This is My Brain Online

This is my brain online

THIS

IS

MY BRAIN ONLINE

Entertaining face-work, media extension, and all things 2.0

Gary Shilling

January 17, 2008

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This is my brain online

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In this electric age we see ourselves being translated more and more into the form of information, moving toward the technological extension of our consciousness. That is what is meant when we say that we daily know more and more about man. We mean that we can translate more and more of ourselves into other forms of expression that exceed ourselves (McLuhan, 1964/2001, p. 57).

I HAVE GOOGLE BRAIN, Facebook friends, a blogosphere of ideas, and I can haz cheezburger. This is a good thing. The “connected intelligence” (Derrick de Kerckhove, 1997, title) of the Internet (complete with spelling errors) is my new sandbox. It is a place to socialise, learn, work, and express myself. Web 2.0 technology has enabled a global metadiscourse between strangers, friends, and consumers to the extent that the online world has become embedded in the performance of our everyday lives. Accompanied along with this “extension of [hu]man[ity]” (McLuhan, 1964/2001) is a new hierarchy of thought, presence, and community. As we sit at our computers clicking, double-clicking, and restarting (Windows users only) we tend to take for granted the entry our software interface provides into the connected googolplex of the world’s data. In Interface Culture, Johnston (1997) takes on the challenge of understanding the vital role that interface design plays in modern society. The interface is a concoction of art and science, without which, we would still be sitting at a blinking DOS prompt wondering what to do. As Johnston puts it, the term computer is somewhat of a misnomer. It is not the mathematical calculations that move us: “The crucial technological breakthrough lies instead in the idea of the computer as a symbolic system, a machine that traffics in representations or signs rather than in the mechanical cause-and-effect of the cotton gin or the automobile” (Johnson, 1997, p. 15). This representation often takes on the form of a metaphor, and as such forms the core of

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the contemporary graphic interface. It is the widespread adoption of the Graphical User Interface (GUI) that is the great enabler (and often ‘frustrater’) of our time. The computer screen becomes our electric light and the browser the medium. It all happens here—my world, my stage, and my information. In McLuhan’s terms, we’ve shifted from being “typographic man” to “graphic man”— and along the way, our senses have been transformed. These media extensions upset our equilibrium by emphasising some senses at the expense of others. In order to build balance, the psyche alters itself in corresponding ways (McLuhan, 1961/2006), with the shift sometimes causing uneasiness. Although not one of Black’s (2008) favourite theories (everyone has something against McLuhan), this discussion benefits from an understanding of McLuhan’s concept of hot and cold media. Simply described, a hot medium extends one single sense in “high definition”, and does not leave much to be filled in by the audience. Cool media on the other hand “are high in participation or completion by the audience” (McLuhan, 1961/2006, p. 23). The hot form excludes—the cool one includes. With this understanding: A lecture is hotter than a seminar; television is colder than radio; the web is positively frigid. In its fifteen-year history, the Web has grown from an isolated “warm” scientific island into an ocean of floating icebergs with more than a billion users. Web 2.0 references a combination of technologies and business directions that encourage building online applications supporting enhanced creativity, collaboration, communication, and sharing. Two-point-oh is like a tidal wave in the evolution of online communities and hosted services, including wikis, blogs, podcasts, multimedia sharing, RSS syndication, and social networks. The term “2.0” conceptually represents the Web entering into a

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second phase. Termed in part by web marketers to signify a resurgence of web-related businesses after the dot com crash, and part technology advancement, the Web 2.0 represents an extension of social and participatory aspects of the internet intertwined into the fabric of our lives. This paper will not detail the technical underpinnings of Web 2.0, but instead will focus on the outcomes of the technologies. The growth of the web as a social tool is influenced by key big picture ideas: user generated content, the power of the crowd, data on an epic scale, “the long tail” (ability to extend the focus of information to the point of appealing to a very small specialised audience), open-ness, and the architecture of participation. Before delving into the aspects of “living on the web”, it is appropriate to frame our dialogue of online behaviour within an understanding of Symbolic Interactionism. SI emphasises the importance of understanding exchanges between people, the use of symbols in communication and interaction, and the self as a significant object, constructed by daily interaction. Humans interpret or “define” each other’s actions instead of merely reacting. Our “response” is not made directly to the actions of one another but instead is based on the meaning that we attach to such actions. (Blumer, 1963, p. 180). Goffman’s qualitative analysis in Presentation of Self in Everyday Life details individual identity, group relations, environmental impact and the interactive meaning of information exchange. He sees the world as a stage and individuals as players in it. He employs a “dramaturgical approach” in his study, concerning himself with the mode of presentation employed by the actor and meaning in the broader social context

