Comments on: Regarding the Facebook Effect http://fstutzman.com/2008/11/05/regarding-the-facebook-effect/ Thoughts about information, social networks, and privacy Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:23:29 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: VocabControl » Obama and Facebook, Surowiecki and crowds, social media and the Panopticon http://fstutzman.com/2008/11/05/regarding-the-facebook-effect/comment-page-1/#comment-4281 VocabControl » Obama and Facebook, Surowiecki and crowds, social media and the Panopticon Fri, 28 Nov 2008 19:48:15 +0000 http://fstutzman.com/?p=1340#comment-4281 [...] on the election of Obama and the Facebook effect seems to be a different slant on the same idea: Unit Structures – Regarding the Facebook Effect. Fred Stutzman claims “Social Networks like Facebook reveal our lives to one another in novel [...] [...] on the election of Obama and the Facebook effect seems to be a different slant on the same idea: Unit Structures – Regarding the Facebook Effect. Fred Stutzman claims “Social Networks like Facebook reveal our lives to one another in novel [...]

]]> By: Bertil Hatt http://fstutzman.com/2008/11/05/regarding-the-facebook-effect/comment-page-1/#comment-3296 Bertil Hatt Thu, 06 Nov 2008 04:32:28 +0000 http://fstutzman.com/?p=1340#comment-3296 I have to agree that the sheer number of reference most likely had a limited impact per se: it was vastly from convinced supporters towards convinced supporters — self-reinforcement (and it might explain how tense and sometime divisive the campaign was). However, what initially Googling your friends, or lurking on Facebook and increasingly following them on Twitter has allowed is to see things that are neither inappropriate (hopefully shameful things were first hidden with pseudonyms, then blocked with privacy setting and finally avoided mention) nor relevant in a given context. This is new; the frontier between uninteresting and inappropriate has always scared people from going on-line —and what the NYTimes article on Twitter attempted to describe— might as well be called the Facebook effect, or the maximum serendipity; however peripheral vision is likely the best expression. I paraphrase you, sorry, to say this: it's not new, and can actually be attributed to everything the Internet is actually about. Like everything computer-related, it had to wait for massive adoption and restructuring to have massive impact. Why it favoured Obama? That's hard to tell: because he could sustain criticisms, deep down he was better albeit unlikely at first, addressed contradiction, goes for the meta-level in a debate, allows the complex candidate to shine with a changing glitter, or does this serendipity encourage the oppressed minority to see it-self in the mirror's crack and raise from an apparent domination? I'd love to say peripheral visibility encourages the better of ourself, but we need more elections to be sure. If digital serendipity raise silenced minority once again, faster and harder, then neo-cons are about to make a massive come-back. My assumption would be that seeing colleagues opinion forces to take a higher ground, to encompass their divergence and our (re-contextualised) trust without too much dissonance; only the most ambiguous candidate (until then the least likely because ‘strange’) had focused on that higher ground and addressed that new need. Call me an optimist. In the meantime, enjoy the guy while the World gives grace. I have to agree that the sheer number of reference most likely had a limited impact per se: it was vastly from convinced supporters towards convinced supporters — self-reinforcement (and it might explain how tense and sometime divisive the campaign was). However, what initially Googling your friends, or lurking on Facebook and increasingly following them on Twitter has allowed is to see things that are neither inappropriate (hopefully shameful things were first hidden with pseudonyms, then blocked with privacy setting and finally avoided mention) nor relevant in a given context. This is new; the frontier between uninteresting and inappropriate has always scared people from going on-line —and what the NYTimes article on Twitter attempted to describe— might as well be called the Facebook effect, or the maximum serendipity; however peripheral vision is likely the best expression.

I paraphrase you, sorry, to say this: it’s not new, and can actually be attributed to everything the Internet is actually about. Like everything computer-related, it had to wait for massive adoption and restructuring to have massive impact.

Why it favoured Obama? That’s hard to tell: because he could sustain criticisms, deep down he was better albeit unlikely at first, addressed contradiction, goes for the meta-level in a debate, allows the complex candidate to shine with a changing glitter, or does this serendipity encourage the oppressed minority to see it-self in the mirror’s crack and raise from an apparent domination?

I’d love to say peripheral visibility encourages the better of ourself, but we need more elections to be sure. If digital serendipity raise silenced minority once again, faster and harder, then neo-cons are about to make a massive come-back. My assumption would be that seeing colleagues opinion forces to take a higher ground, to encompass their divergence and our (re-contextualised) trust without too much dissonance; only the most ambiguous candidate (until then the least likely because ‘strange’) had focused on that higher ground and addressed that new need. Call me an optimist.

In the meantime, enjoy the guy while the World gives grace.

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