The Experience of an Argument Between People Can Range from Polite and Orderly to Rude and Chaotic
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
The communicative implications of software design choices in social news websites Andrew Hilts CCT405 | Prof: Zaheer Baber Submitted: February 9, 2009 ________________________________________________________________________ This paper reviews literature about Internet ‘public spheres’ and information browsing behaviour and analyzes ‘social news’ websites based on earlier scholars’ findings. Reddit, Digg, and Slashdot are all compared in terms of information architecture and user behaviour. Their ability to encourage deliberation is assessed. Various practices for the improved facilitation of discourse are recommended in the conclusion. INTRODUCTION The experience of an argument between people can range from polite and orderly to rude and chaotic. The mediation of argumentation through technological means – such as the discussion forums on ‘social news’ websites – plays an important role in the functioning of a ‘public sphere’, where discussion is open and diverse opinions can encounter each other. How this mediation occurs and its consequences on discourse are areas of study that can help shape an understanding of the social dynamics of online communities. This paper will compare three popular social news websites (digg.com, slashdot.org, and reddit.com) to determine the similarities and differences between the sites’ representation of current news as well as the communicative implications of the designing for discourse. In an earlier paper (Hilts 2008), contesting conceptions of an online ‘public sphere’ were surveyed; the utopian ‘ideal speech situation’ – where every agent is accorded a turn to speak and all politely come to a rational conclusion – was considered along with anarchic, disagreeing spaces that have been said to encourage democratic action. Digg.com, with its user-generated reflection of a homogeneous worldview through 1 its powerful ‘top users’ and ‘majority rule’ that often led to the discounting of viewpoints outside the mainstream, was determined to still function as a ‘counterpublic’, a seemingly unified group that espoused its marginalized viewpoints within a larger public arena, particularly with respect to intellectual property issues. Nevertheless, this sense of unity must not detract from various concerns such as voice-equality, the ease with which newcomers may use the system, and the variety of information present on the social news website. That being addressed, this research paper seeks to answer the question: “Does the organization and classification of content on Digg, Reddit and Slashdot affect the site’s capacity to effectively function as a public sphere?” What are the consequences of the ways in which the websites are similar and different in this regard? The paper will conclude by recommending Practices that may heighten the ability for people to communally participate in social media web sites. An understanding of how people use, interact with, and are influenced to behave by technology – specifically websites – is required in order to determine what aspects of technologically mediated communication encourage participation in communal discussions and what are detrimental. ONLINE DISCOURSE The contemporary propensity of humans to actively and critically engage each other through electronic media can be analyzed using a psychological approach. Peter Muhlberger argues that “self-sustenance” – with regards to political interest – “may be the key ingredient that would make a revitalized public sphere possible” (170) but adds the qualification that “a self-motivated interest in politics necessarily depends on being able to take a broad societal perspective, a complex ethical standpoint” (ibid). He goes on to 2 claim that many people must develop beyond naïve realism – the view that one’s beliefs are “self-evidently true” and that “those who disagree are either bad or mad” – in order to thoughtfully contribute to a discussion (ibid). From this, it can be inferred that a community of deliberative discussants would facilitate self-motivation and an appreciative consideration of differing opinions. In an electronic community, such facilitation would likely come about through the practices of not only human users, but also the functionality of the electronic space itself. Verbeek explains that “artefacts are not passive and inert entities. They actively co-shape what actors do” (125). He further states that Artefacts mediate ways of existence (subjectivities) and experienced realities (objectivities) not because people told them to do so, but because the relation between humans and the world that comes about through them (140). Technological mediation can thus be seen as not merely an instrumental means to an end, but a polysemic relation brought about by users who interact with and shape the meaning of this “sociotechnical practice” (Shields in Disco 49). Agency is shared between human and nonhuman (Verbeek 125). It follows that the experience, messages, and meaning brought about through one’s use of technological media are determined in part by both the user’s unique behaviour and the design and functionality of the technology. However, "sociotechnical design elements may tend to support some kinds of social relationships between participants, but they do not effectively control the array of possible and even likely behaviour." (Kling and Courtright 223) It is therefore not implausible to suggest that software design may play a role in the shaping of agency and facilitation of self-motivation, though the discussion and use of the software are largely the expressions of human actors. 3 Theories that assign a somewhat selfish tendency to human agency in the process of communication would appear somewhat detrimental to the cause of reasoned and considerate deliberation. Indeed, it has been argued that “people attempt to use others as a means to some end. […] There may be large gaps in experience between one user and the other which leads to one being able to take advantage” (Shires 12). The anonymity of the Internet is argued by Shires to facilitate such opportunistic behaviour. This can be detrimental to open and accommodating dialogue, which in Habermasian tradition, is a rational process: The anonymous sociality of the Internet dramatically increases the unsteadiness of the construction of subjectivity in the online world, encouraging an emerging new identity or subject position, one that abandons the idea of the enlightenment individual with its claims to rationality and autonomy in line with postmodernist theory. (Bresnihan and Doyle, 389) These arguments may help to explain why Digg members often downvote (and render hidden from view) those users not aware of certain shared cultural experiences unique to users of social news sites (Hilts 2008). Experiential divides and anonymity facilitate to impatient dismissal of ‘n00bs’, those newcomers unfamiliar with the conventions of the community which make up the social identity of the group. This identity is defined “in terms of group members’ cognitive representation of the group identity.” (Rogers and Lea 115) Indeed, in this model of group cohesion, when an inexperienced user reveals his or her lack of conventional knowledge, this may be interpreted as an exchange of interpersonal information, which “can act to the detriment of group cohesion” (115). From this example, it can be seen that “as the number of unfit discussants on the Internet rises […] the actively engaged will find Internet discussions less valuable” (Muhlberger 166). Differing levels of experience within a standard internet discussion may jarringly 4 break up the logical flow of an argument and thus may be – for impatient denizens of the “attention economy” – detrimental to deliberation. What kind of software design strategies can be utilized to ensure that deliberative discourse is encouraged while at the same time, allow newcomers to familiarize themselves with rational-critical debate and the conventions of social news communities? In order to answer this and aforementioned questions, this study will analyze the taxonomic structure of Slashdot, Reddit and Digg, paying attention to such questions as: Who determines the categories? Can articles simultaneously appear in two or more categories? Are categories fixed? What order do categories appear in? Questions pertaining to the structure of conversations around an article will also be considered: What is the default structure for the arrangement of the conversation? Are their alternatives? How are disagreements, agreements, replies, and other discursive exchanges between humans dealt with technologically? What are the implications of these considerations? Uddin and Janecek determined that “the traditional enumerative one-dimensional hierarchical classification system, when applied to web design […] (is) not capable of expressing the multi-dimensional properties and relationships of digital objects” (220). They proposed a “faceted classification structure” that would classify digital documents “into multiple categories organized from the bottom-up into a multidimensional taxonomy” (220). This approach to categorization can be a useful tool for analyzing the limitations and successes of web site content categorization in this study. Similarly, Ben Syverson argues web technology that aims to authoritatively classify information results in a struggle over meaning within a hierarchical system that imposes a dominant, 5 rationalizing viewpoint that ignores the lessons of postmodernism’s heterogeneity (435). When something is categorised,