Redes dentro de Redes: dinâmicas sociais baseadas na técnica

Networks within Networks: Social Dynamics based on Technique

Inês Amaral – CECS: University of Minho / Instituto Superior Miguel Torga

ciberesfera.com / [email protected]

III International Conference on CyberjournalismConvergence

December 6th / 7th , 2012University of Porto

Online Social Networks: Emergent Sociabilities

Introduction

Thesis/Assumption: new sociability based on a constantly changing model of communication that has transformed the concept of the regular user to a Consumer 2.0 and enabled to the receivers the possibility of publishing for a global audience.

- BEING ONLINE > people are changing their behaviours: they work, live and think connectedly.

- COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE > the new digital environment promotes collective action, consumers 2.0 and prosumers.

- ‘GLOCALIZATION’ > we are globalizing the local through the Internet.

Introduction

Aim: to understand whether new forms of sociability emerge with the new practices and social relations that represent an unterritorialized thermometer of society.

Research Question: network environments promote a new kind of citizenship and consequently sociability with new relationships and practices?

Hypothesis: Internet’s collaborative potential establishes spaces for public engagement and network participation that describe the emergence of new sociabilities.

Empirical Study: triangular method > draw social networks on microblogging service Twitter based on ‘folksonomy’ – semantic indexation > content analysis, statistical method, social networks analysis

Context: New Communication Ecosystem

– Dynamic model of communication

– New ecosystem, new concepts of community and society

– Metamorphic idea of territoriality

– Social Web

– Web 2.0 as a ‘social amplifier’

Cyberspace is the displacement of sociability where collective intelligence is promoted by a new communication ecosystem.

Networks within the Network: theoretical studies

Web 2.0 and the new communication paradigm (2008)

Self media Era (2009)

Society 2.0: the emergence of a new sociability? (2009)

Society and Communities 2.0: a proposal for equate communication models in a "moving target" (2010)

Social Networks on Twitter: the emergence of a new sociability in a new communication ecosystem? (2010)

Networks within the Network: exploratory studies

Empirical Study: Social Networks on Twitter > 2009 and 2010 on Twitter > #cablegate

Main conclusions: Hashtag Networks reveals

• an emergence of new forms of sociability

• the mobilization of various modes of social capital

• a pattern of “network individualism”

• potencial collective action and virality

• speed of information transmission

• integration of different audiences of audiences with multiple networks

• streams of streams of contents

• spheres of influence, authority and popularity

Main conclusions: Hashtag Networks reveals

• Semantic indexation: viral information, distributed production and collective consumption of various streams

• new publics, new gatekeepers but still the centrality of professional media

• from citizen journalism to social journalism within streams of streams

• social and thematic streams

• asymmetric social networks

• weak bonds between different streams of users and content

• social and deterritorialized thermometer of the global society

Therefore…

– social networks

– networks of networks

– networks of contetns

– streams of networks

– streams of contents

– streams of streams

What about journalism?

CONVERGENCE OF MEDIA

CONVERGENCE OF CONTENTS

CONVERGENCE OF USERS

CONVERGENCE OF STREAMS

CONVERGENCE AS A SPHERE

CONVERGENCE AS JOURNALISM?

USERS, NETWORKS, CONTENT STREAMS AND JOURNALISM

Perspectives for a conceptual model

– Content as relational bond and the appropriation of technology as support

– Content consumption frames users in multiple networks

– Appropriation of content and technique as the basis and construction of the interaction of social groups

Perspectives for a conceptual model

– Propagation of structures of semantic indexing?

– Potential for social disaggregation?

– Networks of Content Distribution?

– Content as a key element of sociability?

The need for a conceptual model. Why?

Cyberspace tends to transform itself into a sphere where consumption information will frame the users,

through their choices, in multiple network structures (streams of information indexed) which will overcome

the logic of social relations as a central element of sociability and focus on practices of appropriation of

content and technology as the foundation of interaction and the construction of social groups.

The need for a conceptual model. Why?

Consumption of information in multiple and unterritorialized streams of information indexed by

users.

Who is the journalist?

Conclusion

Streams of contents enhance the emergence of different sociabilities, which enable the construction of a social

reality and reflect an unterritorialized thermometer of the info-included societies.

INÊS AMARAL[http://ciberesfera.com]