This is part two of my literature review, continuing from where part one left off. My previous post ended with thoughts on trolls as "actors" and their victims as the "audience" in a performance where the "actors" are the ones deriving entertainment.
I have found a case study to illustrate this. Paul Baker, in his article Moral panic and identity construction in Usenet in the Journal of Computer Mediated Communication (2001 v. 7, i. 1) argues that online identity exists as a process resulting from the interactions between a person, the “actor,” and others, the “audience.” So then, a person constructs his/her identity, but others contribute to that construction via their perceptions of that individual. Their contribution is manifested in the manner in which they treat that individual. Baker discusses a case study in which a troll attacked a Usenet community for fans of the television show Melrose Place, alt.tv.melrose-place. The topic that sparked the conflict was the troll’s anti-gay comments, in which he verbally attacked the target group, gay men. Baker defines six strategies that the other users utilized in order to resolve the moral panic created by the troll, “Macho Joe.” The last one, exposure (or “outing”), entailed all of Joe’s activities on all groups being made public, revealing contradicting messages. Following his exposure, the users realized he was simply provoking them, his identity within the group was changed, and the conflict was dropped. “Macho Joe” claimed to continue verbally attacking the target social group, gay men, in the alt.tv.melrose-place community in order to elicit the reactions of the politically correct people there, which he found amusing. His real targets were the other users, not gay men.
Baker also discussed "moral panic," in which a community encounters a dilemma, to which they collectively attempt to find a solution. After arriving at an acceptable one, there is return to normalcy. In this case, the community's uprising against the troll Macho Joe is the moral panic.
If Macho Joe's motivation to attack the alt.tv.melrose-place community truly was simply for the entertainment of watching the users' reactions, then he is similar to so many other trolls who claim to "do it for the lulz." But are they really trying to create situations of moral panic?
At this point I would like to make a distinction between "flaming" and "trolling." Trolling involves setting “bait” for unwitting people while flames are openly antagonistic attacks on a person or group of people. A troll is harmless to the person who does not take the bait. They are two distinct forms of "deviant" behavior on the Internet. I place "deviant" in quotation marks because what is and is not "deviant" on the Internet is not always clearly defined. As Janice Denegri-Knott and Jacqui Taylor note in the article The Labeling Game: A Conceptual Exploration of Deviance on the Internet in Social Science Computer Review, Special Issue: Deviance and the Internet: New Challenges for Social Science (v. 23 i. 1, 2005), "deviant" behaviors on the Internet are conceptualized mainly in terms of similar real-life behaviors (p. 94). Strictly defined, "deviant" indicates "not normal" or "departing from the norm" (from Dictionary.com, accessed February 25, 2009). But if a behavior that is defined as deviant in real-life (such as illegal downloading, to use Denegri-Knott's and Taylor's example) yet it qualifies as normal on the Internet, is it still deviant (note the distinction between "illegal" and "deviant")?
And when it comes to trolling, what is the real-life equivalent? This remains unclear, as does trolling's classification as "deviant" behavior. In some communities, trolling is very commonplace, especially in those communities mentioned in my previous post where trolling is used as a means to solidify group identity through shared knowledge/injokes. In other places... not so much. Trolling would likely be considered deviant on a cancer victim support group on Facebook, for instance. Denegri-Knott and Taylor have a workable definition: "a nonconformance to a given set of norms that are accepted by a significant number of people in a community or a society" (p. 97). However, this definition is very subjective and difficult to measure. Denegri-Knott and Taylor suggest that it can be addressed with the social identity deindividuation effects model, aka SIDE, in which the norms people follow depend on whether they identify themselves more in terms of the group or as their own individual selves. Stronger identification with the group leads to stronger influence of the group norms (p. 101). This is all well and good, except that a unique set of norms will develop in each different online community.
What role does anonymity play in trolling behavior? Less accountability and fewer repercussions are two aspects of Internet anonymity that are often attributed as enablers, if not motivations, to troll. These fall within John Suler's categories of dissociative anonymity, invisibility, and minimization of status and authority, which (along with three other factors) he considers to be related to the online disinhibition effect, which he describes in the article The Online Disinhibition Effect in CyberPsychology & Behavior (v. 7, i. 3, 2004).
The research on troll behavior is patchy at best. To begin with, it is difficult to operationally define. Tepper and Donath give us two, contrasting definitions of trolling, which are really two different behavior patterns occurring in different contexts. There are likely more distinct behavior patterns that fall within the vague category of "trolling." Next, is trolling deviant behavior? Assuming that it is deviant at least some of the time, when, where, and what type of trolling is deviant? Furthermore, what purpose does trolling (all types) serve? To reinforce group identity, to identify outsiders, and to entertain oneself have all been suggested as some of the motivations behind trolling. It is clear that a more systematic investigation is needed in order to first define trolling in its various manifestations and then to probe its function and meaning within online social interaction.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Literature Review I
Okay, this is part one of the literature review.
