Chapter 9

About

SOCIAL MEDIA

Is the emergence of digitization changing not only how we communicate but also the very basis of how human societies operate? Digitization is a way of adding to and transforming knowledge into fungible data streams. So many new products and also processes and dimensions of knowledge flow from this. Digitization also affects the arts and the humanities.

We should recognize that the digital, both generally and in terms of social media, is a new force. Social media is creating a new kind of public. Pure democracy—as in ancient Athens when all the adult male citizens convened to debate and determine the polis, the city and its laws and mores—no longer can happen. In theory at least, social media offers an opportunity because it is crowd-sourced. Using social media tools, individuals connect to others both near and distant; individuals coalesce into groups; groups exert force on the commons. In theory, "all" of humankind is potentially online. At the same time, the pervasive, persuasive, and powerful tools of social media can be, and sometimes are, used to deceive, inflame, and exploit people by disseminating lies, fake news, half-truths, and truthiness. What our new society will look like is not predestined, and so we must now decide how to use this new kind of public.

Classroom Activities

PERFORM

1.   Devise an online artwork that involves the participation of people you don't know.
2.   Working with at least two other people (classmates, if possible), launch an online campaign in support of an issue that is important to you. If you have the energy for it, convene a flashmob.
3.   Conceive of an autobiographical solo performance. Perform it three times: once without an audience. Once for a live audience. Once for a streaming audience or for a video posted online. How does the performance change?
4.   Create a performance in which both your physical self and your “second self” perform together, somehow.

WRITE ABOUT

  1. Research one news story that has been reported in different mediums: a TV news program, a journalistic article, a blog, twitter feeds, etc. What similarities and differences do you find in these reportings? What is useful about each method? What might be misleading?
  2. Read Donald Trump’s recent twitter feed. What self is he performing? To which networks is he communicating? How is this method of governance similar to or distinct from other methods?
  3. Reflect on your own understanding of truth. How do you decide what is true? Have you ever decided on truth based on what feels true rather than facts?
  4. Compare at least three of your personal social media profiles (ex. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, etc.) and imagine these as different people altogether. Write a dialogue where these three people interact.
  5. Write a manifesto for effective social media activism.

Sample Discussion Questions

TALK ABOUT

  1. Do you agree with Sherry Turkle that online performing the self is separate from, and negatively affects, in-person interactions? Or do you agree with Nathan Jurgenson that your social media self (or selves) is part of your "augmented self"? Or do you have another idea about the relationship between offline and online performances and identities?
  2. How much does truth matter in the information you share on social media? Do you ever post “truthy” rather than verified information? What about the information you receive?
  3. Using the "is/as" distinction, what is texting, posting, blogging, sending selfies, and so on? Are these "is" performance or "as" performance? Does this distinction affect how you read social media posts?
  4. Do you have any experience with online activism? Do you have any example of proof that it is effective? Or do you think that “clicktivism” is ineffective?
Chapter 10