The Community Industry: an Analysis of Reddit and /R/Socialism

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THE COMMUNITY INDUSTRY: AN ANALYSIS OF REDDIT AND /R/SOCIALISM

Richard Babb

A Dissertation

Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

May 2021

Committee:

Radhika Gajjala, Advisor

Samuel T McAbee, Graduate Faculty Representative

Lara Lengel

Yanqin Lu

Richard Babb

iii

ABSTRACT

Radhika Gajjala, Advisor

Social media is an increasingly important space for community formation and interactions. Coinciding with the rise of social media has been an increasing interest in leftist ideologies once outside the mainstream. This analysis seeks to understand the social media site

Reddit.com’s enabling and constraining features on the community /r/socialism. Using the communicative theory of identity and Marxist media theory not only to look at Reddit and

/r/socialism’s relationship, but five key functions of a media: capital-economic, media sales and media market function, commodity circulation, domination, and the audience. Employing a mixed-methods approach enabled various data to be analyzed and relationally understood.

Qualitative content analysis was used to examine user’s salient topics and their uses for the community. Survey methods were deployed to the community to gather demographic data on the

/r/socialism community and user opinions on the group’s relationship with Reddit. Finally, secondary documents were analyzed to provide greater context to the other findings.

Findings from the content analysis of salient subjects showed a preference for contemporary capitalist critique, socialist quotations, and class issues. However, topics impacting women and other minority groups were light to nonexistent. Analysis of platform uses found the top three uses to be a general discussion, information-seeking, and information-giving. The user survey was plagued by low participation and participants who were under the age of consent. As such, data from a community-administered survey filled in the gaps. Secondary document analysis shed light on many features of Reddit, particularly how the social media’s systems are designed to elicit data and authenticity. Reddit’s primary focus was on creating a space suitable iv for advertising with minimum corporate input. To attract users, Reddit sells the premise of community and interactions. For businesses, Reddit serves as an ad platform that can also help brands appear ‘authentic’ to their customers. As part of their role as an ad platform, the company has implemented multiple system designs and practices which encourage constant consumption.

These features also propagate capitalist, corporatist, and Americanist ideologies dominant in society. Community members were diverse in socialist thought but demographically consisted mainly of young straight males with less than five years of interest in socialism. Overall, the platform’s relationship with the community was complex, with multiple feedback systems designed to deemphasize individual users and emphasize the group to encourage data exchanges and support advertising.

Dedicated to Family and Friends

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to thank Dr. Radhika Gajjala for her guidance throughout the dissertation and program. Without her calming influence and depth of knowledge, this project would have taken shape. I would also like to recognize my committee members: Dr.

Yanquin Lu, Dr. Samuel T McAbee, Dr. Lara Lengel, for their thoughtful feedback and assistance.

I would also like to thank my family for their support. Without my father’s support, my entire academic journey would not have started. Also, I want to give my brother Jacob a special mention for always listening to my research-induced rants. Finally, I would like to recognize my friends Harry and Quenton for their constant assistance in times of need and Quenton’s editing skills. vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

CHAPTER 1: BACKGROUND ...... 1

Introduction ...... 1

Identity ...... 2

Marxism ...... 9

Social Media ...... 17

Users ...... 20

Location ...... 24

CHAPTER 2: METHOD ...... 28

Research Questions ...... 28

Typology ...... 29

Qualitative Content Analysis ...... 32

Survey ...... 34

Secondary Document Analysis ...... 36

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS ...... 38

Analysis - Discussion Subjects ...... 38

Capitalism ...... 38

Socialism ...... 39

Class ...... 40

Law enforcement ...... 41

The Right ...... 41

Government ...... 42

Imperialism ...... 43 viii

Int. news and solidarity ...... 43

The Left ...... 43

Immigration ...... 44

Media ...... 45

Insurance/healthcare ...... 45

Israel-Palestine ...... 45

Reddit ...... 46

Economic ...... 46

Military ...... 46

Lgbtq+ ...... 46

Landlords ...... 47

No theme codes ...... 47

Analysis - Comments ...... 47

General discussion ...... 47

Info-Giving ...... 48

Info-Seeking ...... 49

Criticism ...... 50

Resource giving ...... 50

Comradery ...... 51

Mod/Rule ...... 51

Survey ...... 51

Document Analysis ...... 55

CHAPTER 4: DISCUSSION ...... 58 ix

Capital Economic ...... 58

Media Market Function...... 60

Commodity Circulation ...... 63

Domination ...... 65

CTI ...... 69

Reflections ...... 71

REFERENCES ...... 74

APPENDIX A: Survey ...... 85

APPENDIX B: Informed Consent ...... 87

APPENDIX C: Survey Invitation ...... 88

APPENDIX D: Secondary Document Bibliography ...... 91 1

CHAPTER 1: BACKGROUND

Introduction

The last twenty years have brought several societal shifts that have negatively impacted the average person’s life. Traditional communities have fractured and decoupled from geographic restrictions. Part of this community decay is attributable to the massive proliferation of internet technologies that remove geographic restrictions on an organizational and individual level. Creating a situation where people are more technologically connected but are overall more isolated and have fewer community connections (Putnam, 2000). In response to these and other factors, technology companies created social media to facilitate social connections. Sites like

Facebook focused on individual user relationships, while other sites sought to facilitate large- scale community connections. Sites freed from traditional organizational restrictions then gave birth to millions of communities, ranging from huge to highly niche groups. One of the largest of these sites, Reddit.com, is popular enough to be the twentieth most visited site on Earth (Statista,

2018). These sites have also become epicenters for political organizations and movements. A significant contributing factor in Donald Trump’s election was his popularity and ability to engage with far-right online groups outside the mainstream political process.

Similarly, far-left ideologies outside mainstream thought for nearly a century have seen a significant resurgence. Particularly with those under 40 years old (Saad, 2019) whose political education and activities are increasingly online (Pew, 2019). Meaning sites like Reddit are excellent spaces to investigate non-mainstream political communities. Of particular interest are organizations such as Reddit’s r/socialism that have a unique tension between the platform’s capitalist underpinnings and the anti-capitalist ideology underlying its existence. This environment raises the possibility of identity conflicts or gaps and questions of how the 2 community functions in this environment. To investigate these questions and others (chapter 2) requires research frameworks fitting a mediated environment. The communication theory of identity is particularly suitable as it is rooted in communication and designed to investigate the identity gaps mentioned above. An investigation would also need a way to examine the context of the community’s communication since the environment has a significant impact on communication. Here, a Marxist communication framework is beneficial as it analyzes a media by its audience and contexts. The combination of CTI and Marxism allows for a complete investigation of the community and its context. These frameworks also require a variety of data, necessitating a mixed-methods approach. However, before explaining the methods of examination, the underlying theories of the study need to be explained.

Identity

Identity is a tricky phenomenon to discuss since many disciplines have various conceptualizations and definitions. Communication traces much of its perspective to Erving

Goffman’s work on dramaturgy and impression management (Goffman, 1959). Dramaturgy posits identity as a type of performance where individuals create a public-facing identity while obscuring their inner self. Impression management expands on this further as individuals and groups will strategically manage their actions to invoke specific perceptions in others (Harrison,

Smith, Greenwell, & Stephens, 2018). Communication studies integrated concepts from

Goffman’s identity theories with a communication perspective, resulting in developing the communicative theory of identity (CTI) (Hecht & Choi, 2012). Rooting CTI in communication is particularly useful in examining virtual social environments like Reddit and other social media sites due to these spaces’ communicative nature. Social media is a relational space where ideas

3 and concepts interact in a complex way, and CTI enables meaningful exploration and interpretation” (Compton, 2019).

CTI is grounded in communication activities and underlined by eight axiomatic propositions. As explained by Hecht, Warren, Jung, & Krieger (2004):

1. Identities have individual, social, and communal properties.

2. Identities are both enduring and changing.

3. Identities are affective, cognitive, behavioral, and spiritual.

4. Identities have both content and relationship levels of interpretation.

5. Identities involve both subjective and ascribed meaning.

6. Identities are codes that are expressed in conversations and define membership in

communities.

7. Identities have semantic properties that are expressed in core symbols, meanings, and

labels.

8. Identities prescribe modes of appropriate and effective communication. (pg. 19)

Social media is a relational space where ideas and concepts interact in a complex way, and CTI enables meaningful exploration and interpretation” (Urban & Orbe, 2010). Identities are also affected by groups and the context in which they exist. This complex system of interactions between individual, group, circumstance, and other factors are part of four interpenetrating layers known as the: personal, enacted, relational, and communal (Hecht, Warren, Jung, & Krieger,

2005). The most private and hidden of the layers is the personal layer. Representing a person’s underlying self-concept unexpressed publicly and only accessible to that individual (Orbe, 2004).

This layer requires self-reported data or data that indirectly informs decisions and actions due to its concealed nature, such as the customization options and groups a user joins. Paralleling

Goffman’s conceptualization of Dramaturgy, the personal layer is followed by a more public- facing layer known as the enacted layer. The enacted layer is what a person ‘shares’ or expresses outward to the world (2004). Often this takes the form of comments or texts, especially in digital environments. The layer’s public nature also means it is subject to significant identity management. On social media, such as Reddit, communication from this layer would entail posts of text, images, or videos created by a user. Layer three is relational, so named because this aspect of identity is a mutual creation (Hecht & Choi, 2012). Essentially, two or more individuals form perceptions and expectations based on how they project themselves in their interactions.

Cocreated identities are not linear in fashion but cyclical, whereby each relationship affects all connected relationships in a never-ending negotiation (2012). For example, the identity of being a mother is co-created, shaped, and sustained via interactions between mother and child. In online media, this layer is observable through comment replies and interactions between users.

Lastly, the communal layer forms through interactions between groups and communities, as under CTI groups have identities just as individuals (Hecht, Warren, Jung, & Krieger, 2005).

Additionally, group member’s identities interact with the group identity and vice versa, mirroring how the individual layers of identity cyclically affect each other (2005). On social media, investigating this layer is done through user interactions with the larger community, such as meta-discussions. The interactions between the whole community and other communities offer insights into the group’s identity and how it interacts with the individual's identity. Examining all layers and their context is crucial as it affects an individual's perceptions and actions. The layers may also conflict, a condition known as an identity gap (Morgan, Soliz, Minniear, & Bergquist,

2020).

Identity gap creation occurs when one layer of identity contradicts another in a way not quickly resolvable. Gaps are not merely logical contradictions; they have a profound and lasting effect on mental health and wellness. Bergquist, Soliz, Everhart, Braithwaite, and Kreimer

(2019) found identity gaps were a key indicator among immigrants for adverse outcomes.