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(Goffman, 1959, p. 240). Interaction is viewed as a “performance,” shaped by environment and audience, constructed to provide others with “impressions” that are consonant with the desired goals of the actor (Goffman, 1959, p. 17). In his social world of “impression management” we are transfigured to role players hiding behind a series of masks avoiding the stigmata of a poor impression. [W]hen an individual appears before others his actions will influence the definition of the situation which they come to have. Sometimes the individual will act in a thoroughly calculating manner, expressing himself in a given way solely in order to give the kind of impression to others that is likely to evoke from them a specific response he is concerned to obtain. Sometimes the individual with be calculating in his activity by be relatively unaware that this is the case (Goffman, 1959, p.6)

Goffman labels this performance of the individual as “the front”. The Internet, and specifically the Web, is primarily concerned with the front. Early social networking sites of a decade ago used metaphors of place to organize their members—virtual neighbourhoods organized around place and interest. Today’s social networking organises around the person, with profiles and personal information at the centre. Noah Kalina took a photo of himself every day for six years. He put them together into a video, accompanied by original music made by a friend, and posted it on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B26asyGKDo). More than 11 million people have viewed it. Kalina presents himself in the centre of the frame, in roughly the same place in every one of the approximately 2190 pictures. The effect is mesmerizing. Matt Harding travelled around the world and danced the same dance in every place (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNF_P281Uu4). His video has been viewed more than 12 million times.

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[W]e no longer have a sense of the spatial boundaries of our audience. As Goffman (1959) explored, selfpresentation is a conscious, interactive act that requires both an awareness of and participation from the audience. However, in technologically mediated sociality, the audience has been obscured. We can no longer see who is looking, nor, sometimes, can we even make an educated guess (Tufekci, 2008, p. 22).

Kalina and Harding do not know that I have watched their respective videos. (If they are obsessive about their fame, they might be watching the view counter, but still, they cannot see me). We have stepped out of the “time space continuum” of physical place and into the gleaming electric circus of “outer” space. The Internet has no regard for time. Although resembling the oral cultures of yesteryear, this is version 2.0—there is no sitting around the campfire and exchanging stories here. We plug in and circulate like Speedy Gonzales darting in a surreal cartoon. We look toward the future—the past is just potential fodder for our next mash-up. Along with Web 2.0 comes mobility 2.0 (part of the ongoing 2.0 theme), which further disrupts the concept of place. So-called smart phones and other digital communication devices provide an always-on connection to cyberspace. Media extension is closing the gap—“[t]he distance between dissemination and reception...fundamental to almost all forms of communication” (Peters, 1994, p. 117). We are able to establish contact with anyone at anytime and exchange text, talk, videos and photos. Everything is content, and we share not only the things that we create, but also elements from the cyber landscape: links, websites, video clips, photos, music, and of course commentary. Do you want to know what is hot? Visit http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist/index.html —Whose talk is tops? http://technorati.com/pop/blogs/. There is an innate desire to

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“extend” ourselves and our performance to “touch” what others are touching most. We want to befriend the person with the most friends, follow the “twit” with the most “tweets”, and watch a video compilation of the most video responses ever to a single post. (The original poster wrote “One World” on his palm and asked people to respond). In his essay On Face-Work, Goffman defines face as “the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the ‘line’ others assume he has taken during a particular contact” (Goffman, 1967, p. 5). His study of face-to-face interaction is based in the minutia of our existence: facial expressions, gestures, glances, and positioning; the class of event that occurs during co-presence and by virtue of co-presence (Goffman, 1967, p. 1). Goffman cites two objectives in dealing with these “small behaviours”: One is to describe the game of expressing alignment to a social occasion, the second is to uncover the behavioural order found in all peopled places. (I wonder how he would interpret a “long portrait”?) He advocates social investigation of occasions and organizations with a focus on the “co-mingling of persons and the temporary interactional enterprises that can arise there from” (Goffman, 1959, p. 2). Goffman is concerned with contact, either mediated or face-to-face—patterns of verbal and non-verbal acts that express a view of the situation or an evaluation of the participant(s) involved. This line of presentation, whether knowingly or not, conveys a stand and leaves an impression with those engaged. The term “face” is applied to the positive social value that is claimed by this line. In an encounter with someone that you may not meet in the future, there is the option of taking a high line that could lead to future discredit.