What exactly is my topic? Where am I going with all this business about trolls?
The basic premise is that trolling occurs in abundance on the Internet, but not (at least not visibly) in "real life." So then, there must be something about the context of the Internet that is particularly conducive to trolling. The anonymity of the Internet, lack of accountability, and resulting freedom of speech and/or action (so to say) are potential factors. It is a new context for social interaction in which people can be more or less anonymous, and can be alone yet very, very public.
The question I am exploring is thus: Is trolling a response to this new context? A response to the collapse? Is trolling behavior the result of people trying to define a new social situation by pushing the limits of traditional social norms (i.e., generally polite behavior)?
Let us look at early trolling. Michele Tepper, in chapter 3 of Internet Culture, ed. David Porter, describes troll dynamics in Usenet groups, such as alt.folklore.urban, as a sort of game of information. The game reveals who is an insider of the community and who is an outsider (see chapter 3, Usenet Communities and the Cultural Politics of Information, on Google Books). Some of the "bait" put out to catch unwitting newbies is made up of inside jokes, group habits, basically things that are part of the collective memory of the community, and therefore part of the group's identity. This is an older book, published in 1997, but useful as a sort of historical (if only 12 years old) perspective on trolling.
(Interesting sidenote: alt.folklore.urban is the precursor of snopes.com, the site that debunks popular urban myths.)
But that's just one kind of trolling. There's a totally different kind of trolling where outsiders set "bait" for the members of a particular group. In chapter 2 of Communities in CyberSpace, ed. Marc Smith and Peter Kollock, Identity and deception in the virtual community (on Google books, scroll to page 45), Judith Donath describes this more aggressive type of trolling behavior as a form of identity deception that can potentially disrupt the community's interactions, as opposed to strengthening the ties between insiders through some shared injoke, as in Tepper's version of trolling.
Donath refers to trolling as "category deception," (p. 49). That is, trolls are acting, playing a role in order to deceive people into believing they are a certain type of person (such as a naive kid, an idiot, etc.). Except, in this type of acting the actor is the one who is entertained.
More to come.
What exactly is my topic? Where am I going with all this business about trolls?
The basic premise is that trolling occurs in abundance on the Internet, but not (at least not visibly) in "real life." So then, there must be something about the context of the Internet that is particularly conducive to trolling. The anonymity of the Internet, lack of accountability, and resulting freedom of speech and/or action (so to say) are potential factors. It is a new context for social interaction in which people can be more or less anonymous, and can be alone yet very, very public.
The question I am exploring is thus: Is trolling a response to this new context? A response to the collapse? Is trolling behavior the result of people trying to define a new social situation by pushing the limits of traditional social norms (i.e., generally polite behavior)?
Let us look at early trolling. Michele Tepper, in chapter 3 of Internet Culture, ed. David Porter, describes troll dynamics in Usenet groups, such as alt.folklore.urban, as a sort of game of information. The game reveals who is an insider of the community and who is an outsider (see chapter 3, Usenet Communities and the Cultural Politics of Information, on Google Books). Some of the "bait" put out to catch unwitting newbies is made up of inside jokes, group habits, basically things that are part of the collective memory of the community, and therefore part of the group's identity. This is an older book, published in 1997, but useful as a sort of historical (if only 12 years old) perspective on trolling.
(Interesting sidenote: alt.folklore.urban is the precursor of snopes.com, the site that debunks popular urban myths.)
But that's just one kind of trolling. There's a totally different kind of trolling where outsiders set "bait" for the members of a particular group. In chapter 2 of Communities in CyberSpace, ed. Marc Smith and Peter Kollock, Identity and deception in the virtual community (on Google books, scroll to page 45), Judith Donath describes this more aggressive type of trolling behavior as a form of identity deception that can potentially disrupt the community's interactions, as opposed to strengthening the ties between insiders through some shared injoke, as in Tepper's version of trolling.
Donath refers to trolling as "category deception," (p. 49). That is, trolls are acting, playing a role in order to deceive people into believing they are a certain type of person (such as a naive kid, an idiot, etc.). Except, in this type of acting the actor is the one who is entertained.
More to come.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Reflections IV
Media and Behavior: A Missing Link, chapter 2 of No Sense of Place by Joshua Meyrowitz
1. Electronic media: it's like a synthesis of all previous media, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
What does this synthesis look like? Well, oral communication is commonplace: cell phones, Skype, webcam, vlog, etc. Written communication is also everywhere: blogs, search engines, databases, message boards, etc.
Then there are things like tags, status updates, and text messaging. Would these be a middle ground between oral and literary communication? They are text-based, but happen in real time....
2. Meyerowitz says that one of the reasons there has been little interest in the effects of media environments is because they are invisible. I would argue that the Internet as a media environment is much more visible than others. It is something we say we “go to;” it is made of sites, with addresses. There are distinct communities. How is that not visible?