Stanley and Pitts (2019) likewise found a connection between identity gaps, depression, and dissonance. However, the same study speculated such gaps might motivate individuals to change their circumstances (2019). Gaps can take on a variety of configurations and through a multitude of actions. For example, trans individuals who are not outworldly expressing how they view themselves have a Personal-enacted identity gap (Wagner, Kunkel, & Compton, 2016). This gap can resolve in several positive and negative ways. Some may attempt to repress the gap’s emotional effects, while others may enact their self-view in a private setting (2016). Examining identity gaps is done in multiple ways and largely depends on the communication environment and data availability (Bergquist, Soliz, Everhart, Braithwaite, & Kreimer, 2019; Orbe, 2004).

An additional aspect of CTI needing illumination is its connection with intersectionality.

CTI affirms intersectionality by highlighting the pliability and fluidity of identity (Wagner,

Kunkel, & Compton, 2016). Intersectionality is also useful for understanding how people enact and manage their identities across frames (Compton, 2019). Intersectionality is a theory of complexity and, like CTI, posits identity as dynamic and constituted from many interconnected factors (Collins & Bilge, 2018). It is also a theory of justice. As Crenshaw (1991) articulated, intersectionality encompasses the overlapping aspects of identity, creating and reinforcing inequalities. This theory’s creation is rooted in the perception that second-wave feminism ignored or erased black women’s struggles who had encountered misogyny and racism. White feminists were the main organizers of the movement and had no discrimination experiences

6 comparable to black women. When confronted with this reality, many leaders of second-wave feminism chose to ignore the issue, harming the overarching goals of feminism by creating blind spots that obscure oppressions since they form from multiple systems and interactions that form complex inequality structures (Collins, 2019). The practical implication of intersectionality is the rejection of objectivity; data are not blindly collected and distilled. They come from a perspective that influences their gathering and interpretation (Collins & Bilge, 2018). Therefore, researchers must be open to complexity and actively engage in self-reflexive thinking via practices like journaling to reflect on chosen interpretations. Intestectionaly also has a moral component and calls for the pursuit of ethical research (2018). This mandate takes several forms, but a common feature is the pursuit of praxis or findings that aid the oppressed or amplify their voices. The incorporation of intersectionality CTI provides an excellent foundation in examining the relationship between users, context, and groups but how a person becomes attached to an organization is also essential.

Group identity describes views commonly held in an organization and represents group members' overall sense of oneness (Webster & Wong, 2008). The perception of oneness or connectedness influences an individual's identity, with a greater connection leading members to further define themselves in terms of the organization (Bhattacharya, Rao, & Glynn, 1995).

Identification is understood to play a critical formational and maintenance function for a person’s attitudes and beliefs, though there is still debate about group identification’s underlying mechanisms (Huddy, 2013).

The following sections address three key identification theories: identity theory, bond theory, and consumerist identity theory. The development of Common identity and bond theory started in social psychology during the 1990s from the study of ‘real’ world organizations

(Prentice, Miller, & Lightdale, 1994). Common identity describes an individual's group attachment based on the group as a whole, not individual members (Meisenbach & Kramer,

2014). This results in more disposable members as the group's overall quality drives attachment.

For example, seeing oneself in terms of nationality is based on overarching ideas, perspectives, and experiences, not individual citizens. The interchangeability of members makes for relatively stable identities owing to the consistency of beliefs from which members can derive their identities (2014). Authors Ren, Kraut, and Kiesler (2007) proposed three primary causes for common identity: social categorization, interdependence, and intergroup comparison. Social categorization occurs essentially by chance as all individuals in a population have an equal opportunity of being placed with a particular group (Amichai-Hamburger, 2005).

Interdependence describes groups formed around a common purpose or goal only obtained through coordinated effort (Ren, Kraut, and Kiesler, 2007). Political parties are examples of interdependence, particularly ones formed around a single issue like climate change. Finally, the intergroup comparison describes when individuals self-categorize by comparing themselves to other groups to find which matches them the most (Hogg and Terry, 2000).

Contrasting common identity, bond theory posits individuals become group members by becoming attached to individual members (Ren, Kraut, and Kiesler, 2007). This attachment comes about broadly from social interaction and self-disclosure, along with similarities such as values, attitudes, and preferences (Baker, 2001). Attachments of this type are understood to be less stable than those formed by common identity theory since individuals are unique enough that replacement is near impossible. Replacement of senior members with new ones can also create friction as the group negotiates new relationships. Turning back to the political parties example, bond theory would posit that instead of identifying with the group’s overall goals, they

8 would become attached because they identify with specific group members. Common and bond theory are useful conceptions for thinking through what holds a group together and identify commonly held beliefs.

Similarly, consumerist identity theory helps understand identity within a social media business structure and capitalist culture. Consumerist identity theory states an individual’s identity is constructed, reinforced, and reflected through their choice of products or consumptive practices (Weaver, 2016). For example, computer parts manufacturer Cooler Master brands itself around the “gamer” lifestyle. Thus a customer can construct their identity as a gamer by purchasing their products. In contrast, a veteran democrat buying the party tote bag exemplifies a consumer reinforcing their identity. As with CTI layers, these categories can intermix and co- occur, and therefore are more analytical tools than rigid divisions. An additional factor in modern consumerist culture is the prevalence of digital services that require direct input or work from users. A person engaged in the dual activity of production and consumption is known as prosumer (Ritzer & Jurgenson, 2010). Prosumers are particularly prevalent on social media sites where user-generated content is central to the site’s design. Therefore, researchers must be conscious of the intermixing of production and consumption. Furthermore, consumption is a significant aspect of modern society, so the theory is useful for trying to understand a user’s identity and connections.

To review, the communicative theory of identity posits identity as constructed from four interpenetrating layers. On Reddit, some of these behaviors include posting a comment, linking content, or subscribing to a community. When expanding beyond the individual to groups, The reasoning behind user identification can be split into two general factors; identification with the whole group or identification with individuals. As modern capitalist society has encouraged

9 hyper-consumption, a practical way to gain insight into individual and group identity is to examine their consumptive habits. Together these form a framework to guide the examination of groups and individual users in online spaces and are enhanced by integrating intersectionality for its theoretical, practical, and ethical aspects. Nonetheless, understanding identity alone only provides a partial picture of communication and identity. Communication activities must also be understood in terms of their context (Compton, 2019). Therefore, a Marxist media framework was selected which compliments and aids CTI.

Marxism

The study of communication has been linked with Marxism since the beginning of the field, particularly within European and British Sociology (Collins & Bilge, 2018). As with many schools of thought, Marxism's popularity experienced numerous peaks and troughs throughout the years. One recent peak of Marxist analysis was in the 1970s, with theorists such as Stewart

Hall and Edward P. Thompson publishing multiple academic papers and books applying

Marxism to the modern economy and culture (2018). By the mid-1980s, the large-scale embrace of neoliberalism and “free” economic principles perpetuated a drop in Marxism’s popularity lasting into the 1990s. By the new millennium, social scientists had seemingly abandoned the theory (Fuchs, 2014). The global economic recession in the late 2000s and early 2010s saw a renewed interest with increasing scholarship and application of Marxist principles (2014). This increased popularity coincided with high internet usage in daily life and resulted in Marxism’s growing presence in digital spaces. To understand Marxism’s place in the current study, the following sections will overview key concepts of Marxist analysis, including historical materialism, class, value and exploitation, alienation, commodification, and affective labor.

Marxism’s intellectual forefather was a late 18th and early 19th-century philosopher

10 named Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel’s primary contribution to Marxism is the concept of dialectical methods. Dialectics posits knowledge is created by starting from an idea (thesis), finding its contradiction (antithesis), and merging them into a new concept (synthesizing), which is more accurate than the previous ideas (Marshal, 2012). This form of dialectics is rooted in idealism, the position that ideas form the primary basis for reality, hence its technical name: dialectical idealism (Ball, 1979). Marxism diverges from Hegel in the belief in a material

(physical) foundation of reality. As stated in Capital (1867), “...The ideal is nothing but the material world reflected in the mind of man and translated into forms of thought” (p.102). This does not mean the mind is not a part of reality; but is secondary to matter because it is independent of the mind (Mao, 1961). To illustrate this difference, consider how different perspectives describe the roots of theft. Idealists would focus on the cause of theft as a product of personal moral attributes. A burglar is ‘bad’ due to an inherent aspect, not external conditions. In contrast, a materialist mindset ascribes the cause of theft to material deficit or need. A burglar is not a ‘bad’ person; they just have no food. This rejection of idealism as reality’s base created a new form of dialectic dubbed dialectical materialism.

Dialectical materialism posits the mind as shaped by material conditions. If one wants to understand a person’s actions, analysis of their material conditions is necessary (Weaver, 2016).

Applied to larger organizational entities, dialectical materialism forms the basis of historical materialism. Historical in that it examines an organization’s current state by tracing its material conditions through time (Nixon, 2012). For example, understanding Ford’s early car industry domination would entail investigating how its resources (wood, steel, rubber) were acquired, controlled, and implemented. When Marx applied historical materialism to society at large, an overarching narrative came to light of a struggle between two groups, those who labor to create

11 products [the proletariat] and those who control the resources needed to create products [the bourgeoisie] (Butt, 2006). In an industrial society, seen in relations between factory owners and workers. Workers use their labor to produce products for consumption but do not have ownership of the machinery or materials. In contrast, owners control the machinery, raw materials, compensation, and access to resources.

Though a critical element within classical Marxism, some academics have taken issue with the central focus on materiality. Larence Grossberg (2014) is critical of dialectical materialism for being reductionist, oversimplified, and prone to group erasure. As an alternative,

Grossberg advocates for complexity, meaning no single answer or position is correct in every context. Therefore, differences need to be understood, articulated, and embraced. As stated by

Grossberg (2010), “Contexts are always in relation to others context, producing complex sets of multidimensional relations and connections” (p. 21). At the same time, Grossberg advocates for the humanities to grapple with traditionally ignored economic questions. He also believes the traditional Marxist analysis reduces or simplifies complex social relationships and interactions down to economic factors while neglecting ordinary people. Alternatively, put another way, academic Marxism lacks the human element and views individuals as easily manipulated victims of false consciousness (Fuchs, 2014). As with Grossberg, Hartley (2014) identifies several contemporary problems requiring redress within the Marxist methodology, particularly its assumption of a single cause for all societal ills and oversimplifications of social issues. Hartley also dismisses older understandings of economics and advocates taking an evolutionary economic perspective emphasizing complexity. Criticisms like these help in considering academic and methodological biases, but many see them as hollow. Jarrett (2015) counters that while society does not depend solely on economics, modern society has embraced a neoliberal

12 capitalism model with its economic logic overtaking all other reasoning. Christian Fuchs (2014) has a particularly harsh interpretation of the criticism, questioning the very notion of Grossman’s

“complexity.” Factors like race, gender, and ethnicity are components of oppression, but core to all oppression is economics, as highlighted by the concept of class.

