Code switching

Obamas’ fist bump

Does Trump “code switch”?

Symbolic interactionism

meaning in action, is polysemous, and changes

Symbolic interactionism

How a person makes and enacts meaning (via interpretation) resulting from interaction.

identity and self are constituted through constant interactions with others – primarily, talk. Individuals work together to uphold preferred self-images of themselves and their conversation partners, through strategies like maintaining (or “saving”) face, collectively encouraging social norms, or negotiating power differentials and disagreements. (Marwickboyd 2011, p. 144)

Dramaturgy

A branch of symbolic interactionism that focuses on everyday life via the metaphor of the stage. Goffman argued that we wish to have our “audience” accept our presentation of self. It includes concepts such as:

• front/back stage; outside; borders
• secrets
• roles
• in/out of character
• impression management

Celebrity

Celebrity is a dynamic performative practice rather than personal characteristic or external label (e.g., being on American Idol) (Marwickboyd 2011, p. 140)

Micro-celebrity

involves viewing friends or followers as a fan base; acknowledging popularity as a goal; managing the fan base …; and constructing an image of self that can be easily consumed… (Marwickboyd 2011, p. 141)

[is] being famous to a niche group of people, but it is also a behavior: the presentation of oneself as a celebrity regardless of who is paying attention. (Marwick 2013, “Status update”, p. 114)

Micro vs Macro

[micro-celebrity techniques] resemble techniques that extremely famous people use to manage audiences on Twitter, rather than relying on formal access brokers like managers and agents to maintain the distance between themselves and fans. (Marwickboyd 2011, p. 141)

Micro-celebrity?

Which of these are examples of micro-celebrity vs. meme-fame?

1. Star Wars Kid (rotoscoped)
2. Baby Frogs
3. PlaneBae
4. CEO of Corn (announcement)

Worlds colliding

Framing?

1. What is (Marwickboyd 2010) main question/thesis?
2. Methodology?

Framing

question

how content producers navigate ‘imagined audiences’ on Twitter.

method

posted questions to followers; sent @reply questions to sample appearing in public timeline; every person in the 300 most followed accounts (249 total); subset of users with 1000-15,000 followers.

“Who do you imagine reading your tweets?”… Received 226 responses from 128 users through direct message or @replies (Marwickboyd 2010, pp. 4-5)

“To whom was I speaking?”?

• friends/family (phatic/social)
• “me”
• personal brand
• tweet/dependent
• ideal reader
• fans/followers

ex. gDoc

For each item from our readings

• define it (from the text, and elsewhere on the Web)
• try to find a demonstrative example
• pose a related discussion question for the class

Tasks: groups of 5

• 2m divide concepts
• 5m individual work
• 5m group review/improve
• 5m prepare to present to class

1. Reactive dynamism (DuffyGerrard 2022)
2. Ideology of publicity (Marwickboyd 2010)
3. Impression management
4. Context collapse
5. Authenticity
6. Networked audience

Who is your audience?

• do you tweet to/for yourself?
• do you self-censor?
• is authenticity possible?

Do you have multiple personae?

“You have one identity,” [Zuckerberg] says emphatically three times in a single minute during a 2009 interview […] “The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly,” he says […] “Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity,” […] “the level of transparency the world has now won’t support having two identities for a person.” (Kirkpatrick 2010, “The Facebook effect”, p. 199)

Comparing platforms??

• How many “faces” do you have? How many apps would you maintain?
• How would you assess Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat on context collapse and authenticity?

Is BeReal more authentic?

Zuck only has himself to blame

“Facebook Is Worried About Users Sharing Less – But It Only Has Itself To Blame Technology” (Hoffmann 2016)

Wrap up

• Write a multiple-choice question related to terms from today.

What is?

reactive dynamism

the app churn for authenticity

ideology of publicity

we value whatever grabs the public’s attention

impression management

we perform identity in response to others’ reactions

context collapse

“flattens multiple audiences into one”

authenticity

true to one’s self, even if differs contextually

networked audience

“real and potential viewers for digital content that exist within a larger social graph”

What was your multiple-choice question?