3. Do we live in a Global Village? I’ve never been particularly fond of the term…to me it seems like the phrase “global village” grasps all of the innovative technology and worldwide connectedness and none of the new forms of asocial behavior and divisive conflicts that come with it.
4. I do like Goffman’s idea of the “multiplicity of roles.” As in, all the world is NOT a stage, but rather it is MANY stages. It deals with the relationship between people’s behavior in certain situations and how they want to/think they should appear in those situations. Do we create “characters” of ourselves on the Internet? Oh yes, we do. (It’s super easy, because as everyone is aware, no one on the Internet knows you’re a dog.) The information about oneself that one communicates on the Internet is limited to what one chooses to divulge: speech, writing, image, etc. can change to reflect the desired “character.”
5. Social situations: what is the context of the Internet?
What behaviors are not allowed on the Internet? Are there any? LOL. I would say that situational definitions of the Internet are not clearly defined at all. Without physical interaction, some social cues (that would normally carry important information about the context) are lost. Nevertheless, trolling/hating/flaming falls within the context of most large social networks and sites with user-generated content. It’s usually expected that there will be some users who behave like this, and in some cases (i.e., 4chan), it’s guaranteed. Even on YouTube you don’t have to look far to find it. Perhaps they are attempting to define the situational definitions of these contexts by pushing the limits? Lots of research supports the concept that the situation influences the behavior, to the extent that people will do extremely bad things, given the right conditions (see classic studies by Zimbardo and Milgram). But when the context itself is unclear, what then? And when the situation is virtual, might the individual participants perceive it differently? If so, then trolling may seem like perfectly acceptable behavior to the troll while completely asocial to the troll’s target.
YouTube and You: Experiences of Self-Awareness in the Context Collapse of the Recording Webcam, by Michael Wesch
Speaking of contexts… perhaps what is actually going on here is a context collapse. Too many contexts, more than you can count, and some you don’t even know about! It’s easy to see how those aforementioned situation definitions can get impossibly complex. Maybe it is a characteristic of Internet social interaction that the situation is indefinable?
1. Electronic media: it's like a synthesis of all previous media, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
What does this synthesis look like? Well, oral communication is commonplace: cell phones, Skype, webcam, vlog, etc. Written communication is also everywhere: blogs, search engines, databases, message boards, etc.
Then there are things like tags, status updates, and text messaging. Would these be a middle ground between oral and literary communication? They are text-based, but happen in real time....
2. Meyerowitz says that one of the reasons there has been little interest in the effects of media environments is because they are invisible. I would argue that the Internet as a media environment is much more visible than others. It is something we say we “go to;” it is made of sites, with addresses. There are distinct communities. How is that not visible?
3. Do we live in a Global Village? I’ve never been particularly fond of the term…to me it seems like the phrase “global village” grasps all of the innovative technology and worldwide connectedness and none of the new forms of asocial behavior and divisive conflicts that come with it.
4. I do like Goffman’s idea of the “multiplicity of roles.” As in, all the world is NOT a stage, but rather it is MANY stages. It deals with the relationship between people’s behavior in certain situations and how they want to/think they should appear in those situations. Do we create “characters” of ourselves on the Internet? Oh yes, we do. (It’s super easy, because as everyone is aware, no one on the Internet knows you’re a dog.) The information about oneself that one communicates on the Internet is limited to what one chooses to divulge: speech, writing, image, etc. can change to reflect the desired “character.”
5. Social situations: what is the context of the Internet?
What behaviors are not allowed on the Internet? Are there any? LOL. I would say that situational definitions of the Internet are not clearly defined at all. Without physical interaction, some social cues (that would normally carry important information about the context) are lost. Nevertheless, trolling/hating/flaming falls within the context of most large social networks and sites with user-generated content. It’s usually expected that there will be some users who behave like this, and in some cases (i.e., 4chan), it’s guaranteed. Even on YouTube you don’t have to look far to find it. Perhaps they are attempting to define the situational definitions of these contexts by pushing the limits? Lots of research supports the concept that the situation influences the behavior, to the extent that people will do extremely bad things, given the right conditions (see classic studies by Zimbardo and Milgram). But when the context itself is unclear, what then? And when the situation is virtual, might the individual participants perceive it differently? If so, then trolling may seem like perfectly acceptable behavior to the troll while completely asocial to the troll’s target.
YouTube and You: Experiences of Self-Awareness in the Context Collapse of the Recording Webcam, by Michael Wesch
Speaking of contexts… perhaps what is actually going on here is a context collapse. Too many contexts, more than you can count, and some you don’t even know about! It’s easy to see how those aforementioned situation definitions can get impossibly complex. Maybe it is a characteristic of Internet social interaction that the situation is indefinable?