Class is challenging to articulate since it does not perfectly align with measurable variables, such as income. Anti-Marxist theorists have posited class as a form of propaganda, arbitrarily separating the population into “the people” and “the elite” to justify socialist policies and goals (Ernst, Engesser, Büchel, Blassnig, & Esser, 2017). However, most humanities scholars see class as a “social fact” predicated on common interests people collectively identify with and take actions to fulfill those interests (Fisher, 2015). Those like Dougherty, Schraedley,

Gist-Mackey, and Wickert (2018) view class as a phenomenon co-created through social structures and discourses. Another articulation of this principle espoused by researchers such as

Butt (2006) views class as shared positions of struggle for control and resources. This approach is particularly useful in the present analysis as it encompasses everyday resources and more esoteric concepts such as power and brings Marx into the digital age where the lines between physical and virtual are blurred.

Another aspect in which class plays a vital role in understanding is value. In economic terms, value describes the reasons products are worth what individuals pay for them. Under mainstream economic (capitalist) thought, value comes from the “invisible hand of the market” via supply and demand. On a basic level, when an item is popular but limited in supply, its value will go up because people are willing to pay more for its acquisition. Value rooted in this idealist framing bases a thing’s worth on individual desire and not its utility. In contrast, Marxism conceptualizes value as derived from the labor-time required to produce a good (Marx, Engles,

Lenin, and Czobel, 1970). For example, an apple has less value than a cell phone because it requires a less significant labor-time investment to turn raw materials into a usable item.

Marxism differentiates between three types of value: use, exchange, and surplus-value. Use value derives from a specific need a product satisfies (Weaver, 2016). For example, apples are valuable because they fulfill the biological need for food. Exchange value is what a commodity or product is worth when traded for other items (Cohen, 1979). Lastly, surplus value denotes the value of a good beyond compensation to laborers. For example, a worker paid $50 to make a widget the factory sells for $75 creates $15 in surplus-value. Surplus-value is critical in explaining the underlying mechanisms of capitalist exploitation of labor. The only way to increase surplus value is to increase the speed of work or decrease the time required to make a product (Garnham, 1979). To illustrate, if a single worker can make ten widgets per hour, the only way to increase the output would be to increase the pace of work or increase “efficiency” through technology, so widget production increases without adding additional workers. The consequence of surplus-value is worker exploitation since laborers’ compensation is less than the value they produce. Therefore, capitalism depends upon continued exploitation of labor to create the surplus-value, which underlies the capitalist system (Steedman, 1975).

Today, a great deal of labor has transitioned from physical work to immaterial labor

(mental labor) and physical objects’ production to intangible things, such as data (Hardt, 1999).

However, this shift does not equate to a decrease in exploitation. As the internet has integrated into society, capitalist actors have found new ways to exploit labor by transforming consumers/users into laborers. This exploitation happens both explicitly and surreptitiously. An example of explicit exploitation from technology companies relies on customers or open source communities to keep the software bug-free free of cost. Surreptitious exploitation happens

14 through various mechanisms that obscure the act of work. A prevalent example on the internet comes in the form of low-tech Turing tests or captchas. These take many forms, but a prevalent one is to present users with a 3x3 grid of photos and ask them to select all images depicting a particular object. This system appears as a security measure to prevent nonhuman actors (bots) from gaining site access but has a secondary function on a surface level (Alqahtani and

Alsulaiman, 2020). Companies use picture selection to train advanced AI and algorithms. This training would usually take thousands of paid labor hours to produce, as laborers would need to demonstrate to the AI and record its actions. Integrating the work into the system of access allows the extraction of value without the need for total compensation. Also, theorists such as

Jarrett (2015) have highlighted the integration of labor into non-work spaces has blurred the line between leisure and work, creating “time soaks.” Leading to a situation where a person’s labor is exploited during work time and exploited again when they try to escape their daily lives through leisure. Such as reading their favorite website and being required to train an AI through a captcha to gain access.

Critics of the Marxist approach to value include academics such as Antonio Negri and

Michael Hardt (2000), who believe orthodox Marxism no longer works within the current context as society has shifted from traditional imperialism to a postmodern system. This is exemplified by a totalized systemic oppression of individuals (2000). Postmodernism’s shift invalidated the Marxist theory of labor value since material goods production is not required due to the economic changes to mental labor and immaterial production (Hearn, 2011). Also, as the lines between work and leisure have blurred, the idea of a “temporal unity of labor” as the measure of value no longer makes sense. While this movement toward the immaterial is accurate, these authors seem to have overlooked the long history in Marxism of rejecting the

15 distinction between physical and nonphysical labor. Some Marxists have even claimed separating labor types is a bourgeois idea to create divisions within labor (Mao, 1961).

Simultaneously, there has been a shift in how the modern economy functions. These criticisms of labor value fall short because, at its heart, capitalism always depends on the exploitation of labor to extract surplus value. Though the mechanisms of exploitation may appear to have changed, the underlying mechanisms and outcomes remain. Exploitation occurs by breaking the task into tiny fractions and then expanding work into non-work hours. So, in essence, the time required to do a job has decreased. What is different from classical Marxism is instead of increasing the work pace, the modern capitalist has merely expanded the work hours. So, while the transformation of raw materials is no longer prevalent within the economy, the theory of value still holds that capitalism always depends upon the extraction of surplus-value and workers’ exploitation. Exploitation is central to capitalist societies as they thrive off creating an environment that encourages alienation and commodification to drive consumption.

Alienation and commodification are interlinked phenomena that arise from similar conditions and reinforce each other (Fisher, 2012). Alienation is complex and multi-layered but essentially it is people lacking connection to others and their work. In classical Marxism, this detachment occurs because workers lack control over their working conditions and production

(Fuchs, 2017). In this way, alienation is both a result and process. Result since it comes from how work is structured in capitalism and process as it is not accidental but intentionally cultivated to encourage consumption (Sayers, 2011). A consequence of alienation is the collapse of human relationships and existential depression, which creates the conditions for greater exploitation of labor (2012). One way the opportunity for exploitation manifests is in commodification. Commodification denotes when a practice, idea, or “thing” is turned into a

16 commodity for mass consumption, even if traditionally it has not been something bought or sold

(Tuckman, 2005). A process explained by Weaver (2016) as imbuing an item with “subjective symbolic and almost magical values” (p.48). The interaction between alienation and commodification causes individuals to seek meaning and temporary fulfillment through commodified goods. The seeking of commodities for actualization leads to a phenomenon known as commodity fetishism. Commodity fetishism is an encouraged practice by capitalists because it drives the purchase of more goods and the extraction of more wealth (Hudson and

Hudson, 2003). Commodified goods do not solve alienation. Instead, they enhance and propel alienation. However, the human mind requires certain psychological activities, such as social interaction, relaxation, and rejuvenation. Here too, capitalism has found a way to commodify and extract labor. In social media, the aspect commodified is affective labor, the invisible restorative work brought about during social interactions.

As discussed briefly in the alienation and commodification section, there has been a general shift to immaterial labor. As labor has become decoupled from physical space and no longer requires a factory floor, immaterial labor occurs in what Kylie Jarrett (2015) describes as the social factory. A social factory has no formal boundaries or time, reaching beyond traditional workplace barriers and blurring the lines between the economic, social, political, and cultural.

Within the social factory, essential psychological labor is performed, known as affective labor.

Affective labor is the intangible emotional labor hidden beneath society’s surface (Gutierrez-

Rodriguez, 2014). Including aspects such as psychological release, emotional support, and care.

As Hardt (1999) described, “Caring labor is certainly entirely immersed in the corporeal, somatic, but the effects it produces are nonetheless immaterial. What affective labor produces are social networks, forms of community, biopower” (p. 96). Affective labor is necessary for society

17 because people need to be psychologically/emotionally restored and maintained lest they break down. In a capitalist society, commodification takes away traditional releases while alienation destroys relationships used for self-restoration.

To review, Marxism is a materialist outlook, with its primary method of analysis being historical materialism, analysis of current conditions in terms of historic resource control. The tension between those who own control resources (means of production) and those who do not separate society into the proletariat and the bourgeoisie social classes. To maintain and grow their advantage, the bourgeoisie extract surplus value using various techniques that siphon value from labor and manifest in systems that create alienation and push commodity fetishism through various commodifications. Modern capitalism has evolved away from physical work and toward immaterial labor. On social media, immaterial labor takes the form of affective labor. In this study, Marxism enhances CTI by guiding the investigation to contextual elements critical to communication, allowing for a more complex and complete understanding of how Reddit.com enables and constrains /r/socialism.

Social Media

All social media sites have various technological features that enable and constrain users’ actions and the site itself. One aspect that has increased since web 2.0 is content customization.

Content customization comes in many forms but often involves subscribing or following another user or group. Once selected, the user or their content appears more often than others. This ability to choose what kind of content is present and suggested to the user creates a high choice environment. An effect of this type of environment is self-curating users can (and do) engage in curation, which only reaffirms their preexisting ideas and biases (Heatherly, Lu, & Lee, 2017).

User customization arises from design decisions based on a specific logic inherent to social

18 media organizations, networked logic. Networked logic is the idea of connecting and interlinking people based on shared interests and similarly held beliefs (Klinger & Svensson, 2015).

Therefore, social media encourages linking like-minded people and filtering out content that could inhibit connections, creating an environment free of dissenting opinions or contradictory viewpoints. This phenomenon of filtered media bubbles has become problematic in recent years, particularly with the spread of fake news and conspiracy thinking not easily countered with factual information. However, social media also has pronounced positive effects on information flow. While social media’s structure or tools can filter out oppositional information, it can also lead to greater exposure to alternative viewpoints (Lu & Lee, 2019). By spending time online, a user has the chance to be exposed to antithetical political information (Brundige, 2010).

Ironically, what facilitates exposure to counter information is the same networked logic that leads to information bubbles. Additionally, social media’s networked logic is beneficial to overlooked political ideologies by giving them away to circumvent traditional news channels and gatekeepers (Ernst, Engesser, Büchel, Blassnig, & Esser, 2017).

Another technology utilized by social media for information regulation and a variety of other features is bots. Bots or AI are sophisticated programs built to perform various tasks. For social media companies, AI is used instead of humans for efficiency and cost-savings. For example, Reddit communities often employ bots to automatically perform moderator duties such as flagging posts for inappropriate subjects. Bots also allow a smaller number of individuals to manage large groups by offloading basic decision-making jobs. Unfortunately, this technology also enables bad actors with few physical resources to reach many individuals. As seen in the past few years, bot networks spread propaganda and false information on a global scale.

