FACEBOOK AND THE BORED Tero Jukka Karppi Experimenting with emotions is becoming a part of what Facebook does. In 2013 the social media company actively experimented with emotions trying to prove that emotional states are contagious and spread through News Feed content. In 2017, Facebook Inc.’s patent for boredom detector was accepted. In this paper, I explore the cultural politics of boredom detector patent in conjuncture with Facebook’s “emotional contagion study”. I look into how Facebook is incorporating emotions as part of both their platform’s functions and business logic. I trace how boredom is being de-centered from the experiencing human individual into platform-specific processes that affects masses of users.
“PEOPLE WHO DEFEND THEIR HOMELAND”: MOTIVATIONS FOR JOINING AND BEING ACTIVE IN AN ANTI-IMMIGRATION GROUP ON FACEBOOK Andra Siibak, Anu Masso The paper will present the findings of a small-scale qualitative study carried out with the active members of the biggest public Estonian-language based anti-immigration Facebook group “Estonians against refugee quotas”. Semi-structured individual interviews (N=12) with active members of the group were carried out in spring 2016 with an aim to find out their reasons and motivation behind joining an anti-immigration community in Facebook. Furthermore, our intention was also to study what kind of role the members of the group apply to social media and their Facebook group in particular, in Estonian public debates about the refugee crises. We were able to differentiate between both institutional/regional-, national/institutional-, individual- and interactional level drivers behind joining the Facebook community.
THE LURKER PARADOX ON SNS: A STUDY OF ACTIVE AND PASSIVE AUDIENCES ON FACEBOOK Cecilia Sumita Louis This study examines distinctions between active and passive audiences on Facebook, America’s most popular social network site (SNS). The study also explores whether lurking behavior differs between undergraduates and graduate students, and their technological affordances and social capital bonding from the use of this social network.
In an exploratory study, the researcher applies uses and gratifications for new media, MAIN or technological affordances and credibility heuristics scale and social capital scale to analyze responses to an online survey of 2000 undergraduate and graduate students at a large college campus in the northwest. Preliminary data reveals that Facebook is still the dominant social media network of choice followed by Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and LinkedIn. Findings present a clear indication of lurking or passive audience behavior on Facebook with the majority or 75% of the sample surveyed reporting they rarely update (55%) or never update (22%) their own status on Facebook. However, more than 31% report logging into their Facebook accounts up to 4 times a day, 23% log in more than 4 times a day, and 17% log in once a day, thereby indicating a clear lurker paradox. This exploratory study provide some clear direction that passive audiences are a reality for social network sites and future research is necessary to study this significant audiences on SNS.
Keywords: Active audiences, passive audiences, Facebook, social network sites (SNS), lurkers, MAIN, technological affordances, social capital, weak ties.
CONNECTIVE AMBITION AND CREATIVE CAUTION AMONG HOMELESS USERS OF FACEBOOK Will Marler This work-in-progress considers how Chicago's homeless navigate privacy on social media. I refer to "connective ambition" to describe the co-mingling of personal goals with a perception of the power derived from accumulating ties on social networking sites. Preliminary interviews and participant observation with unstably housed Chicagoans suggests that with great ambition comes great risk for exposure to unwanted advances and digital crooks. These risks may be magnified for those lacking personal computers and sufficient computer literacy. At stake is our understanding of how activity on social media translates into social capital. The paper promises to inject new concern for those who stand to gain the most from social networking online.