Monday, February 16, 2009
Reflections III
Overview of Media Ecology, by Lum
Lum’s overview deals with how we as humans perceive media as sources of sensory information. Specifically, different media provide sensory information dependent on the type of media. That is, the nature of sensory information of an audio recording is different from that of written text. Incidentally, the media of the Internet can be a highly complex combo of audio/visual/literary/tactile/? information that creates an entirely novel setting or environment for the exchange of information. Lum discusses the environment of the Internet and lists a set of theoretical propositions regarding media and communication; they are here in brief:
1: Different media = different structures = different information
(even when the source is the same.)
2: There are biases inherent in each form of media.
(Is a picture worth a thousand words? Maybe, but those words convey a different message than the picture does.)
3: These biases affect the relationship between technology and culture.
But which way does it go? According to Lum, this process falls on a continuum: soft determinisim (culture affects technology) to hard determinism (technology affects culture). Of course there is a middle, too: a symbiotic relationship between the two.
Lum describes four “epochs” of communication: orality, literacy, typography, electronic media. The first three are pretty straightforward, with the idea being that there is a fundamental change in the way knowledge is transmitted, received, organized, and perceived following the introduction of new media.
The fourth, electronic media, blows all its communication technology predecessors out of the water. Lum describes how through each “epoch” knowledge becomes more easily recorded, accessed, shared, and learned. But in the epoch of electronic media especially, we’ve taken it a step further: now we can create machines/programs/applications that learn and organize this information for us; we can build our knowledge faster and more efficiently by using the technology as a sort of springboard or a booster. It’s like taking the elevator to the top floor when previously you had to expend the time and effort to walk up flight after flight of stairs.
Also, electronic media is complicated (no, really). There is a high level of interaction that was not possible in earlier “epochs” due to the constraints of time and space. But with the Internet especially, the distance between people does not matter; space is irrelevant. And things are increasingly happening in real time (status updates, etc.). Does this affect how we use this technology?
Of course it does. That’s a silly question. That’s why popular things like Facebook have applications compatible with cell phones, so that people can use them whenever, wherever. And when the technology makes it possible for you to update your status anytime and anywhere, of course you will do just that. So people adapt to the technology as the technology is developed to adapt to people’s demand.
So this brings us back to determinism: does technology determine culture or does culture determine technology? I tend to take the middle ground; sometimes one and sometimes the other.
What does this mean for my project? Well, trolling is something more or less unique to the setting of electronic media. If the goal of trolling is indeed to get a reaction out of people (who can do nothing to get back at the troll), then this is really the only type of communication setting in which that is possible. So did the Internet create the trolls or is trolling just an adaptation to the technology of the Internet? Hmm....
Web ushers in age of ambient intimacy, Clive Thompson
Ah, the Facebook news feed. I remember when that appeared. Yes, there were people known as Facebook stalkers before the feed – those kids who spent hours looking through other people’s photo albums and wall posts without actually communicating with them. Everyone did it every now and then.
But then came the news feed, and suddenly Facebook did the stalking for you! Stalkerbook! Now you know everything you never wanted to know about your friends, because it is all organized nice and neat on your homepage, with timestamps and thumbnails, a perfect record of others’ activities, ready for your perusal. Now everyone can be a creeper. ;) And what’s more, now everything YOU do is brought to the attention of your friends, as well.
It made a lot of people rethink what information they really wanted about themselves on their Facebook. Not that it stopped them. The privacy feature was added, but despite that, users came to rely on news feed to learn what’s up with their friends.
Thompson quote’s Mark Zuckerberg as saying, “A lot of this is just social norms catching up with what technology is capable of.”
This is very interesting. Did social norms change in response to the introduction of the news feed? I would say people are definitely more comfortable with ‘going public,’ but is it because social norms have changed, or is it just that the news feed forced people to realize just how public they already were? Yes – because after people got comfortable with it and quietly adjusted their individual privacy settings, news feed became wildly popular, in general.
About this concept of “ambient awareness,” then: why is it that people update Facebook/Twitter with all the little, meaningless things they do each day? Thompson suggests that the continuous flow of information over time from everyone serves to (in a sense) bring us closer to them, at times streamlining communication with them. No need for asking how one is or what one has been up to. Can this potentially make us feel less isolated from each other, as Thompson says? Sure it can, if you truly feel you are connected to the people whose statuses you read. A relationship that is primarily maintained through technology is easy. No effort required; the data is all in the system, updates will be sent directly to your feed as your ‘friend’ publishes them. So two people need not directly communicate with each other in order to have a relationship; the technology takes care of it for them. But as Thompson notes, this is a loose tie… strong ties take more personal effort. But exactly how loose are ‘Twitter-ties’? When can you truly say you know someone? When you’ve met them? When you know their likes and dislikes, their goals in life? When you are familiar with their daily routine? I think that relationships are being redefined… the word ‘friend’ is especially ambiguous these days. Are friends people you know personally, or is the word ‘friends’ simply a label for a category of people with whom you hold loose ties on a community such as Facebook?
