José van Dijck

The culture of connectivity: a critical history of social media

Table of Contents Acknowledgments Chapter 1: Engineering Sociality in a Culture of Connectivity 1.1 Introduction 1.2 From Networked Communication to Platformed Sociality 1.3 Making the Web Social: Coding Human Connections. 1.4 Making Sociality Saleable: Connectivity as a Resource 1.5 The Ecosystem of Connective Media in a Culture of Connectivity Chapter 2: Disassembling Platforms, Reassembling Sociality 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Combining Two Approaches 2.3 Platforms as Techno-cultural Constructs 2.4 Platforms as Socio-economic Structures 2.5 Connecting Platforms, Reassembling Sociality Chapter 3: Facebook and the Imperative of Sharing 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Coding Facebook: The Devil is in the Default 3.3 Branding Facebook: What You Share Is What You Get 3.4 Shared norms in the Ecosystem of Connective Media Chapter 4: Twitter and the Paradox of Following and Trending 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Asking the Existential Question: What is Twitter? 4.3 Asking the Strategic Question: What Does Twitter Want? 4.4 Asking the Ecological Question: What Will Twitter Be? Chapter 5: Flickr between Communities and Commerce 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Flickr Between Connedtedness and Connectivity 5.3 Flickr Between Commons and Commerce 5.4 Flickr Between Participatory and Connective Culture Chapter 6: YouTube: The Intimate Connection between Television and Video-sharing 6.1 Introduction 179-215 6.2 Out of the Box: Video-sharing Challenges Television 6.3 Boxed In: Channeling Television into the Connective Flow 6.4 YouTube as A Gateway to Connective Culture Chapter 7: Wikipedia and the Principle of Neutrality 7.1 Introduction 7.2 The Techno-cultural Construction of Consensus 7.3 A Consensual Apparatus between Democracy and Bureaucracy 7.4 A Nonmarket Space in the Ecosystem? Chapter 8: The Ecosystem of Connective Media: Locked In, Fenced Off, Opt Out? 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Locked In: The Algorithmic Basis of Sociality 8.3 Fenced Off: Vertical Integration and Interoperability 8.4 Opt Out? Connectivity as Ideology Bibliography Index

‘You have one identity’: performing the self on Facebook and LinkedIn

Social media are popular stages for self-expression, communication and self-promotion. Rather than facilitating online identity formation, they are sites of struggle between users, employers and platform owners to control online identities – a struggle played out at the level of the interface. This article offers a comparative interface analysis between Facebook and LinkedIn. While Facebook is particularly focused on facilitating personal self-presentation, LinkedIn’s interface caters towards the need for professional self-promotion. And yet, both platforms deploy similar principles of connectivity and narrative – strategies that can be succinctly revealed in recent interface changes. These changing digital architectures form the necessary backdrop for asking critical questions about online self-presentation: How are public identities shaped through platform interfaces? How do these features enable and constrain the sculpting of personal and professional persona? And what are the consequences of imposed connectivity and narrative uniformity on people’s online identities?Social media are popular stages for self-expression, communication and self-promotion. Rather than facilitating online identity formation, they are sites of struggle between users, employers and platform owners to control online identities – a struggle played out at the level of the interface. This article offers a comparative interface analysis between Facebook and LinkedIn. While Facebook is particularly focused on facilitating personal self-presentation, LinkedIn’s interface caters towards the need for professional self-promotion. And yet, both platforms deploy similar principles of connectivity and narrative – strategies that can be succinctly revealed in recent interface changes. These changing digital architectures form the necessary backdrop for asking critical questions about online self-presentation: How are public identities shaped through platform interfaces? How do these features enable and constrain the sculpting of personal and professional persona? And what are the consequences of imposed c...

Wisdom of the crowd or technicity of content? Wikipedia as a sociotechnical system

Wikipedia is often considered as an example of ‘collaborative knowledge’. Researchers have contested the value of Wikipedia content on various accounts. Some have disputed the ability of anonymous amateurs to produce quality information, while others have contested Wikipedia’s claim to accuracy and neutrality. Even if these concerns about Wikipedia as an encyclopaedic genre are relevant, they misguidedly focus on human agents only. Wikipedia’s advance is not only enabled by its human resources, but is equally defined by the technological tools and managerial dynamics that structure and maintain its content. This article analyses the sociotechnical system — the intricate collaboration between human users and automated content agents — that defines Wikipedia as a knowledge instrument.

