Small talk in the Digital Age: Making Sense of Phatic Posts

Radovanovic, Danica and Ragnedda, Massimo Small talk in the Digital Age: Making Sense of Phatic Posts., 2012 . In 2nd Workshop on Making Sense of Microposts, Lyon (France), 16-20 April 2012. [Conference paper]

[thumbnail of paper_18.pdf] Text
paper_18.pdf - Published version
Download (248kB)

English abstract

This paper presents some practical implications of a theoretical web desktop analysis and addresses microposts in the Social Web contextual sense and their role contributing diverse information to the Web as part of informal and semi-formal communication and social activities on Social Networking Sites (SNS). We reflect upon and present the most pervasive and relevant sociocommunication function of an online presence on microposts and social networks: the phatic communication function. Although some theorists such as Malinowski say these microposts have no practical information value, we argue that they have semantic and social value for the interlocutors, determined by sociotechnological and cultural factors such as online presence and social awareness. We investigate and offer new implications for emerging social and communication dynamics formed around microposts, what we call here “phatic posts”. We suggest that apparently trivial uses and features of SNS actually play an important role in setting the social and informational context of the rest of the conversation - a “phatic” function - and thus that these phatic posts are key to the success of SNS.

Item type: Conference paper
Keywords: information, social network sites, microposts, phatic posts, phatic communication, online communication, social dynamics
Subjects: B. Information use and sociology of information > BZ. None of these, but in this section.
C. Users, literacy and reading. > CB. User studies.
Depositing user: Danica Radovanovic
Date deposited: 06 Jan 2015 10:13
Last modified: 06 Jan 2015 10:13
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10760/24377

References

[1] boyd, danah. (2010). "Living Life in Public: Why American Teens Choose Publicity Over Privacy." AOIR 2010. Gothenburg, Sweden, October 23. URL: http://www.danah.org/papers/talks/2010/AOIR2010.html

[2] Giuseppe Facchetti, Giovanni Iacono, Claudio Altarini, Computing global structural balance in large -scale signed social networks, National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, http://people.sissa.it/~altafini/papers/FaIaAl11/FaIaAl11.pdf

[3] Heider, Fritz (1958). The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations. John Wiley & Sons.

[4] Hine, Christine. (Ed.) (2005), Virtual Methods: Issues in Social Research on the Internet, Oxford: Berg Publishers.

[5] Jakobson, Roman. (1981) "Linguistics and Poetics." Poetry of Grammar and Grammar of Poetry. Vol. 3 of Selected Writings. 7 Vols. The Hague: Mouton. 18 -51.

[6] Licoppe, C., & Smoreda, Z. (2005). Are social networks technologically embedded? How networks are changing today with changes in communication technology. Social Networks, 27 (4), 317 -335

[7] Miller, Vincent. (2008), New Media, Networking and Phatic Culture, Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, Vol. 14, No. 4, 387 -400

[8] Malinowski, B. 1923. ‘The Problem of Meaning in primitive languages. In C. K. Ogden & I. A. Richards (Eds), The meaning of meaning (pp. 146 -152). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul

[9] Malinowski, B. (1935). Coral gardens and their magic, 2 vols. Allen & Unwin.

[10] Radovanovic, Danica (2008). Digital Serendipities, blog post: “Poke me, poke you back: Facebook social networking context”http://www.danicar.org/2008/02/15/poke-me-poke-you-back-facebook-social-networking-context/

[11] Radovanovic, Danica, Интернет парадигма, структура и динамика онлајн друштвених мрежа: Фејсбук и млади у Србији (Internet Paradigm, Structure, and Dynamics of Online Social Networks: Facebook and Young Adults in Serbia) (June 20, 2010). Pancevacko citaliste, Vol. III, No.17, pp. 20 -26, 2010. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1986066

[12] Riley, Philip (2007) Language, culture and identity: an ethnolinguistic perspective, London: Continuum.


Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item
Contact us
Send email Sponsors
Sponsor: AIMS Sponsor: D&P Sponsor: UniNa CAB Get connected
Facebook Facebook Twitter Twitter Linkedin LinkedIn RSS RSS