of conformity-inducing group identities. Facebook, on the other hand, encourages group identity at almost every opportunity; initially, they did so by only allowing college students to join, and even now students from different schools are segregated off into their own “networks.” In this case it looks like Facebook’s nurturing of group identities trumped MySpace’s increased public identity.
I never thought about this before, but youre absolutely right, for some reason, the leviathan for facebook impedes users from posting inappropriate material (for the most part). whereas, in myspace that is not the case. Even though facebook membership is no longer exclusive to college students, it is my guess that most users do belong to a college network. I would also hypothesize that myspace is much more of an open virtual network, including people of all ages interacting. This leaves more room for individuality. With the acceptance of all different individuals, this leaves the door open for a broader array of themes spread out on different walls. This may be lacking on facebook, perhaps due to a leviathan stating that it used to be, and still should be a network for exclusively college affiliated users? The innerworkings of these virtual networks are interesting to analyze.
Caslynn,
Very intriguing post! As an avid Facebook user myself, I know exactly what you mean when you refer to the positive comment norm. Although I have never had or been on myspace myself, I have friends who tell me about these vulgar or explicit things that people they’ve met once, or not at all, write on their walls. It is very interesting that you noted the difference between these 2 networking sites. Do you think that the Leviathan could also be the users of Facebook and myspace? Once the norm is set (“ok I can say raunchy things here because the person before me did”), it seems that people just conform to messages before them in regards to vulgarity. If someone were to say something very explicit on Facebook, either the person who’s profile it is might delete it, or your friends may question your tact. However, I think that you’re right in that moderators are like the policemen of the online world – they definitely act as a Leviathan of sorts.
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