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Face-work then, is the actions taken by a person to make “whatever he is doing consistent with face. Face-work serves to counteract ‘incidents’—that is, events whose effective symbolic implications threaten face” (Goffman, 1967, p. 12). When Spricket24 posts her Boobie Rant: A Defining Moment (http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=KQTthVUNcxs&feature=channel), she is doing face-work, using computer-mediatedcommunication, and attempting corrective work to save face. She takes the higher-line and risks ridicule by defending her boobs and her womanhood. The performance rings true. When an individual plays a part he implicitly requests his observers to take seriously the impression that is fostered before them. They are asked to believe that the character they see actually possesses the attributes he appears to possess, that the task he performs will have the consequences that are implicitly claimed for it, and that, in general, matters are what they appear to be (Goffman, 1967, p. 17).

YouTube is filled with videos of sincere presentations of self. Unfortunately, YouTube members are encouraged to sign-up with pseudonyms. This can lead to a large number of rude and unflattering responses from “Xmon666” (and the like) towards performances such as this one. McLuhan sees a possible explanation for these disconnected and often sexual responses. His essay, The Gadget Lover: Narcissus as Narcosis, cites the Greek myth of Narcissus and his reflection, where Narcissus mistook his reflection as another person and “this extension of himself by the mirror numbed his perceptions until he became the servo-mechanism of his own extended or repeated image” (McLuhan 1964/2001, p. 41), and juxtaposes it with “narcosis” (being numb). In an online world of over-stimulated and over-extended individuals, this form of numbness prevails, aided by anonymity, mobility, dumbness, and obvious testosterone imbalance. The Face-work of

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Spricket24 risks being subverted by those brainwashed into undue servo-mechanistic worship, where media extension overrides receptivity in perception. At the end of 2006, Time magazine named YOU as person of the year. During that year, online collaboration and social networking accumulated a huge payload of data and personal information: A new blog went online every minute; MySpace and Facebook went worldwide. User generated media and social networking are just the crest of a new wave of creation and trade—the collaboration of amateurs (Tapscott, 2006). With the help of Web 2.0, open source software, and business models offering free service, collaboration is saving forests, building better mousetraps, finding cell phones, and saving lives. For the first time in the world’s history, we have a truly multimedia global communication system for one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many communication. Confession: I have two online personas. It is not what you think. I do not go around as “GX69” harassing nice girls like Spricket24 or the infamous impostor LonelyGirl15 (unfortunately she is no longer with us, but you can read about her at: http://tinyurl.com/6cy7ek). I think of myself as Dentine chewing gum (Two Gums in One!). The “learner” Gary’s presentation of self on Moodle is that of a courteous, inquisitive and eager student; respectful of RRU as an institution of higher learning, and the hierarchy within it. My “friend” persona is on Facebook. Here, I’m my playful, loving, opinionated and controversial self (). You won’t recognise me from my profile photos (they are only symbols), but everything else is real. My profile has my real name —photos of me in various social situations—“wall discussions” that I have had with others—photos and videos I have posted— links to videos and music that I like.

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Communication, then, is the work of configuring this shape shifting environment [with] social actors [and] commit[ting] to collaboratively constructing and maintaining a shared, stable social reality (Jackson, 2007, p. 410).

I connect with people I have not seen in 20 years and people I saw just yesterday. I frequently connect with MAPC cohorts. Backstage, my face-work for both fronts is harboured by having a clear sense of who I am, toeing the line—and giving face: online and in the flesh.

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References

Black, D. (2008, November 25). Lecture. Royal Roads University, Victoria, B.C. Blumer, H. (1963). Society as symbolic interaction, in Arnold Rose, editor, Human Behavior and Social Processes: An Interactionist Approach, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, pp. 179-192. de Kerckhove, D. (1997). Connected intelligence: the arrival of web society. Sommerville House Publishing. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Anchor Books. Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction ritual: Essays in face-to-face behavior. AldineTransaction. Jackson, M. (2007, September). Fluidity, promiscuity, and mash-ups: new concepts for the study of mobility and communication. Communication Monographs, 74(3), 408-413. Johnston, S. (1997). Interface culture: how new technology transforms the way we create and communicate. HarperEdge. McLuhan, M. (1964/2001). Understanding media: the extensions of man. MIT Press. Peters, P. (1994, June). The Gaps of which communication is made. Critical studies in Mass communication. 11, 2., pp. 117-140. Tappscott, D. & Williams, A. (2008). Wikinomics: how mass collaboration changes everything. Portfolio Tufekci, Z. (2008). Grooming, gossip, Facebook, and MySpace. Information, Communication & Society,11:4, pp. 544-564