And what’s more, when you are updating about yourself as the people you are with simultaneously update about themselves and those around them, uploading pictures and changing statuses, your online identity is more than simply what you want it to be. With something as tied to our ‘real’ identity as Facebook is, it is hard to separate the two sometimes. Thompson describes the dilemma of some student athletes who want to go out and party but are taking a bigger risk than in the past because of how connected those around them are. Who doesn’t check their Facebook to see if any embarrassing/unwanted information has been posted about them? Sometimes, this super-connectedness with a bazillion loose ties can be a bad thing. But will it ever reach a point when people will back off from it, abandon some of their ties in favor of a smaller social group?
Regarding my project: Trolls like to attack people who (they perceive) have too-big egos, a sense of self-importance. Updating one’s status constantly with information about yourself has a quality of narcissism to it. It would makes sense, then, that trolls would attack users of Twitter, as they did last month.
Lum’s overview deals with how we as humans perceive media as sources of sensory information. Specifically, different media provide sensory information dependent on the type of media. That is, the nature of sensory information of an audio recording is different from that of written text. Incidentally, the media of the Internet can be a highly complex combo of audio/visual/literary/tactile/? information that creates an entirely novel setting or environment for the exchange of information. Lum discusses the environment of the Internet and lists a set of theoretical propositions regarding media and communication; they are here in brief:
1: Different media = different structures = different information
(even when the source is the same.)
2: There are biases inherent in each form of media.
(Is a picture worth a thousand words? Maybe, but those words convey a different message than the picture does.)
3: These biases affect the relationship between technology and culture.
But which way does it go? According to Lum, this process falls on a continuum: soft determinisim (culture affects technology) to hard determinism (technology affects culture). Of course there is a middle, too: a symbiotic relationship between the two.
Lum describes four “epochs” of communication: orality, literacy, typography, electronic media. The first three are pretty straightforward, with the idea being that there is a fundamental change in the way knowledge is transmitted, received, organized, and perceived following the introduction of new media.
The fourth, electronic media, blows all its communication technology predecessors out of the water. Lum describes how through each “epoch” knowledge becomes more easily recorded, accessed, shared, and learned. But in the epoch of electronic media especially, we’ve taken it a step further: now we can create machines/programs/applications that learn and organize this information for us; we can build our knowledge faster and more efficiently by using the technology as a sort of springboard or a booster. It’s like taking the elevator to the top floor when previously you had to expend the time and effort to walk up flight after flight of stairs.
Also, electronic media is complicated (no, really). There is a high level of interaction that was not possible in earlier “epochs” due to the constraints of time and space. But with the Internet especially, the distance between people does not matter; space is irrelevant. And things are increasingly happening in real time (status updates, etc.). Does this affect how we use this technology?
Of course it does. That’s a silly question. That’s why popular things like Facebook have applications compatible with cell phones, so that people can use them whenever, wherever. And when the technology makes it possible for you to update your status anytime and anywhere, of course you will do just that. So people adapt to the technology as the technology is developed to adapt to people’s demand.
So this brings us back to determinism: does technology determine culture or does culture determine technology? I tend to take the middle ground; sometimes one and sometimes the other.
What does this mean for my project? Well, trolling is something more or less unique to the setting of electronic media. If the goal of trolling is indeed to get a reaction out of people (who can do nothing to get back at the troll), then this is really the only type of communication setting in which that is possible. So did the Internet create the trolls or is trolling just an adaptation to the technology of the Internet? Hmm....
Web ushers in age of ambient intimacy, Clive Thompson
Ah, the Facebook news feed. I remember when that appeared. Yes, there were people known as Facebook stalkers before the feed – those kids who spent hours looking through other people’s photo albums and wall posts without actually communicating with them. Everyone did it every now and then.
But then came the news feed, and suddenly Facebook did the stalking for you! Stalkerbook! Now you know everything you never wanted to know about your friends, because it is all organized nice and neat on your homepage, with timestamps and thumbnails, a perfect record of others’ activities, ready for your perusal. Now everyone can be a creeper. ;) And what’s more, now everything YOU do is brought to the attention of your friends, as well.
It made a lot of people rethink what information they really wanted about themselves on their Facebook. Not that it stopped them. The privacy feature was added, but despite that, users came to rely on news feed to learn what’s up with their friends.
Thompson quote’s Mark Zuckerberg as saying, “A lot of this is just social norms catching up with what technology is capable of.”
This is very interesting. Did social norms change in response to the introduction of the news feed? I would say people are definitely more comfortable with ‘going public,’ but is it because social norms have changed, or is it just that the news feed forced people to realize just how public they already were? Yes – because after people got comfortable with it and quietly adjusted their individual privacy settings, news feed became wildly popular, in general.
