Greti-Iulia Ivana Social Ties in Online Networking

Abstract

Although this does not become clear from the title, this is a book about Facebook. It is part of a series exploring the advantages and limits of relational sociology. According to the author Greti-Iulia Ivana, the book serves two purposes: ‘it explores the ways in which the exchanges of information unfolding on Facebook impact the universe of the users’ social bonds’, and ‘it looks into how the underlying fabric of social relations influences the dynamic of Facebook contents’ (p. 5). Ivana presents findings from an empirical study she conducted between 2014 and 2014, which included the observation of Facebook profiles and public exchanges of information and 40 open-ended interviews with Facebook users between the ages of 18 and 39. In her view, ‘the exchanges of information taking place on Facebook (or elsewhere) are a recurrent element of social bonds, but they do not represent the bond as a whole’ (p. 8). It is therefore important to consider the offline interactions that ‘constitute the basis of the bond’ (p. 8) alongside the ‘reflective and emotional aspects’ such as expectations, memories, struggles for power and control, etc. The book is split into eight chapters – Introduction, six substantive chapters and Conclusions. Chapter 2, ‘It Happened on Facebook’, offers a conceptual framework for the study of Facebook through the lens of social relations. Chapter 3, ‘Facebook and Real Life’, explores the dichotomy between Facebook and real life. Chapter 4, ‘Meaning Construction in Overviewing: “It was Like Catching Up, But Without Talking”’ focuses on ‘instances of monitoring, reading, checking content posted by someone else without engaging in any sort of conversation or feedback’ (p. 20). Chapter 5, ‘Meaning Construction in Online Social Interactions’, looks into conversations and reciprocal communication – both in public exchanges and private chatting. Chapter 6, ‘Social Networking and Emotions’, analyses Facebook displays of ‘markers of symbolic capital’, prestige, social class, etc. (p. 21). Chapter 7, ‘The Structural Underpinning of Online Bonds’, focuses on emotionality in social networking. In the final chapter, Ivana summarises her contributions by arguing that social networking has three distinct phases: the chatting rooms of the 1990s, which included communication with strangers and anonymity; pre-Facebook social networking sites where they was also communication with strangers but the user’s identity was public, and the Facebook and Twitter age, which included a move towards privatisation. The book offers an interesting perspective on social ties in online networking.