Facebook as a tool for producing sociality and connectivity

This article investigates whether social media in general—using Facebook as an example—warrant identification of a new public sphere, another private sphere, or a different corporate sphere, as some scholars have argued. It is argued that social media platforms neither warrant a recalibration of Habermas’ public sphere, nor a conscious blending of spheres. Rather, social media platforms form a contested space where private, public and corporate interests compete to produce new norms of sociality and connectivity. In order to understand the dynamics of social media, it is not enough to revamp existing social theory of networks, to polish up legal frames, or to reintroduce political-economic schemes. We need to connect these theories and come up with an analytical model that accounts for the complexities of the various interests interpenetrating the new space of mediated communication.This article investigates whether social media in general—using Facebook as an example—warrant identification of a new public sphere, another private sphere, or a different corporate sphere, as some scholars have argued. It is argued that social media platforms neither warrant a recalibration of Habermas’ public sphere, nor a conscious blending of spheres. Rather, social media platforms form a contested space where private, public and corporate interests compete to produce new norms of sociality and connectivity. In order to understand the dynamics of social media, it is not enough to revamp existing social theory of networks, to polish up legal frames, or to reintroduce political-economic schemes. We need to connect these theories and come up with an analytical model that accounts for the complexities of the various interests interpenetrating the new space of mediated communication.

Flickr and the culture of connectivity: Sharing views, experiences, memories:

Photo sharing sites such as Flickr are commonly regarded either as spaces where communal views and experiences evolve as a result of picture exchange, or as visual archives where sharing pictures in the present naturally leads to a collective interpretation of the past. This article proposes regarding Flickr as a social media platform annex database that enables the construction of infinite connections. Platforms such as Flickr are firmly embedded in a culture of connectivity, a culture where the powerful structures of social networking sites are gradually penetrating the core of our daily routines and practices. What is often called ‘collective memory’ or ‘cultural heritage’ in relation to digital photo sharing sites is largely the result of data linked up by means of computer code and institutional protocols.Photo sharing sites such as Flickr are commonly regarded either as spaces where communal views and experiences evolve as a result of picture exchange, or as visual archives where sharing pictures in the present naturally leads to a collective interpretation of the past. This article proposes regarding Flickr as a social media platform annex database that enables the construction of infinite connections. Platforms such as Flickr are firmly embedded in a culture of connectivity, a culture where the powerful structures of social networking sites are gradually penetrating the core of our daily routines and practices. What is often called ‘collective memory’ or ‘cultural heritage’ in relation to digital photo sharing sites is largely the result of data linked up by means of computer code and institutional protocols.

Facebook and the engineering of connectivity A multi-layered approach to social media platforms

This article aims to explain how Web 2.0 platforms in general, and Facebook in particular, engineers online connections. Connectivity has become the material and metaphorical wiring of our culture, a culture in which technologies shape and are shaped not only by economic and legal frames, but also by users and content. The emergence of social media platforms is at the heart of a shifting dynamic, where various actors (technology, users, content, legal and economic actors) are building a connective space for communication and information. In order to comprehend this interwovenness, Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory will be invoked to explore how social media platforms can be analysed as techno-socio-cultural artefacts; this theoretical framework will be complemented by Castells’ political-economy approach to arrive at a fuller understanding of how social media operate. The documentary Catfish (2010) serves as an illustration to explore social media platforms in their multiple dimensions.This article aims to explain how Web 2.0 platforms in general, and Facebook in particular, engineers online connections. Connectivity has become the material and metaphorical wiring of our culture, a culture in which technologies shape and are shaped not only by economic and legal frames, but also by users and content. The emergence of social media platforms is at the heart of a shifting dynamic, where various actors (technology, users, content, legal and economic actors) are building a connective space for communication and information. In order to comprehend this interwovenness, Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory will be invoked to explore how social media platforms can be analysed as techno-socio-cultural artefacts; this theoretical framework will be complemented by Castells’ political-economy approach to arrive at a fuller understanding of how social media operate. The documentary Catfish (2010) serves as an illustration to explore social media platforms in their multiple dimensions.

Making Public Television Social? Public Service Broadcasting and the Challenges of Social Media

This article investigates how the rise of social media affects European public service broadcasting (PSB), particularly in the United Kingdom and The Netherlands. We explore the encounter of “social” and “public” on three levels: the level of institution, professional practice, and content. After investigating these three levels, we address the more general question of how public broadcasters are coping with the challenges of social media. How can public television profit from the abilities of social media to engage new young audiences (and makers) without compromising public values? And will PSB be able to extend the creation of public value outside its designated space to social media at large? While the boundaries between public and corporate online space are becoming progressively porous, the meaning of “publicness” is contested and reshaped on the various levels of European public broadcasting.