Compounding these issues, the vast majority of bots and AI technologies operate hidden from

19 academic and public scrutiny (Kemper & Kolkman, 2019). This lack of openness is further exacerbated by the technology's complexity, as developers have turned to AI building methods that remove humans from the equation. So, a creator may know the result of a bot’s process but not how the results are generated (Ananny & Crawford, 2018). This shows why it is important to seek multiple viewpoints, as these systems of influence are manifold, affecting individual users and groups differently depending on the context. However, bots are not the only aspect affecting information flow on social media; economic and political features play a significant part.

Economic and political factors affect information flow by influencing a social media company’s motivation and boundaries. As part of a capitalist society, a company’s financial situation requires maximization of profitability for shareholders, particularly in the United States, where public companies are legally mandated to maximize investors’ returns. This drive for maximum gains comes at workers’ and users’ expense, as companies turn to exploitation to fill their coffers Holzer, (2017). This exploitation takes many forms, but a prevalent one online is user data acquisition (Hardt, 1999). User data collection comes from various site interactions, such as time spent on site, search queries, and mouse movements. Underlying the drive for user data is a lack of regulation combined with an increased ability to target particular consumers

(Kozinets, De Valck, Wojnicki, & Wilner, 2010). Easy targeting of likely customers has led to businesses focusing on easy profit and an increased reliance on smaller and smaller shares of audiences (Prior,2007). The effects of these factors on information flow are evident in online media’s use of word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM), which attempts to employ consumer-to- consumer communication to influence purchasing behavior (Kozinets et al., 2010). In marketing speak, WOMM has many names: buzz, social marketing, viral content, however all target specific groups through customized ads and practices such as topic seeding (2010). The effect of

20 this practice and other environmental factors are evident in site design choices meant to grab audience attention via emotional manipulation.

Furthermore, Padovani (2016) found this environment encourages socially damaging marketing to provoke system coverage and media attention. How far a social media company can push this form of advertising depends on its relationship to its political structure. Though often overlooked, the political position of a media company is inherent through its self-interest. On the one hand, they must stay on the right side of government oversight entities. While on the other hand, social media companies have a vested political interest in staying within certain bounds set by their advertising interests, along with specific ideological reinforcements that benefit them as corporate entities (Holzer, 2017). Though a lack of research makes it difficult to form a complete picture of information flow, several real-life incidents give hints, such as Twitter CEO Jack

Dorsey’s actions, which prevented several alt-right and conservative figures from being banned for rule violations (Cox & Koebler, 2019). From this and the other factors, it can be supposed that the politics of the country of operation, which most affects the site’s owners, and what information is preferred by the system all contribute to political information flow. However, information flow on social media is not singularly affected by company/platform-oriented aspects. Individual user’s traits also affect information flow.

Users

Several personal aspects affect online information flow to information a user receives online, including geographic location, gender, mental health, party identification, and social capital. The user’s geographic location is crucial as it dictates their type of internet access and information availability. Exemplified by Stenberg, Morehart, Vogel, Cromartie, Breneman, and

Brown (2009), who found users in small midwestern towns had substandard internet access due

21 to ISP’s unwillingness to spend money on a small population of consumers. Further, geography constrains information by limiting service providers and information resources, as can be seen in the decline of rural news and media sources leading to a consolidated environment (Darr, Hitt, &

Dunaway, 2018). Consolidated environments are problematic since they present a single viewpoint vulnerable to both media bubbles and propaganda, as seen in the widespread distribution of Qanon and Russian election misinformation. In terms of information flow, geography’s negative effects are further exacerbated by the following individual feature, emotional arousal.

Berger and Milkman (2012) found that emotional arousal facilitated political information diffusion so that articles with more emotional content had a greater chance of being shared.

Particularly for items with anger-inducing content (Hasell and Weeks, 2016). The response to anger-inducing content is also affected by a user’s prior experiences with rejection and social isolation, such as under alienation (2016). Environmental factors can also manipulate emotional states by encouraging a consumerist identity, seeing oneself in terms of the products consumed.

This view then drives greater consumption levels as individuals seek to affirm their identity through continued purchases and driven by emotions magnified by the effects of alienation

(Collins & Bilge, 2018). Meaning a user’s perception of the world is skewed, along with the problems and issues they find salient. When these factors combine with marketing techniques targeting specific consumer groups, it creates a situation where companies can manipulate information flow, so users only receive information the sender deems appropriate (Kozinets, De

Valck, Wojnicki, & Wilner, 2010). Furthermore, information saliency is affected by party identification in a similar manner to emotional arousal.

Party identification is impactful to information saliency and flow by interacting with a

22 user’s identity and emotional reactions. When individuals become attached to a particular political party, they gain a sense of belonging and integrate it into their view of themselves. This attachment can have several positive side effects, motivating individuals to be more socially and politically active. However, party attachments also open a person to emotional manipulation, particularly in a highly polarized media environment (Blanton, Strauts, & Perez, 2012). One example of such manipulation is using an opposing party as a scapegoat, hoping that a member’s preference for their party will bias them toward believing the information. A phenomenon further demonstrated by Iyengar, Sood, & Lelkes (2012), who found positive correlations between the intensity of party identification and negative responses to political information. Meaning, a user with greater party identification has an increased chance of responding negatively to political information attacking their party. Like emotional arousal, party identification is highly affected by a polarized media environment and used by companies to elicit emotional reactions conducive to consumption (Garrett, Gvirsman, Johnson, Tsfati, Neo, and Dal, 2014). The next aspect in political information flow is gender.

Gender affects political information flow in two ways. First, it shapes the types of political issues people find salient. During the 2016 election, Hale and Grabe (2018) found a clear gender divide between Clinton and Trump’s supporters tied to the ways specific issues were perceived. Second, gender shapes a person’s information-sharing behaviors. As Hasell and

Weeks (2016) described, men were far more likely to share political information than women.

Given how gender affects the salience of issues, it is reasonable to extrapolate this behavioral difference, resulting in a skewed or biased perception of the current problems as male issues would be far more prevalent than others. Investigators need to examine social media, as they need an awareness of seemingly essential issues that may not translate to the community as a

23 whole. Besides gender, another personal aspect that affects information flow is a user’s social capital.

The final element of information flow is social capital, a resource embedded in social relationships and ties that allow a person to accomplish a goal through group or connection (Lin,

2008). For example, a thousand followers on Facebook increases the chances one of them could have five dollars to lend versus only having one follower. However, a relationship’s complexity dictates whether it is strong or weak and how that particular social capital can be used (Gil de

Zúñiga, Jung, & Valenzuela, 2012). For example, the relationship between parent and child is more complicated than between a homeowner and mail-worker. The different ties also affect the kind of information passed along through a network. Weak ties are casual and less complicated than strong ties but offer more general information. The difference comes from how the ties are composed; strong are more homogeneous while weak ties are more heterogeneous. Meaning similar people comprise strong tie networks composed of similar people, while weak tie networks have more diversity, thus offering a greater variety of viewpoints (Heatherly, Lu, &

Lee, 2017). As with emotional content, social media design choices enhance embedded social capital. For example, Twitter is more effective at exploiting weak ties, social connections not prevalent in a person’s life than Facebook (Valenzuela, Correa, & Gil de Zúñiga, 2018).

Therefore, depending on the social media site’s design, weak or strong ties can be exploited to push certain information. As such, both site choice and network type affect information flow, with the type of tie easiest being affected by the kind of network available to supply information.

Understanding the features of information flow on social media and personal level is essential as the next aspect to be discussed, identity, is highly interrelated.

Location

Reddit is a privately held company managed by Steve Huffman (CEO), Jen Wong

(COO), and Christopher Slowe (CTO) based in San Francisco, California (Orgio, n.d.). Though officially an independent company since 2011, Reddit has been a subsidiary of Advance

Publication with a valuation of over a billion dollars (Loizos, 2017). Details of Reddit’s corporate structure are mostly unknown to the general public. Still, in broad strokes, the organization is known to follow a top-down hierarchical structure similar to most American technology companies. A lead CEO and vice presidents oversee essential functions like advertising (Orgio, n.d.). Near the bottom of the corporate structure are the site’s day-to-day managers known as the Admins.

Admins wield enormous power compared to other users, such as removing posts and banning individual users or whole communities. Rules enforced by the admins come in two varieties. First, are sitewide rules called Reddiquette, which describes unlawful practices and how users should interact with other users. For example, users are encouraged to think of each other as human beings and not as faceless entities. The second tier of policies is those created by each community and vary extensively based on the community. Violations of either set of rules can be punished in several ways: warning, a temporary suspension, a permanent ban, or a shadowban1 . Though punishments are specific to a community, administrators can extend them to the whole site if they feel a user has severely violated the rules. Subreddits are also punished in similar ways if they break the rules as a whole. Punishments range from giving the moderators a warning to clean up the sub to shutting down the organization altogether. A unique form of punishment developed by the administrators is quarantining. Quarantined subreddits become

1When the user being banned does not know they are banned.

25 invisible to Reddit’s algorithms, lose ads and access to cosmetic customization, and require users to go through a warning page before viewing the community.

Rules are rarely the first thing a user experiences on Reddit. The adventure begins before even getting on the site. Depending on the device or settings used, Reddit can appear in three different configurations. A large screen device results in the current default state designed and optimized for “modern” devices like tablets. Smaller devices have an optimized format that eliminates margins or sidebars, along with a more tile-oriented design. A drawback of this style is that it reduces the viewable conversations on-screen to three posts. The site’s final view is known as the “classic” view and is accessible via user settings. The classic layout is Reddit’s original format and has far less white-space along with a more compact design optimized for older desktop computers.

When entering Reddit, users first see the front page, known as ‘the front page of the internet.’ The front page is an aggregated list of popular discussions, though no one but Reddit’s employees knows the exact criteria used by the site’s algorithm. Across the page’s top is a toolbar with links to a selection of communities known as ‘defaults.’ In the past default, communities were simply the largest in terms of overall users. However, over time this changed due to annoyance with some of the subreddits. The criteria for selecting defaults are unknown, but some of the exclusion criteria are known and include subreddits that are adult-only, controversial, or opted out of appearing on the front page. Beyond the front page, Reddit is decentrally organized, with each community (subreddit) acting independently. Users can spend all their time in a single subreddit without ever touching anywhere else on the site. What drives this decentralization and sets Reddit apart from similar platforms is any registered user can make a community on nearly any subject.

