Social Media Impacts on Politics and Society

Notes from Lectures: Analysing Digital Culture

• Analysing digital culture involves asking questions about how digital media shapes, produces, accesses, consumes, and communicates culture.

What is analysing digital culture?

• A survey course
• A critical thinking course, with some memory work and analytical work
• Not a writing-based course

Course Schedule

• Visual Culture (Weeks 2, 3, 4)
• Critical Culture (Weeks 5, 6, 7)
• Frontend (Weeks 10, 11, 12)
• Backend (Weeks 13, 14, 15)

First Lecturer: Dr Lucia Bainotti

• Visual Culture, Feminism, and Gender Studies

Lesson 1: Self-Representation

• Definitions:
  • Self-presentation
  • Self-branding
• If you are not online, you do not exist (contemporary self)

The Contemporary Self

• The self as a reflective project (Giddens, 1991)
• A flexible personality, always adapting for stability (Whitmer, 2018)
• The capitalist accumulation and precariousness - flexibility of self within the job market
• Presentation of the self in everyday life.

Presentation of the Self in the Age of Social Media

• Self-presentation online is about intentionally displaying the self.
• Individuals consider in advance how their audience will react (Hogan, 2010).
• Self-presentation is affected by the structure of the platform.

Self Presentation Meets Self Branding

• Self-branding entails individuals viewing themselves as marketable products.
• Self-branding is a set of practices for constructing a self-image.
• Self-branding promotes the self as a persuasive product or brand.

The Attention Economy

• The attention economy involves paying, receiving, and seeking attention from other human beings.
• Attention is intrinsically limited and cannot be substituted.

Visibility Labour

• Visibility labour is the work comprises self-posturing and the curation of presentations intended to get noticed by intended viewers, and to be positively visible to them (Abidin, 2006; 2018).
• It always involves consideration of algorithmic visibility.

Algorithmic Visibility

• Content creators need to be noticed by platform algorithms to be seen by intended viewers.

Labour!

• Self-branding conceals unrelenting, mostly unpaid, work behind the screen, access to resources required for creative industries.
• Aspirational labor: “Getting paid to do what you love” (Brooke Erin Duffy, "(Not) Getting Paid To Do What You Love")

Self Branding Everywhere

• No matter who you are (9-5 worker, astronaut, house cleaner), you cannot escape the power of the personal brand on the internet.
• White tech companies “democratise” culture but demand further work from artists.

Influencer Creep

• Micro-celebrity is expanding into more aspects of work.
• Artists imitate self-branding techniques to thrive on social media.

Authenticity vs. Selling Out

• Questions arise about authenticity on social media, and when promotion transitions to selling out.
• What authentic means on social media?.

To Sum Up

• Self-branding and self-presentation involve careful presentation of oneself as a product.
• Internet celebrities and influencers engage heavily in self-branding.
• Everyone participates in self-branding on social media.
• Modern self-branding is about boosting algorithmic visibility, and creating an optimized digital presence.

Viewing - Fake Famous (2021 HBO)

• Documentary on an actress, fashion designer and real estate assistant who purchases fake social media followers to become an influencer.
  • Discusses visibility labour and self-optimisation practices on Instagram.
  • Discusses the relationship between self branding and Instagram's features.

Week 2 Questions

• Do you think traditional marketing companies will become obsolete due to influencers and promotion via social media?
• Can individuals lose their authenticity while trying to be visible?

Week 3 - Memes

• Memes have evolved and changed since their inception, adapting along with technology.
• Memes are spreadable, remixable, participatory culture circulating through digital platforms.
• Memes are commodified and speculated on in the market.
• Memes transcend linguistic and geographical boundaries, becoming globally understood.

Week 4: Exploring Platform Vernaculars and Affordances

• Affordances: Possibilities for actions offered, but not features in themselves
• Platforms structure actions by making certain things easier and prompting specific actions.
• Hidden Affordances
  • E.g., uploading a picture to Instagram stories from your phone roll, rather than taking a picture to upload.
• Platforms amplify everyday actions and expectations.

Week 5: Digital Activisms

• Social media as a tool for activism (hashtag activism, feminist activity)
• Curating self-expression and activism.
• Discussion about conspiracy theories and memes in relation to each other.

Week 6: Internet Histories

• Nothing in media is truly new, but rather a remix of the past.
• Historical approaches are crucial for understanding new media.

Week 7: Digital Utopias

• Utopia implies aspirational visions that provide alternatives to institutions and situated social conditions.

Week 8: Reading Guide

• What defines "Utopia"?
• What is "Commons-based peer production?"
• Discuss "Queer Utopia"

Week 10: Algorithms & Fictions

• Algorithms as real socio-technical objects.
• Algorithmic systems condition our lives and may perpetuate harmful biases.
• How does our interpretation of algorithms impact how we use them?

Week 11: Al & Discrimination

• Al systems have a history of encoding and reproducing social biases.
• How are existing social power structures reflected in Al systems?
• The ways in which classification systems influence discrimination.

Week 12: Content Moderation

• Content moderation is a complex interplay between regulating content and maintaining open, public dialogue.
• Various approaches to content moderation.
• Business models behind content moderation on various platform.

Week 13: Platforms & Cultural Production

• How platforms have reshaped the making and distribution of cultural contents.
• Utopian ideas regarding media.

Week 14: Platform Labour

• Focus on platform labour, and its effects on low-wage workers.
• "Platform exceptionality"
  • Idea that specific platforms are outside typical labor structures

Week 15: Ecology

• Digital technologies’ ecological impacts on the environment.
• Materiality and sustainability considerations of digital platforms

This quiz explores the complex role of social media in shaping political activities, user engagement with social justice, and the implications of hashtags. It's designed to highlight both the benefits and the potential negative consequences of these platforms in modern society.