About this concept of “ambient awareness,” then: why is it that people update Facebook/Twitter with all the little, meaningless things they do each day? Thompson suggests that the continuous flow of information over time from everyone serves to (in a sense) bring us closer to them, at times streamlining communication with them. No need for asking how one is or what one has been up to. Can this potentially make us feel less isolated from each other, as Thompson says? Sure it can, if you truly feel you are connected to the people whose statuses you read. A relationship that is primarily maintained through technology is easy. No effort required; the data is all in the system, updates will be sent directly to your feed as your ‘friend’ publishes them. So two people need not directly communicate with each other in order to have a relationship; the technology takes care of it for them. But as Thompson notes, this is a loose tie… strong ties take more personal effort. But exactly how loose are ‘Twitter-ties’? When can you truly say you know someone? When you’ve met them? When you know their likes and dislikes, their goals in life? When you are familiar with their daily routine? I think that relationships are being redefined… the word ‘friend’ is especially ambiguous these days. Are friends people you know personally, or is the word ‘friends’ simply a label for a category of people with whom you hold loose ties on a community such as Facebook?
And what’s more, when you are updating about yourself as the people you are with simultaneously update about themselves and those around them, uploading pictures and changing statuses, your online identity is more than simply what you want it to be. With something as tied to our ‘real’ identity as Facebook is, it is hard to separate the two sometimes. Thompson describes the dilemma of some student athletes who want to go out and party but are taking a bigger risk than in the past because of how connected those around them are. Who doesn’t check their Facebook to see if any embarrassing/unwanted information has been posted about them? Sometimes, this super-connectedness with a bazillion loose ties can be a bad thing. But will it ever reach a point when people will back off from it, abandon some of their ties in favor of a smaller social group?
Regarding my project: Trolls like to attack people who (they perceive) have too-big egos, a sense of self-importance. Updating one’s status constantly with information about yourself has a quality of narcissism to it. It would makes sense, then, that trolls would attack users of Twitter, as they did last month.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Reflections II
Looking Backwards, Looking Forward: Cyberculture Studies 1990-2000, by David Silver
Silver describes the study of cyberculture as it has developed during the 1990s, dividing it into three stages. My part of the anonymity project is about trolls, so I would like to make a few comments in regard to trolls within the context of this article.
The story of Mr. Bungle on LambdaMoo is definitely an account of an early troll. Silver touches on the fact that the Internet lacks a physical environment. This, in addition to allowing people to make up new identities, also allows them to go without identities at all. A lack of physical environment makes it difficult to enforce rules of conduct and control for undesirable behavior (in the case of Mr. Bungle, the worst that the perpetrator suffered was the deletion of his/her account on the community). This combination of characteristics of an online community makes trolling so easy, I believe. I have thought about the lack of accountability and repercussions as possible motivations for troll behavior, and this case certainly illustrates that. Mr. Bungle’s actions were clearly against the community’s established rules of acceptable behavior, a distinct set of social norms, yet there was very little that could be done about it. Still today, there is not much one can do about trolls aside from deleting their work or banning their accounts. It is doubtful that trolls even consider it risky behavior; belonging to the community they troll must not mean much to them since they are attacking its members, and therefore the threat of potentially being banned really should not affect them much. So where’s the thrill of danger in that? I think I can rule that out as a motivation….
Regarding critical cyberculture studies, Silver mentions a study be McLaughlin et al., in which “they deduce seven categories of reproachable behavior, including novice use of technology, bandwidth waste, ethical violations, and inappropriate language” (p. 6). I would argue that the exact nature and relative importance of each of these categories varies from community to community. For example, what is “inappropriate language” on 4chan? It is obviously much different than the “inappropriate language” elsewhere, such as on a self-help forum. Trolls know what is appropriate behavior, and they deliberately go against it. So the same question remains: why is violating rules, even unwritten ones, so entertaining?
Post-Human Anthropology by Neil Whitehead
Reading Whitehead’s article brought up some fundamental issues of studying the so-called “Internet culture.” Typically, cultures, while obviously constantly changing, are thought to exist in time and space. But there is no physical location for the Internet. Similarly, everyone knows there are lots of people “on” the Internet, yet no one is physically there. All that is required for someone to take part in the Internet is the necessary equipment. Whitehead’s “I am like you” approach therefore makes sense. To study people “on” the Internet, one must become a person “on” the Internet (if not already), and therefore enter Internet culture the same way everyone else does: by starting up the connection.
There is also the dilemma of the historical “instability of the category of human” (p. 22). Early explorers and colonizers wondered whether to classify the people they encountered/extorted/enslaved as human or not. In the present time we use a special, dehumanizing term for a person who behaves in a certain way that is against accepted social norms (that would be “troll”). The word itself, previously reserved for mythical, unpleasant creatures inhabiting the underside of bridges, implies “not human.” So I wonder: do non-trolls consider trolls to be inhuman? Or at the very least, less human than themselves?