The dependence on user input extends to every aspect of Reddit. Content is created from users making and submitting memes, drawings, discussion topics, questions, or links to outside content. Curation of content occurs via user voting with highly-rated “good” content pushed higher up the list of discussions and “bad” content pushed down. As mentioned above, another user-generated aspect is the communities themselves. Any registered user can create a new community on nearly any subject, even if it duplicates an existing organization, though illegal, racist, and hateful topics are restricted. When creating a new subreddit, the creator becomes the head moderator (manager) and gains privileges such as adding moderators, banning posts, and setting community rules. As such, communities tend to have distinct cultures. For example, subreddit /r/askhistorians goal is to have ‘experts’ accurately answer history questions and are known for strictly enforcing their rules to the point discussions can have hundreds of comments deleted for being off-topic.

To contribute to Reddit, not just consume its content, a user must become registered.

Registration requires an email address, username, and selecting a password. Once registered, a user gains the ability to subscribe and customize the subreddits that appear on their homepage.

Registration also allows users to accumulate “karma,” the sum of all positive and negative votes for their comments or discussion posts. Total user karma is rarely displayed but is accessible by clicking on a user’s name and going into their public profile page. Not only is a user’s karma viewable, so is their entire posting history. However, users do have the ability to delete or edit their posts. With Reddit’s main structure discussed, the focus can shift to the specific site or subreddit under examination.

For this study, the chosen subreddit is /r/socialism, a community of over 235,892 registered users who define themselves as socialists in political and sociopolitical terms. Political

27 socialism is described as “...democratic and social control of the means of production by the workers for the good of the community rather than capitalist.” Conversely, the community defines its socio-political stance as, “dedicated to the critique and dismantling of exploitative structures, including economic, gendered, ethnic oppression.” As such, this community offers the perfect opportunity to explore how Reddit both enables and constrains the community and how they use capitalist systems to further anti-capitalist activities.

CHAPTER 2: METHOD

Research Questions

As said in chapter one, Reddit and /r/socialism have a unique relationship as platform and community due to underlying philosophical conflicts. This type of conflict is playing out across the internet as capitalist platforms become incubators for Leftist communities. Since Reddit is a communicative environment, CTI was combined with Marxist media theory to analyze communicative activities and their context better. The two approaches also have moral aspects that call for research to be inclusive and practical. These combined factors guided the creation of three general goals of this project:

● Understand, describe, and critique Reddit’s relationship with /r/socialism.

● Investigate Reddit’s enabling and constraining role in the development of communities.

● Develop practical advice for resistance and transformation.

Additionally, in searching for a way to implement the Marxist theory, a typology was found that guided material analysis and integrated communication as a central aspect. The typology consists of five interrelated features of capitalist media organizations to investigate to understand the company, its socioeconomic context, and the media’s audience. As such, the original research question and the typology led to six research questions:

1. How does Reddit enable and constrain the community of /r/socialism

2. What does Reddit produce for the consumer market?

3. What does Reddit provide to other companies as a market?

4. How does Reddit foster an environment of consumption?

5. What dominant ideologies does Reddit reinforce or promote?

6. What benefit does the audience receive from using Reddit? 29

Answering these questions necessitated a mixed-methods approach to meet the needs for analyzing each research question. These methods include content analysis, survey, and secondary document analysis, but before explaining the processes in detail, describing the underlying typology is warranted.

Typology

Dr. Horst Holzer is not a widely known figure in English-speaking academia. Born in

Western-controlled post-war Germany, Holzer grew up in an environment hostile to all Marxist strains of thought, a position legally enforced through the Radicals Decree, a law barring

Marxists from many positions within public universities (Holzer, 2017). Undeterred, Holzer stuck to his Marxist principles and eventually developed a theory of media incorporating views parallel to modern-day intersectionality and Marxist theory, not popularized till decades later.

The approach focuses on human relationships and interactions within the larger society, emphasizing communication as the mechanism for constituting systems of power. Of particular note is Holzer’s emphasis on communication’s role in the ideological justification of capitalist domination. This role is embedded within media organizations since they are ingrained within a society’s political and economic systems (Fuchs, 2018). However, the most unique aspect of the framework is an emphasis on audiences. Unlike some researchers who reduced users to a brainwashed mass, Holzer emphasized their intelligence and capacity to make meaningful changes to systems (2017). Particularly important when examining social media, where audiences integrate into the system itself. Holzer created a five-point typology focusing on a company’s capital-economic functions: Media sales, media market, commodity circulation, domination, and audience.

The capital-economic function describes a media company’s production and sale of

30 consumer-level goods. Including both material and non-material goods or services, such as branded T-shirts or digital books. With the increasing immateriality of economic production, companies’ general trends focus on data and other intangible goods. Social media usually relies on providing a ‘free’ service while extracting and collating user data to sell. Companies may also exploit data directly by offering targeted advertising. For example, Google makes a significant amount of its revenue from advertising driven by user searchers’ data. This research proposes to examine this feature through analyzing Reddit’s advertising material to both end-users and businesses. Combined, these should give an accurate picture of how Reddit presents itself to users and how they describe that interaction for other enterprises.

Media sales and market function examine the role of media organizations as markets for other companies. For example, radio stations functioned as advertising markets with companies looking for the most exposure their budgets could handle. Modern media companies still rely on advertising but are far more integrated with other companies and do not exist in isolation or limit themselves to only one product. For example, Facebook provides a platform for other businesses to target specific user cohorts for advertising and various business-to-business communication technologies. The current study looked at multiple statements, corporate literature, and financial statements that identified critical products to analyze the marketing aspects of Reddit.

Additionally, a media company’s work extends to producing a space conducive to buy products.

Commodity circulation focuses on how a company constructs an environment or climate encouraging the consumption of specific products. This aspect incorporates both overt forms, like image advertising, to more subtle elements such as native advertising. So overall, this function focuses on all ways a company pushes consumers to purchase goods or services. On social media, a common form of circulation is the targeted advertising, under the idea that

31 individuals will buy items related to their interests. This is targeted based on data collected from users’ browsing and search history. Social media companies also try creating digital communities to connect like-minded users or customers, aiding in targeting and reinforcing a users’ s feelings of a product through positive group interactions. On Reddit, this function’s analysis consists of content analyses of advertisements, rules/policies, and analyzing how the site’s structure enables and constrains consumption. Creating an environment of consumption also intersects with the following media function, domination.

Domination refers to a company’s role in legitimizing the prevailing social order and in circulating a society’s dominant ideologies. Facilitating ideologies becomes a role for media companies due to their integration into positions of power due to their ability to influence massive amounts of people. Compounding the domination feature further is a media company’s economic situation and location. As advertising-space suppliers, they need to be ‘friendly’ to companies worried about associating their brand with ‘bad’ content. Often this results in reasonably conservative actions such as Youtube restricting LGBTQ+ channels based on advertisements viewing the subject as too risky, reinforcing an underlying social belief that

LGBTQ+ is dirty or unacceptable. To examine this on Reddit required looking at the site’s rules/policies and how they try to construct their image. The final aspect concerns the people who drive social media, the audience.

The audience function examines what an organization provides to its users from the user’s perspective. The theory also calls for investigating an audience beyond the surface level, digging into how the audiences use media and why they use a particular media. Particularly important when examining social media as what the company provides is multilayered. For example, Facebook presents itself as providing an easy way to keep up with friends and family.

It also offers affective labor that enables emotional release or rejuvenation to the users.

Additionally, there is always the possibility that the way users use social media may be different than what was intended by the company. To examine these features on /r/socialism entailed a qualitative content analysis performed on top-rated comment threads, rules of the subreddit, and by issuing a survey to gather demographic and opinion information from users (see APPENDIX

A).

The five parts of the typology direct the research on what and how to examine those areas. Using a mixed-methods approach enables the analysis to go beyond the surface layer and understand more complex elements underlying user communication. The theory also bolsters CTI by providing a way to analyze the context present in forming and expressing identities. The analysis of this expression is explored through qualitative content analysis, as detailed in the next section.

Qualitative Content Analysis

Qualitative content analysis (QCA) explores texts to identify underlying themes, meanings, and assumptions (Tracy, 2012). Unlike quantitative analysis, the method does not rely on pre-existing categories or concepts, opting to arise naturally from the text or object of investigation and aiding researchers by reducing the possibility of confirmation bias and increasing the likelihood of finding unique connections and categories. QCA findings are given validity through the use of thick and rich descriptions. When analyzing users’ discussions, this also means providing extensive quotations to show the communication’s overall quality. Content analysis in conjunction with Marxism occurs in a variety of contexts. Yong (2011) used the method to analyze the film Avatar as a Marxist manifesto. In contrast, Jakobsson and Stiernstedt

(2018) used it to analyze Swedish television's normalization of social class. Content analysis has also successfully examined Reddit and its subreddits. One of the earliest examples is Wasike’s

(2011) work that used content analysis to compare news stories’ framing on Reddit and Digg.

More recently, researchers Haythornthwaite, Kumar, Gruzd, Gilbert, Esteve, and Paulin (2018) used Reddit to develop a coding schema for analyzing learning through social media. Similar to

Massanari (2019), who used content analysis to understand the subreddit /r/TrollXChromosomes as a space for women’s thoughts, issues, and feelings. Content analysis aids in addressing the questions related to the media's domination, commodity circulation, and media market functions.

These facets encapsulate the complexities of media platforms based on their positionality and materiality. For this study, two sets of discussions were under analysis.

Acquiring the first group of text involved Reddit’s inbuilt search tool filtered to only show /r/socialism to create a list of the top ten posts2. What constituted ‘top’ was the total amount of positive votes received by the discussion thread, its Reddit karma or score. Once selected, the conversations were captured by saving the whole discussion as a pdf document. The software used for coding and analysis of the documents was ATLAS.ti 9. The majority of these conversations, eight-out-of-ten, were longer than twenty pages, and some were over thirty. To ensure equal sampling size and data efficiency, only the first twenty pages of a discussion were analyzed. Two of the conversations were under twenty pages and coded in full. All comment chains within discussions were displayed in order by the subreddit’s default ‘best’ setting. The exact way this setting works is unknown publicly but is known to be partially created from the comment’s total votes. Once analyzed, a total of 1146 comments were coded. Open coding was used in the first phase of coding, generating codes through naturally occurring relationships. The unit of analysis was the whole comment, along with the context in which the comment occurred.