From shoebox to performative agent: the computer as personal memory machine

Digital technologies offer new opportunities in the everyday lives of people: with still expanding memory capacities, the computer is rapidly becoming a giant storage and processing facility for recording and retrieving ‘bits of life’. Software engineers and companies promise not only to expand the capacity of personal memory infinitely, but even revolutionize its nature. Both in the past and recent years, the idea of a universal memory machine has been conceptualized in fantasies and actual projects (e.g. Vannevar Bush’s ‘Memex’, 1945). Discussing the intentions of contemporary technical projects (Shoebox, Experience on Demand) as well as visionary projects (Lifestreams, Memories for Life, MyLifeBits), this article critically analyses how digital personal memory machines use the computer as a model for the way in which memory works. Rather than looking at computers as jukeboxes of memory, it proposes to pay attention to the performative nature of machines in the acts of remembering.Digital technologies offer new opportunities in the everyday lives of people: with still expanding memory capacities, the computer is rapidly becoming a giant storage and processing facility for recording and retrieving ‘bits of life’. Software engineers and companies promise not only to expand the capacity of personal memory infinitely, but even revolutionize its nature. Both in the past and recent years, the idea of a universal memory machine has been conceptualized in fantasies and actual projects (e.g. Vannevar Bush’s ‘Memex’, 1945). Discussing the intentions of contemporary technical projects (Shoebox, Experience on Demand) as well as visionary projects (Lifestreams, Memories for Life, MyLifeBits), this article critically analyses how digital personal memory machines use the computer as a model for the way in which memory works. Rather than looking at computers as jukeboxes of memory, it proposes to pay attention to the performative nature of machines in the acts of remembering.

Search engines and the production of academic knowledge

• This article argues that search engines in general, and Google Scholar in particular, have become significant co-producers of academic knowledge. Knowledge is not simply conveyed to users, but is co-produced by search engines’ ranking systems and profiling systems, none of which are open to the rules of transparency, relevance and privacy in a manner known from library scholarship in the public domain. Inexperienced users tend to trust proprietary engines as neutral mediators of knowledge and are commonly ignorant of how meta-data enable engine operators to interpret collective profiles of groups of searchers. Theorizing search engines as nodal points in networks of distributed power, based on the notions of Manuel Castells, this article urges for an enriched form of information literacy to include a basic understanding of the economic, political and socio-cultural dimensions of search engines. Without a basic understanding of network architecture, the dynamics of network connections and their intersect...• This article argues that search engines in general, and Google Scholar in particular, have become significant co-producers of academic knowledge. Knowledge is not simply conveyed to users, but is co-produced by search engines’ ranking systems and profiling systems, none of which are open to the rules of transparency, relevance and privacy in a manner known from library scholarship in the public domain. Inexperienced users tend to trust proprietary engines as neutral mediators of knowledge and are commonly ignorant of how meta-data enable engine operators to interpret collective profiles of groups of searchers. Theorizing search engines as nodal points in networks of distributed power, based on the notions of Manuel Castells, this article urges for an enriched form of information literacy to include a basic understanding of the economic, political and socio-cultural dimensions of search engines. Without a basic understanding of network architecture, the dynamics of network connections and their intersections, it is hard to grasp the social, legal, cultural and economic implications of search engines. •

Researching social media as if the social mattered

The institutions we have come to call “media” have been involved for over a century in providing an infrastructure for social life and have invested in a quite particular and privileged way of re-presenting the world as “social.” The dialectic between “media” and “social” has become more urgent to understand in an era when media and information infrastructures have expanded, converged, and become embedded more deeply in the texture of everyday life, while at the same time the claims of “media” to be social have become explicit, indeed insistent. This article asks what it would mean to address this new social/media dialectic head on—as if the social mattered. The word “social” is our necessary term for thinking about the complex interdependencies out of which human life really is made and the claims to represent that interdependent reality made from particular positions of power. All forms of power have invested in certain representations of the social. This battle matters, and now “social media”—the infrastructures of web 2.0—are at the heart of that battle. The article seeks to offer a plausible agenda for a collaborative program of research to address this struggle over the definition of “the social.”