Silver describes the study of cyberculture as it has developed during the 1990s, dividing it into three stages. My part of the anonymity project is about trolls, so I would like to make a few comments in regard to trolls within the context of this article.
The story of Mr. Bungle on LambdaMoo is definitely an account of an early troll. Silver touches on the fact that the Internet lacks a physical environment. This, in addition to allowing people to make up new identities, also allows them to go without identities at all. A lack of physical environment makes it difficult to enforce rules of conduct and control for undesirable behavior (in the case of Mr. Bungle, the worst that the perpetrator suffered was the deletion of his/her account on the community). This combination of characteristics of an online community makes trolling so easy, I believe. I have thought about the lack of accountability and repercussions as possible motivations for troll behavior, and this case certainly illustrates that. Mr. Bungle’s actions were clearly against the community’s established rules of acceptable behavior, a distinct set of social norms, yet there was very little that could be done about it. Still today, there is not much one can do about trolls aside from deleting their work or banning their accounts. It is doubtful that trolls even consider it risky behavior; belonging to the community they troll must not mean much to them since they are attacking its members, and therefore the threat of potentially being banned really should not affect them much. So where’s the thrill of danger in that? I think I can rule that out as a motivation….
Regarding critical cyberculture studies, Silver mentions a study be McLaughlin et al., in which “they deduce seven categories of reproachable behavior, including novice use of technology, bandwidth waste, ethical violations, and inappropriate language” (p. 6). I would argue that the exact nature and relative importance of each of these categories varies from community to community. For example, what is “inappropriate language” on 4chan? It is obviously much different than the “inappropriate language” elsewhere, such as on a self-help forum. Trolls know what is appropriate behavior, and they deliberately go against it. So the same question remains: why is violating rules, even unwritten ones, so entertaining?
Post-Human Anthropology by Neil Whitehead
Reading Whitehead’s article brought up some fundamental issues of studying the so-called “Internet culture.” Typically, cultures, while obviously constantly changing, are thought to exist in time and space. But there is no physical location for the Internet. Similarly, everyone knows there are lots of people “on” the Internet, yet no one is physically there. All that is required for someone to take part in the Internet is the necessary equipment. Whitehead’s “I am like you” approach therefore makes sense. To study people “on” the Internet, one must become a person “on” the Internet (if not already), and therefore enter Internet culture the same way everyone else does: by starting up the connection.
There is also the dilemma of the historical “instability of the category of human” (p. 22). Early explorers and colonizers wondered whether to classify the people they encountered/extorted/enslaved as human or not. In the present time we use a special, dehumanizing term for a person who behaves in a certain way that is against accepted social norms (that would be “troll”). The word itself, previously reserved for mythical, unpleasant creatures inhabiting the underside of bridges, implies “not human.” So I wonder: do non-trolls consider trolls to be inhuman? Or at the very least, less human than themselves?
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Reflections
Christine Hine – The Virtual Objects of Ethnography
This article is about how to do Internet ethnography. Culture on the Internet obviously cannot be studied using traditional ethnographic methods.
I think that it is very important to keep in mind that, even though it is all human behavior, there is a distinction between behavior on the Internet and in real life. There is no easy way to separate the two, since what people do in real life apparently affects behavior on the Internet, and potentially vice versa. The article offers several methodological suggestions for conducting ethnographic research on the Internet. It is a bit outdated, however: I think that in the present time, the difference between “text” and “interaction” is much less distinct. Actually, the distinction seems to be dissolving. Hine’s list of categories of sites is obsolete, and many of the major things developed since the publication of the article have to do with social networking. Interactions at these places are much closer to Hine’s definition of “interaction” than any of the others on the list. Does this make decisions about the methodology for ethnography simpler? Not really – but it probably makes observing and participating a bit easier.
Yochai Benkler – The Weath of Networks, Ch. 10
Does the Internet strengthen existing relationships or allow for looser ones? The development of the Internet as a tool for communication is likened to the inventions of other communications technologies of the past, according to Benkler. I agree with this, especially in that as their use increases, so does their sophistication as devices of communication over increasing distances. The Internet today is so much different from the early Internet – perhaps the two are as different as a cell phone is from a telegraph.
But are people who communicate with speed and ease through the Internet sacrificing their real life relationships by physical isolation? Benkler describes several studies that found Internet usage to be detrimental to social relations. A fundamental point is that there are only surface comparisons between online relationships and real life ones. What if someone finds their online friends, who share similar interests, to be more engaging and better conversation partners than the people they know in real life? Is there any study that looks at the value people place on their online relationships? Benkler suggests that how we connect with people “changes over time” as people adopt new methods of communication. Exactly how much does the lack of physical interaction weaken a relationship?
This article is about how to do Internet ethnography. Culture on the Internet obviously cannot be studied using traditional ethnographic methods.