Before finishing the first coding round, there was consideration to add more discussions, but

2 As of 2020-07-01

34 discarded once the study hit saturation. That is, no new categories presented themselves, and instead, there was simply repetition. First-round coding yielded thirty-seven codes. The second round of coding involved reviewing initial codes for merging, deletion, or splitting to differentiate key concepts better. Shrinking the number of codes to eight. Due to the number of codes shrinking so drastically, all coding was double-checked. A final third round of coding using the final eight codes changed nothing structurally except for name changes meant to reflect their content better (see Chapter four).

The second content analysis was conducted on the top 608 discussion posts ranging from

12.7-2.7 karma and covering forty-nine pages. The odd number of selected discussions was due to errors in text capture that obscured some discussions. After compensating for these missing conversations, a recovery process found the absent discussions, so they were coded, raising the total above the intended 600. As with the first analysis, finding discussions was done through

Reddit’s inbuilt search tool with a descending order of popularity (total votes). The method of saving and coding were also the same as the first analysis. The text was generated a few months after the first, on October 10th. The purpose of this analysis was to determine what kinds of subjects are salient to the community. As with the first CA, the unit of analysis was the whole post, as only going by title would invite incorrect categorization. For example, several posts consist of one or two-word titles and a link to a political cartoon. As such, the post was checked and assessed for its primary topic (see chapter 4). These then formed the themes for the final analysis. As a complement to the findings of the content analysis, survey methods sought more audience data.

Survey

The survey’s purpose is to provide data on the audience, who they are, and the reasons

35 behind their use of Reddit. Surveys have a long history in both the public and private sectors as tools for understanding consumers and other groups. Bol, Strycharz, Helberger, van de Velde, and de Vreese’s (2020) Vulnerability in a Tracked Society intersects both these sectors using survey methods to analyze what groups are mainly targeted by specific kinds of content. Testing the efficacy of survey methods occurs by researchers like Guess, Munger, Nagler, and Tucker

(2019), who combined 2016 election survey data with social media activity observations to see if a connection existed between what users said on surveys matched their political expressions.

Their analysis concluded that self-reported political views were meaningfully related to personal political expressions. Additionally, Reddit has been the site for important survey work such as

Record, Silberman, Santiago, and Ham (2018), who used survey methods to examine the connection between health-info seeking and behavior enactment. Taking this research together presents surveys as a viable, reliable, and practical method for collecting demographic data and understanding users.

Based on prior research, this study’s survey helped answer research questions one, two, and six by providing demographic data, insight into how Reddit as a whole is used, and how users came to /r/socialism (see APPENDIX A). Being a survey of uncontroversial opinions meant there was little chance of harm to participants. To further ease participants, the survey did not require any identifying information other than a zip-code. The intention was to use the codes to understand the user’s socioeconomic status. Data were restricted only to the researcher and their advisor to protect users further. Once approved by the IRB, the survey was hosted on

Qualtrics and distributed through open invitations to the community, posted under the user account BGSU_Researcher. This invitation took the form of a discussion post explaining the survey’s purpose and participants’ rights (see APPENDIX C). Distributing the survey was

36 conducted with permission from the community’s moderators contacted via Reddit’s internal mail system. However, they did not agree to ‘sticky’ post the invitation, keeping it at the top of the discussion list due to the top spaces having a preplanned use. The distribution of survey invitations occurred as regular user posts on August 1st, August 25th, and October 11th. All participants were given an informed consent statement (see APPENDIX B) on the initial post and the survey’s first page. All participants were required to consent before taking the survey, which consisted of nine questions, consisting of four demographic questions and five questions about users’ experiences and general perspectives. These perspectives included their usage pattern and the relationship between the community and platform (complete questions in

APPENDIX A). The survey is the last method to examine the community from a user perspective, with secondary document analysis looking at various aspects of Reddit as an organization.

Secondary Document Analysis

The final method for this study was examining secondary documents to add context to communicative activities and relationships. This method also helped answer research questions

2,3,4,5 linked to the social media’s economic positions and interests. The documents fall into three general types: policies, Reddit’s advertising material, and financial reporting. Specific reading include:3 the advertising policy, advertising terms of service, ads dashboard, targeting, targeting by interests, User Agreement (Oct 15th version), privacy policy, content policy, transparency report 2019. Financial reporting was limited to filings required by law and brief articles from 3rd party sources. Specific documents include SEC Form D, SEC cik #1713445, and How Reddit makes money on investopedia by Matthew Johnston on Feb. 21, 2020. Reddit to

3 Along with all subsections.

37 cross $100 million in advertising revenues in 2019, by Emarket editors on March 26th, 2019.

Reddit has least valuable users compared to other social media networks by Matt Southern on

Feb. 12, 2019. Reddit’s advertising material consists of whitepapers, presentations, case studies, and virtual brochures that explain the benefits of using Reddit’s advertising and virtual coin system. Specific articles include Reddit premium, the Era of we, Reddit coins, Discover what makes Reddit ads unique, the power of community, Reddit’s role in the path to purchase. To summarize, this analysis used qualitative content analysis, survey, and secondary document analysis methods to add greater context and analysis to various research questions. The next chapter will explain the results of these analyses.

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS

This chapter describes the various themes found through the qualitative content analysis, results from the survey, and secondary document analysis. Content analysis themes are explained in detail with direct quotations adding further depth, and, as such, incorrect or odd spellings come from text. The themes in the first analysis came from examining discussion subjects found in the first 608 discussion posts. Meanwhile, analysis two derived user media uses by looking at user comment chains from the top twenty discussions.

Analysis - Discussion Subjects

Capitalism

Perhaps unsurprisingly for a socialist group, capitalism was the most extensive theme at

139 observed comments. Capitalism is seen as universally negative, with discussions focusing on its uncaring attitude toward individuals and groups unless they are exploitable. An example of the negative orientation is seen in the thread It's called capitalism by user faab64. The post is an image of a black and white cartoon depicting two men holding signs on a street corner. The sign on the left reads, "will work for food," while the right sign says, "will work for less food."

Capitalism does not care that both individuals need food for survival, only that they can acquire labor at a rock bottom price. Illustrating how capitalism disregards individuals as human beings and forces them into a competition for survival. The indifference of capitalism also extends to views that certain groups are disposable for the sake of the overall economy. During the initial

Covid-19 quarantine push, several prominent business and political interests resisted and blocked restrictions under the belief only a tiny percentage of the population would be affected. The community sees this disposability view as inherent to the capitalist system, not to a particular individual’s attributes. For example, in a comment critiquing the political and business interests 39 pushing to limit the lockdown for the sake of the economy, user C0mba submitted an image of text on a green background saying, “Capitalism: Let's sacrifice our elderly to a pandemic and our children to climate change for profit!”

Ire is further heaped on the lies, and false perspectives capitalism perpetuates in society.

These often come in the form of cultural truisms such as capitalism produces greater individual freedom. While in reality, the organizations and systems created by capitalism restrict freedom or create illusory freedom. For example, in a thread entitled Look at all the freedom [r/antiwork] a photo of a Walmart company sign shows the spectrum of appropriate colors for employee tops, with all five colors being shades of blue. This dysfunction of capitalism is a common vie throughout the subreddit. For example, in A country… user The_Bordiga posts a picture of economist Richard D. Wolff saying, ‘A country where the next generation is doing worse than their parents is the definition of a country in decline.’ While the discussion about capitalism often focuses on its underlying ideas and implementation, debates on socialism are surprisingly shallow.

Socialism

Socialism is the second most prominent theme on the subreddit, with 73 instances in text.

The areas underlying theory or praxis are rarely a focus for posts. Instead, users tend to concentrate on historical figures and their words of wisdom. For example, user

VIJAYANAND208’s post, Nina Simone, focuses on the quote, "We never talked about men or clothes. It was always Marx, Lenin, and revolution - real girls' talk." While a post by user webdeveloper5050 focused on quoting Dom Helder in the title with When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint, when i ask why the poor have no food. they call me a communist. The focus on leftist figures also extends to personal tributes. Posts also commemorate important

40 figure’s birthdays, such as the post by user GameRiderTom pictures Malcolm X holding a rifle while looking through window blinds entitled Today is Malcolm X’s birthday ❤️. Though few specific discussions are focused on socialism in-depth, that does not mean socialist concepts are absent from the conversation.

Class

On /r/socialism, class is an integral aspect of society that impacts daily life. With forty- three occurrences, most discussions focus on a top-down perspective, with primary attention given to elites’ actions. In this context, ‘elites’ is a catchall for those who have greater wealth and power than the average person, encompassing traditional conceptualizations of the bourgeoisie, modern-day wealthy, and those who support them. For example, in a post by

Plutonium_Nitrate_94, the capitalist class’s paramilitary wing always gets a pass, a photo depicts right-wing militia/gun rights activists open-carrying in front of the Michigan governor's office door. So while individual activists may not be elites, they are grouped within the same class due to their mutual interests. An area of particular interest to the community are billionaires, notably Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. As shown by the post, Elon Musk was born rich.

"We had so much money we couldn't even close our safe'' user MayonaiseRemover links to an interview with Musk where he says the above quote. Highlighting the hypocritical portrayal of

Musk as self-made and closer to ‘normal’ people. Similarly, Jeff Bezos Bought a Record-

Breaking $165 Million Beverly Hills Estate Yesterday.... by bayarea415 targets Bezos by juxtaposing the title with a picture of Che Guevara smoking a cigar and the quote, “The life of a single human being is with a million times more than all the property of the richest man on earth.” A dig not only at excessive wealth but a commentary on those society leaves behind.

Discussions of elites also extend into the needless systemic violence and oppression elites inflict

41 on lower classes for their greed. As seen in a post by rusziooo88 called Rich people are selfish as

Fuck displays a screen capture of a text message explaining how the rich would need only to give up .03% to solve world hunger but instead let people starve. Disdain for elitism also extends to discussions on law enforcement.

Law enforcement

Conversations on law enforcement are relatively common, with thirty-nine entries. The tone of these discussions is negative and focused on the police’s oppressive biases. One bias of interest to the community and mainstream news has been the people of color who have been victims of police abuse, shown by user haskalah1989 in a post entitled Justice for Breonna

Taylor. Depicting a tweet of Taylor with text reading “#BreonnaTaylor was killed by police

March of 2020 in Louisville, KY after they came into her house, looking for someone who did not live there, and shot her 8 times. Breonna was unarmed and innocent. A video of her massacre should not be the only way her family gets justice.” Another aspect of bias is how law enforcement is accountable to the state, not the people. A feeling extending to all forms of police as seen in the post In Catalonia & the rest of the world, the police are the reactionary force of the State against the people. It doesn’t matter if you’re non-violent, if you’re just standing on the sidewalk, or more energetically engaged in protest. Paired with a cell phone video showing police attacking protesters. The overly hostile tone of law enforcement discussions extends further into conversations about the right-wing.

