THE FACEBOOK PROJECT ETHNOGRAPHY AND INTERVIEWS

1. THE FACEBOOK PROJECTETHNOGRAPHY AND INTERVIEWS JEFF GINGER | SOCIOLOGY 583 | QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN | 04.29.2008

2. INTRODUCTION • What is the Facebook Project? • An extensive research project on the impacts of Facebook.com on the UIUC undergrad population, started in 2006 • As of this summer it will be formally expanded to include graduate students, professors, librarians, and educators across the country who will contribute to collaborative projects • So far the study has included: • Performance and Construction of Digital Identity (Masters) • Social Capital and the Chief (#3 on IDEALS!) • Cyborging of the Mind in a Permanently Digital Ecology (Theory) • Racial Politics behind Interface and Identity (HCI, Digital Divide) • The Kevin Bacon Effect (Social Epidemics)

3. WHY STUDY FACEBOOK? • What is Facebook? • A Social Networking Service (SNS), Facebook is a purposed collection of identities, expressions, and information/media that make for a meaningful digital space • Why is it a big deal? • It’s a monumental presence on the internet, a sort of evolution of the web; SNS has become interlaced into the process of growing up for those with an internet connection • Almost everyone has a profile and checks it frequently, most people use the site quite extensively • Successful: Facebook very effectively crosses the boundary between the digital and face-to-face world, employs an effective interface, and allows users control

4. BACKGROUND • Started in early 2004, hit UIUC soon after launch, I joined sometime that summer • Over 67 million members • Most login at least once daily, many more • Average of about 200-300 friends • Between 85-95% penetration in college audiences • More popular than Google • Valued at something like 15 billion • Qualitative differences “to Friend” and “Facebook me”

5. TWO PROJECTS – IN PROCESS • The Side-line Project: Digital Ethnography • Focused on a popular global FB group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2213453770 • Took place over the course of only 3 (4) weeks • Conducted in an informal fashion, from an feminist/autobiographical perspective • The Real Deal: Meaning and Purpose in Everyday Life • 27 (predicted) 45 min. interviews with Sociology 100 students • Topics: Facebook as information, social capital, communication, and many, many insider perspectives on the system • Still in progress, transcription, data analysis, and potential publication to follow this summer • Very inductive, three stages of questions so far

6. ASPECTS OF CYBERSPACE AND FACEBOOK • McKenna and Bargh (2000), boyd (2002, 2006), Fuller (2003) • Anonymity (deindividuation, invisible audience) • Disembodiment and virtual space (impression management; barriers as defined by visual/auditory, language, URL/time) • Time (asynchronous and multitasking, permanently beta) • Interface (metaphor, collapsed context, digital divide) • Searchability, persistence, and replicability • Facebook differences • Many stages, not so anonymous • Places by function, physical space ported • Values in interface • Battling the collapsed context

7. INTERNET FORUMS…

8. ESCAPADES IN DIGITAL ETHNOGRAPHY • So how did I run into this thing…? • Global group with over 200,000 members, 2 admins • 3386 total discussion topics, 29,544 posts, 145 people • 25,175 wall posts, Constantly updated • Sources of data: interface, environment, discourse There Are Some Things Guys Should Always Do For Girls. Period. “ ”

9. DEVELOPING A THEORY • Difficult to define feminism (Offen 1988, Lauretis 1990, Martin 1990, Walters 1996) • Both gender and sex are a social construction, but differences may be unavoidable (Friedman 1991) • My own perspective • Roles and status differences based on gender (Hawkesworth 1997) can become evident online too (Kendall 1998) • We are not fully aware of some of our assumptions, triggers, and associations, even the discriminatory or problematic ones. “With sufficient effort and practice, we may use deliberate processing to override this automatic processing by recognizing our automatic, negative judgments and positive projections as assumptions rather than ‘facts.’”(Ramsey and Latting 2005)

10. PRELIMINARY RESEARCH QUESTIONS • What types of people join this group? • How does the environment mediate interactions? • What sort of discourse is taking place? • How does sexism get perpetuated on and through digital communities?

11. WAIT, STATISTICS, WHAT?? • Multi-method man to the rescue! • 95% confidence level, +/- 5% or 383 profiles • Females outnumber males 2 to 1

12. THEMES: INTERFACE • The arrangement of the space and availability of information helps to determine the importance of certain elements • This may in turn encourage values: • Sharing and connection • Activity and involvement • Mediation; the dialectic of content and form • These apply more to Facebook in general than this specific group

13. THEMES: INTERFACE: EXAMPLES • Sharing and connection • Invite people to join, share button, “This is an open group. Anyone can join and invite others to join.” • Common interest – friends • Activity and involvement • Group status updates (66 gained recently, new discussion posts) • Areas for interaction (photos, videos, posted items, forum, wall) • Usage statistics (recent posts, sheer numbers) • Mediation; dialectic of content and form • Westernized style setup • Only certain choices for navigation, some emphasized • “The appear to be using it like an IM service” • Wall and discussion posts require a picture next to them, my ability to remain unnoticed • Embedded value of free speech, but with physical and group imposed limits

14. THEMES: THE LIST • The description of the group was arranged around a 40 point list, modified to be described as ‘suggestions’ • There were several common themes in the list: • Limited rationale / contradictions (interpretive vs. inflexible) • Assumptions about audience • Compassion, care-taking and gratitude • Female gender roles and stereotypes • Male gender roles and stereotypes • To a lesser extent tradition, religion, and condescending language

15. THEMES: THE LIST: EXAMPLES • “4. Play one of the songs that would make any woman weep like the little girl she once was (but in a good way). A brief list includes, but certainly isn't limited, to: "You & Me" by LifehouseAnything by Frank Sinatra Any rendition of "Everything I Do, I Do it for You" "Collide" by Howie Day "Out Of My League" by Steven Speaks And MOST IMPORTANTLY "Question" by the Old 97's (if you propose to a girl with this song, she is putty in your hands).” • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1PrG2p1WDU

16. THEMES: THE LIST: EXAMPLES • “29. Just because you're a guy doesn't mean you are completely incapable of calling when you say you will, it just means you are highly incapable of it. There are few acceptable answers to, "Why didn't you call?", & being male is not one of them.” • “34. At least do everything in your power to keep cursing to a minimum while around her. If you can, cut it out period while around her, or cut it out of your vocabulary. Women don't want to hear it, guys don't care about it, adults don't want to hear it, it doesn't impress employers, and you sure won't want your children or someone else's to hear it!”