I think that it is very important to keep in mind that, even though it is all human behavior, there is a distinction between behavior on the Internet and in real life. There is no easy way to separate the two, since what people do in real life apparently affects behavior on the Internet, and potentially vice versa. The article offers several methodological suggestions for conducting ethnographic research on the Internet. It is a bit outdated, however: I think that in the present time, the difference between “text” and “interaction” is much less distinct. Actually, the distinction seems to be dissolving. Hine’s list of categories of sites is obsolete, and many of the major things developed since the publication of the article have to do with social networking. Interactions at these places are much closer to Hine’s definition of “interaction” than any of the others on the list. Does this make decisions about the methodology for ethnography simpler? Not really – but it probably makes observing and participating a bit easier.
Yochai Benkler – The Weath of Networks, Ch. 10
Does the Internet strengthen existing relationships or allow for looser ones? The development of the Internet as a tool for communication is likened to the inventions of other communications technologies of the past, according to Benkler. I agree with this, especially in that as their use increases, so does their sophistication as devices of communication over increasing distances. The Internet today is so much different from the early Internet – perhaps the two are as different as a cell phone is from a telegraph.
But are people who communicate with speed and ease through the Internet sacrificing their real life relationships by physical isolation? Benkler describes several studies that found Internet usage to be detrimental to social relations. A fundamental point is that there are only surface comparisons between online relationships and real life ones. What if someone finds their online friends, who share similar interests, to be more engaging and better conversation partners than the people they know in real life? Is there any study that looks at the value people place on their online relationships? Benkler suggests that how we connect with people “changes over time” as people adopt new methods of communication. Exactly how much does the lack of physical interaction weaken a relationship?
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Updates
Ugh. Technology sucks when it fails.
Anyway, here is an updated research proposal and trailer:
The Internet is crawling with trolls. Not the kind that live under bridges, but the kind that spill rude comments, threats, and pull pranks on others online. They are also called haters, griefers and so on. But why do people troll? Do they behave the same way – say and do the same things – in “real” life?
The anonymity of social venues such as the Internet creates a totally different environment for social interaction. Social inhibitions are lower under conditions of anonymity, which allows for fewer consequences and less accountability for the things a person says and does. But if one asks a troll why they troll, the troll might simply respond, “for the lulz.”
So, trolling is fun for the trolls. But why? Why is it so entertaining? Is it because there are little (if any) repercussions? What other factors are at play here?
I propose that the anonymous nature of online interactions allows for a completely different set of social norms as opposed to “real life.” Additionally, depending on the specific online community, there are different subsets of social norms. That is, troll activity differs from community to community. In order to investigate this, I plan to observe and compare trolling activity on a variety of sites, looking for patterns in content and frequency. My observations will be compared with previously published literature on trolling and online behavior.
Trolls are part of life on the Internet. Their actions may be extreme, but trolls are people too; they are not distorted creatures underneath a bridge. Understanding where and how trolling occurs could potentially lead to understanding the motivations behind trolls’ behavior, providing insights into the social norms of the Internet.
Anyway, here is an updated research proposal and trailer:
The Internet is crawling with trolls. Not the kind that live under bridges, but the kind that spill rude comments, threats, and pull pranks on others online. They are also called haters, griefers and so on. But why do people troll? Do they behave the same way – say and do the same things – in “real” life?
The anonymity of social venues such as the Internet creates a totally different environment for social interaction. Social inhibitions are lower under conditions of anonymity, which allows for fewer consequences and less accountability for the things a person says and does. But if one asks a troll why they troll, the troll might simply respond, “for the lulz.”
So, trolling is fun for the trolls. But why? Why is it so entertaining? Is it because there are little (if any) repercussions? What other factors are at play here?
I propose that the anonymous nature of online interactions allows for a completely different set of social norms as opposed to “real life.” Additionally, depending on the specific online community, there are different subsets of social norms. That is, troll activity differs from community to community. In order to investigate this, I plan to observe and compare trolling activity on a variety of sites, looking for patterns in content and frequency. My observations will be compared with previously published literature on trolling and online behavior.
Trolls are part of life on the Internet. Their actions may be extreme, but trolls are people too; they are not distorted creatures underneath a bridge. Understanding where and how trolling occurs could potentially lead to understanding the motivations behind trolls’ behavior, providing insights into the social norms of the Internet.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
So here is my second trailer. First attempt at uploading it failed... second time did too. Third time's a charm?
I am posting the video now because I have to, but there is something wrong with it: everything plays okay in the project file, but after rendering it the audio sort of... moves. It doesn't match up anymore. So this is a problem that I will continue to work on, but for now here is version 2:
I am posting the video now because I have to, but there is something wrong with it: everything plays okay in the project file, but after rendering it the audio sort of... moves. It doesn't match up anymore. So this is a problem that I will continue to work on, but for now here is version 2:
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