The Right

Conversations about the right occur almost as much as law enforcement with thirty-eight posts. Posts are unsurprisingly negative and encompass the entire right-wing spectrum, with the two most prevalent areas being Republicans and the far-right. While many discussions focusing

42 on the republican party as a whole, there are many situated around Donald Trump. Such as the post Re: Trump's scapegoating speech, linking to a poster created for the IWW saying,

“Migrants Arn’t Pushing Down Wages It’s Your Boss.” Unlike other leftists communities, the far-right is not immediately linked to the republican party itself, focusing more on them as a distinct group. Particular interest is giving to the clashes between far-right and far-left protesters.

As seen in the title of an anonymous post, The fascists scurry back into the sewer: Dozens of far- right rallies cancelled after seeing size of anti-fascist crowds in Boston. Contrasting the community’s negativity to the right, workers receive only positive attention.

Labor

As with the right, Labor is a reasonably common subject with thirty-eight coded instances. Conversations about labor tend to focus on the areas of worker direct actions and unions. The two often overlapping, such as the post Toys R Us workers are fighting back by pianoman726 depicting a letter-sized poster, presumably made by a Toys R Us employee, urging fellow employees to demand the money owed. Other posts focus less on direct actions and more on unions regarding their positive benefit to workers. For example, the post Union Membership vs Inequality by user ‘-_-_-_-otalp-_-_-_-’ shows a statistical graph showing that as union membership falls, so too does income. Turning away from the optimistic view of union organizations, views on government are overtly negative.

Government

Appearing in a similar volume as the labor theme, discussions about the government occurred thirty-five times. Encompassing both singular government agencies along with comments on the government as a whole. The overall theme of these posts is the failure of the government and its agents. Exemplified in File Under: Memes that do Better Policy than

Politicians by AccoSpoot depicts the saying, ‘"Everyone gets a plate before anyone gets seconds,” but for housing.’ Unsurprisingly, these anti-government posts also overlap heavily with the following code, imperialism.

Imperialism

This code encompasses instances of conversations discussing the ways countries have imposed their will on other countries. With thirty-four occurrences, discussions about imperialism primarily focus on the United States, though criticism of European and Asian imperialism happens periodically. The central theme of these posts is often on imperialism’s criminality and how its effects are long-lasting. An example is seen in the post Reminder that the

United States helped facilitate mass murder in Indonesia in order to stop a communist takeover by siver_the_duck. This post shows a screenshot of the Wikipedia article on the Indonesian mass killing and lists the United States as perpetrators.

Int. news and solidarity

These posts encompass news articles about non-US countries and groups outside the US.

Posts of their nature are relatively uncommon, with twenty-one posts. When submitted, these posts mainly focus on news about leftist political actions, particularly protests. As can be seen in the post titled Lebanon is in a revolutionary phase since last night, roads are blocked all around the country and today is a general strike day by user Jmlsky. That links to a picture of the painting Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix with the Lebanon flag photoshopped over the French flag.

The Left

This code encompasses all of the left-wing, other than the far left, such as socialism, and is relatively uncommon with only sixteen instances. Discussions of the left are most critical n

44 nature and focus on the democratic party and ‘liberals’ in general. Liberals, in this case, meaning the political ideology and not the typical American understanding of liberal equaling the left.

Posts about democrats as a party focus on their perceived policy failures. For example, user comradeMaturin posted an image of a tweet by Jabari Brisport @JabariBrisport saying, “Imagine focusing on Russian interference in elections for three years and then silent on what just went down in Bolivia.” Like democrat focused conversations, those focused on liberals target their failures, particularly their perceived moral failure with politics. For example, in the post Martin

Luther King Jr. on The White Moderate by user yofosii, a picture of MLK features the quote, “I have been disappointed with the white moderate. The nigro’s great stumbling block in his road to freedom is not... the Klu Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than justice. Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute understanding from people of ill will.” Such sentiment links liberalism with a failure to make significant headway in improving society and is more hindrance than a help.

Immigration

A popular topic in mainstream political discourse posts focusing on immigration is rare, with only sixteen instances. When discussions concentrate on immigration, they primarily focus on pro-immigrant stances. For example, The post No immigrant has ever taken a job from someone else by the user Declanmar features an image with the statement, “No immigrant has taken a job from a "real american.” You were laid off by a capitalist who took advantage of that immigrant to increase his profits, and nothing makes him happier than to hear that you're a fucking idiot who's actually mat at the immigrant and not him.” Additionally, this subject focuses almost exclusively from an American perspective, as with the following code, media.

Media

The media code encompasses instances where conversation focuses on the mainstream media system. While uncommon with only thirteen cases, the tone is always negative. This negativity comes from the belief that media companies have failed to inform the public of reality properly. They are instead focusing on limiting left-wing ideas. For example, in a post with an unknown author entitled The Media Is Busy Creating a Left-Wing 'Threat' to Balance Out the

Awful Racist Right-Wing Hordes Who Threaten Civil Society the user links to a now moved/deleted alternet.org article discussing the bias.

Insurance/healthcare

Like the media code, insurance/healthcare is a rare topic with only eleven posts and encompasses all matters related to health insurance companies and healthcare in general.

Discussions are universally negative and focused on the U.S. system. A common perspective in these conversations is the view that the healthcare industry is extorting those in need. For example, the post Healthcare under capitalism by 94throwawayaccount shows a Facebook post with the poster describing a car accident where they almost died, but only cared about the cost of ambulance workers checking him over. The user then explains how preposterousness of the life or bankruptcy situation.

Israel-Palestine

A rare topic with only eight instances, this code covers discussion of the Israel-

Palestinian conflict. With the primary focus being pro-Palestinians.As in the post, Palestinian nurse Razan al-Najjar was shot in the chest and killed by Israeli snipers today in the besieged

Gaza Strip as she was providing medical aid to injured protesters by an unknown user, which

46 links to a picture of the young nurse. Additionally, it should be noted these discussions continually focuses on the state apparatus of oppression, not religion or antisemitism,

Similarly, rare to Israel-Palestine, the topic of Reddit only occurred seven times. While some communities discuss Reddit in terms of policy or corporate structure, /r/socialism focuses on the right-wing communities within Reddit. For example, the text post Let's ban The_Donald.

This is a call to action!!!/r/All by areteandstuff376. A several paragraphs long essay discussing the violence, racism, and other rule-breaking behavior of the right-wing community

/r/The_Donald.

Economic

Rarely discussed in itself, the economics code encompasses macro or system levels focus, outside elites’ actions. Posts focus on how poor the economic situation is in modern America versus the past. For example, the post Minimum wage would be $33 today if it grew like Wall

Street bonuses have by SetMau92 linking to a news article of the same name from cbsnews.com.

Military

Appearing six times, the military theme focuses on the military-industrial complex and its role in imperialism as demonstrated in the post, America's Budget by Jackissocool, showing a pie graph of how the US budget is overwhelmingly devoted to the military [54%].

Lgbtq+

Another rare code occurring only six times, LGBTQ+ focuses on non-traditional sexual orientation or expression. Of particular note, over half of the discussions observed dealt specifically with trans issues. Such as the post, Yuppppppp by nadelynk, that depicts a tweet by

NightlingBug saying, “Them: Why are so many trans women socialists? Us: [scrubbing a toilet]

No idea....hey, unrelated question: Do you think I'm pretty enough that if I turn to sex work I can still afford my meds? I'm being singled out by my boss for some reason and no one is hiring me”

Landlords

Only occurring seven times, the conversations about landlords and renting is highly negative and often framed in terms of violence toward landowners. For example, the post All Life is Precious by the_immortal_science depicts a cartoon about even a spider’s life having meaning. Until being crushed for saying it collects rent.

No theme codes

The following codes had very low occurrences (<5) and did not have an overall theme or framing. These include firearms, feminism, climate change, abortion, philosophy, justice system, human rights, and higher-ed. Additionally, three codes were used for duplicate entries, deleted or lost posts, and a general miscellaneous tag. These included: duplicate, unavailable, and ???. With the codes of discussion topics covered, the following section deals with the codes used to examine how users use posts.

Analysis - Comments

The following section covers the themes of use found by examining user discussion chains. Discussions were collected from the top ten posts on /r/socialism, as measured by

Reddit’s karma system. In total, 1100 comments were examined and fit into seven general themes: discussion, info-giving, info-seeking, criticism, resource giving, comradery, and mod/rule. All descriptions are complemented by quotes taken directly from the text, as such incorrect or odd spellings come from the text.

General discussion

Overall, the largest theme with 718 instances, discussion was used for comments

48 fulfilling commentator’s need for interaction but is shallow in substance. Such as posts which only make jokes, small talk, or voice agreement without advancing the conversation. As such, this category has a variety of subject matter. Some are simply statements of personal preference that tangentially relate to the topic. For example, in a side conversation about the 2016 Ohio election where several people wrote in Harambe, user Valisk commented, “To be fair he was the better choice than what we got.” Which is responded to by user jakerabbit25 with, “Gorillas >

Orangutans.” Comments also reinforce a previous topic and offer the user's perspective without adding additional information to the conversation. Such as user Mad_poet_navarth who said,

“They are right. The US is eating itself from the inside.” However, this is not the only use for posts, as seen in the following theme, info-giving.

Info-Giving

When a user’s comment explains, clarifies, or answers an info-seeking request or provides information to the discussion. The second most prevalent use for commenting, with 151 instances, often comes in direct questions to the community. This theme is distinguished from the resource theme by having no external source. For example, in the post, Why are leftists so violent? user marisam7 juxtaposes the right-wing phrase with a list of right-wing domestic terrorist incidents. Another user, Iwasborninafactory_ responds:

I read your post, and I clicked through the links and read the articles. Your

argument is that despite the fact that he was just trying to kill cops, especially white cops,

out of racial grievance, he wasn't left wing because he had PTSD. Then you've got to

look down the list you've made and determine who else wasn't really racist and right

wing, but instead was mentally ill.

Are there cases of apparent right wing violence that you've scrubbed from the list

because the aggressor was mentally ill?

Responded to by the author of the original post, Marisam, with:

I don't list it as a left wing terrorist attack because the FBI didn't classify it as

one. I compiled this list from the FBI database, The University of Maryland Global

Terrorism Database, The ADL Database and a few other sources. In every one of those

places, I searched through all the terrorist attacks from 1993 onward that were labeled as

Left Wing Ideologically driven. And in none of those did they list the Dallas shooter as

being on that or listed any attacks that resulted in fatalities. If the FBI classifies the Dallas

attack as a Left Wing Terrorist Attack I will add it as one.