17. THEMES: THE LIST: EXAMPLES • “27. When she feels at her worst, tell her she looks her best.” • “24. Offer her your jacket/sweatshirt. (Note: you may not see that particular item of clothing for a while, if ever again)” • “6. Find out what her favorite flower is and buy them for her randomly (regardless of the situation you might be in). A simple yet profound truth: a single rose says more than dozens of anything else. (I encourage the women to not allow a guy to "prove himself worthy" through gifts and flowers and such. Trust is a precious thing and it should take a good chunk of time before he gains it back in your heart.)”

18. TO SUMMARIZE • Contradiction between interpretive and inflexible: vague statements without considerable rationale, but presented in a sort of ‘10 commandments’ manner, which contradicts this notion of being ‘suggestions’ • Assumptions about audience • Romantic relations, heteronormative • Youth orientation • Directed towards men • Shared understanding • Compassion, care-taking, gratitude

19. TO SUMMARIZE CONTINUED • Female gender roles and stereotypes • Women as weak or vulnerable • Women as gatekeepers (control of reception) • Women’s appearance as an important value • Male gender roles and stereotypes • Men as immoral / sexual regulation of men • Men as insensitive • Men as irresponsible • Men as in control of initiation • Specific group identity of men (Gentleman: race/class/ability)

20. THEMES: DISCOURSE : SUMMARY • 53 posts by 21 people in 3 days – so pretty lively • Relations and romantics (advice, complaints, desires) • Sexuality (traits, behaviors, gay as a lifestyle, virginity) • Religion and Politics (God, evolution, abortion, election ’08) • Random stuff (rate the person above/below you, advertisement, music) • Resistance (discursive opinions) • Post resistance • Opinions asserted in my discussion • On that note, how I interacted… • Go look if you like, the discussion topic is called “Political Views”

21. SOME INTERESTING QUOTES • “You're overcomplicating things.Read the list. Most are suggestions about how to either: [br] 1) communicate2) show respect3) show affection4) some combination of the above. [br] Take the basic ideas and apply them to all your relationships.” • “Gender roles are irrelevant. [br] The suggestions are to show respect to a person that you are attempting to win over or maintain a romantic relationship- and while the specific of the 'about section' refer to what a guy would do for a girl- they also work in the reverse. “ • “This list is not a strict set of rules, it is merely a set of guidelines and can be adapted to suit any situation, be it guy to girl, girl to guy, guy to guy, or girl to girl. [br]Gender roles in the 'traditional' sense are out dated and counterproductive to the societal social norms of our modern world. [br] For some people traditional or quasi-traditional roles work, for others- not so much. In either case, the act of showing respect, attention, affection, whatever you want to call it- is a necessary part of making any relationship work...regardless of the gender/sexual orientation of the persons involved in the relationship.”

22. STALKERBOOK?

23. RESEARCH QUESTIONS • How do participants employ the service as a supplementary (add-on) or primary informing agent? That is, does Facebook simply extend the ways they learn what they know, or is it one of the main ways they learn what they know? What parts of the ecology do they explicitly or implicitly use to become informed, and in what ways? For instance, would they prefer to Google some things and Facebook others? Could Facebook factor into how they get impressions about others, or how they give impressions of themselves? • We’d also like to know how important Facebook is as a communication medium. Do students choose it over AIM, email or texting? Where does Facebook fall - in terms of priority, context, and versatility compared to other information communication technologies? • What are some of the ways users employ the system to bolster network social capital? Network capital (relationships with friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers who provide significant companionship, emotional aid, services, information and a sense of belonging)? Does Facebook better enhance strong or weak ties?

24. EVOLVING QUESTIONS: ROUND ONE • Technology history, Facebook history • Facebook in everyday life – activity, routine, time spent, feeling out of touch or missing it, community • What do you learn? – News, organizations, specifics about people, Facebook in conversation, relation to FTF interaction • Facebook as a communication medium • Creation of the system, agency of the system

25. EVOLVING QUESTIONS: ROUND TWO • MySpace? • What do you ignore? • Passive vs. active traversal? • Who is your invisible audience? • What’s the line between stalking and browsing? • Who is powerful on Facebook? • What makes a group / person popular?

26. EVOLVING QUESTIONS: ROUND THREE • When does something become official because it’s on Facebook? • When you look at a person’s profile, where does your attention usually go first? • If you were to pick one thing on your profile that a person might see first, what would it be?

27. IN CONCLUSION • This is honestly just a start • Facebook is a rich environment in which we can study perspectives and behaviors • It can be used as both a research tool (indirect; Mayer and Puller 2007 example) or a place of research (my own work) • Questions??

28. LIMITATIONS AND FOR FUTURE STUDY • Watching a user surf • Interviewing those who aren’t on Facebook • Longer interviews over several sessions • Perceptions of who their friends are on Facebook • More diverse sample

29. Thanks! www.thefacebookproject.com