The transfer and clarification of information is a necessary function of communities, especially ones like /r/socialism who can have users of many different levels of experience. An interesting aspect of this category is that the number of questions answered outnumbers total questions.

Primarily due to multiple users answering a single question even if the answer merely duplicated established information.

Info-Seeking

The third most common theme with 109 entries and the counter to info-giving, info seeking is when users ask questions or for clarifications. The inquiries can be on an individual user level or the community level, often by not specifying who should answer them. An interesting aspect of the info-seeking behavior is its seeming randomness. Some users simply seek more depth about the discussion topic, such as when user COWBOY_DANg asks, “I don't buy the speciesism thing one bit. Can you eli54that statement. I'd genuinely appreciate the

4Abbreviation for: explain it like I’m five. Basically saying: please explain the concept simply.

50 enlightenment.” Followed later by an extreme tangent exemplified by user Gettingassy who responded to the photoshopped joke image with, “Is that an Andalite?” Referring to an alien species from the young adult novels Animorphs.

Criticism

The fourth most common theme, with 107 themed instances, criticism is a broad category encompassing all user opinions which are negative and directed toward a specific target.

Criticism covers a wide variety of topics and is levied at both groups and individuals. For example, in response to another user, palish replies with, “This right here is a productive outlook.

6/10 troll.” Troll is an internet term for those trying to purposefully entourage or annoys other users. While in another discussion, user hedidnthanghimself targets an entire state with, “Israel is a cancerous racist state formed in modern times.” Also highlighting how criticism is often based on feelings and morality, though more nuanced critiques do popup.

Resource giving

The fifth most common action with forty-one themed comments, resource giving, denotes when a user provides an outside source of information. What separates resource giving from info-giving is twofold. First, it provides a third-party source outside of the current discussion.

Second, recourse giving happens even when there is no direct question. For example, in a debate on a fundraising tweet by Ron Paul, doubtful user blazigen commented, “That tweet cant be real right. Ow the irony.” With user MoreScallion replaying “It's real.” and linking to an embedded tweet. So while no direct request for help was given, the responder gave an answer and external evidence. Overall, resource giving is flexible within Reddit, making these kinds of simple interjections possible.

Comradery

A rare occurrence with only ten instances, this theme denotes when a comment is made to address another user or the community with positive words of affirmation or support. For example, in response to another user’s comment, RDSF-SD replies with, “Great message!” The reasoning behind the low number of instances in this category is unknown but may have to do with the platform’s anonymous nature. Similarly, Reddit’s structure or nature enables unique community management features, such as those found in the next theme.

Mod/Rule

One of the lowest occurring posts with only nine instances, mods or bots (AI) use the comment system tools to remind the community of rules or provide valuable services. For example, one bot designed to increase inclusivity is Transcribotron, which describes image posts for those who cannot load them or see them. As shown in the post, “Transcription: Picture of a

Palestinian pharmaceutical standing in front of a semi-empty shelf, illustrating the permanent medical resources shortage lived by the zionist regime's illegal blockade. I'm a bot in early beta.

Please contact my crater LakeQueen on Reddit if you have any questions or problems.”

Uniquely, this information distribution mechanism has only become possible with the modern internet. With a level of community rule/cultural reinforcement, that would be difficult in traditional organizations. With the explanation of the mod/rule theme, the results from the content analyses are complete. The following section discusses the researcher-distributed survey results, along with data from a secondary survey source.

Survey

The survey distributed to the subreddit focused on demographic and descriptive data about the community. The nine question survey had three waves of invitations on August 1st,

25th, and October 11th. Sample size was calculated as 384 with a 95% confidence interval, an error of +/-5, and a z-score of 1.96. In total, eighty participants followed the link, with only thirty-one consented to the survey. Once processed, it became apparent five of the participants were under eighteen years old, and their answers would need removal. Leaving twenty-six valid entries, far below the intended sample size. Question three was removed due to non-answers or the age issue, leaving only nineteen answers. Additionally, question six was removed due to researcher error with the question’s wording, which many users interpreted so differently it became challenging to group them appropriately. Initial considerations where to throw the survey out entirely for the final discussion. However, during a search for supporting documents, it was discovered /r/socialism performs a user survey sporadically, often in response to hitting a certain number of subscribers. For this study, the last completed community survey was distributed by the moderation team on May 26th, 2020, and closed on July 6th, 2020. With a sample size of 600, well above the previously targeted sample size, the decision was made to use the results in a limited capacity to help get a clearer picture of the community. Before discussing what data to use, it is essential to address four issues against using this data: wording, answers, age range, and consent.

The first issue with the survey is how questions and answers are written, as these can impact how users answer. To address the problem, this study only uses questions matching or relating to the original survey. For example, the first questions on both surveys ask about age.

Additionally, only questions that were clear and bias-free were selected. Issue two, answers, is tied to the users of the subreddit. Since this survey was open to everyone on the sub, was anonymous, and was only meant for the community raises the possibility of joke answers or lies.

However, this problem can be present within any survey given to such a large population, even a

53 survey administered by a researcher. Additionally, the four questions selected for use are not prone to ‘joke’ answers. Therefore, the danger of bias within the answers is no more than an academically issued survey. The last two issues are discussed together since age range and consent goes hand-in-hand. The study’s creators allowed users under eighteen to take the survey and did not require a statement of consent. While this could be an issue, the method of distribution and context of the survey can alleviate this concern. The survey was distributed by an open link to a google forms survey. No user was required to participate, and the survey was completely anonymous with no identification number or name connected to the participant. As this was a private group or corporate group, the academic (IRB) rules do not come into conflict.

Additionally, the results are publicly available and carrying no way to identify users. Therefore, the researcher believes using the limited data in a limited capacity should be ethically sound.

For this study, questions one, four, seven, ten, and thirty-one connected with questions from the previously attempted survey and helped paint a picture of the subreddit’s community.

See Table 1 for a more visual representation of the survey data. Question one asked, ‘how old are you,’ with results split into eight age ranges. Those under 17 made up the second-largest group, with 154 (25.67%) participants. The largest group of participants were between the ages of 18-21 years old, making up 29.17% (175) of the participants. Users of the third largest group were between 22-25 year olds and made up 20.67% (124) of the survey. The fourth largest was the 26-

30 year olds who accounted for 14.67% (88) of those surveyed. The fifth group was 31-40 year olds constituted the fifth group and had 42 (7.00%) of all responses. The last three groups were the smallest, with none getting above 1.5% of participants. These groups were the 41-50, 51-60,

60+ who made up 1.33% (8), 1.00% (6), and .50% (3) of the participants, respectively. Question four asked LBGTQAI?, referring to the user’s orientation. To make the data more

54 understandable, two responses were combined into one. The removed response read ‘Is being gay a minority?’ was merged with the ‘prefer not to say’ response. Final responses include: yes

(218, 36.33%), no (326, 54.33%), unsure (44, 7.33%), prefer not answer (10, 1.67%) asexual (1,

0.17%), and bisexual (1, 0.17%). The next question used from the survey was number seven which asked, ‘Do you live in an urban, suburban, or rural area?’ and whose answers were split again into eight categories. In reviewing the answers, four overlap heavily: small/med US town, small-town, med-large town, and urban and rural. These were merged into a single category leaving five responses including: urban (231, 38.50%), suburban (279, 46.50%), rural (81,

13.50%), prefer not to say (5, 0.83%), and small/med US town (4, 0.67%). Question ten was the third used from the community survey and asked the question ‘How long have you been interested in socialism?’ As with the previous answer these were split into eight categories including: < 1 month (9, 1.50%), 1-3 month (38, 6.30%), 3-6 month (41, 6.80%), 6-12 month

(58.8, 9.80%), >1 year (151.2, 25.20%), 3-5 years (160.8, 26.80%), 5-10 years (76.2, 12.70%), and 10+ years (64.8, 10.80%). Finally, question thirty-one asked, ‘How often do you use r/socialism?’ Resulting in seven answers consisting of hardly ever (48, 8%), few times per month

(132, 22%), 1-2 times per week (156, 26%), 3-6 times per week (142, 23.70%), and prefer not to answer (24, 4.00%). The final two categories were combined since ‘every day’ encompasses

‘multiple times per day’ creating the new category of every day (98, 16.30%). Overall the community as depicted by the survey is a relatively homogeneous group. Overall, the group consists of young straight suburban/urban males who have recently [less than five years] found an interest in socialism. Surprising, considering the subreddit’s focus on inclusivity and acceptance but born from multiple community and Reddit factors.

Table 1

Sociodemographic Characteristics

Characteristic question n %

Q1. How old are you?

<=17 154 25.67

18-21 175 29.17

22-25 124 20.67

26-30 88 14.67

31-40 42 7

41-50 8 1.33

51-60 6 1

60+ 3 0.5

Q4. LBGTQAI?

yes 218 36.33

no 326 54.33

unsure 44 7.33

pref not answer 10 1.67

asexual 1 0.17

bisexual 1 0.17

Characteristic question n %

Q7. Urban, Sub, Rural area?

Urban 231 38.5

Suburban 279 46.5

Rural 81 13.5

Prefer not to say 5 0.83

Small/med US town 4 0.67

Q10. How long interested in socialism?

< month 9 1.5

1-3 m 38 6.3

3-6 m 41 6.8

6-12 m 58.8 9.8

>1y 151.2 25.2

3-5y 160.8 26.8

5-10y 76.2 12.7

10+y 64.8 10.8

Q31. How often use /r/

Hardly ever 48 8

few times/m 132 22

1-2x/w 156 26

Characteristic question n %

142 23.7 3-6x/w everyday 98 16.3

prefer not to answer 24 4

Note. N=600.

Document Analysis

Nine documents were analyzed or which eight came directly from the Reddit corporation and one came from an external news source (see APPENDIX D). No ‘results’ will be detailed here since they would display as a fragmented jumble of notes. Information gathered from the documents was used to add context and depth in answering the research questions. Therefore, the texts analyzed are referenced in the chapter four discussion.

CHAPTER 4: DISCUSSION

In this chapter, contextual data is combined with the results from chapter three to answer the research questions and draw further conclusions. Research question two is addressed first, with the first question skipped until after research question six. The reasoning behind this move is that going through the typology and its associated research questions first will make the CTI explanation more meaningful and impactful. The discussion will discuss the capital economic, media market, commodity circulation, domination, and audience. After which, CTI is discussed and followed by further reflections. Note: Works referenced are found in APPENDIX D.

Capital Economic

Research question one asks what products are created by Reddit for users. The term

‘product’ often denotes items offered for sale to consumers. However, digital-based businesses like social media can offer intangible “free” products such as access to a service. There may also be a blending of product types or interactions between various products. Reddit provides both free and paid immaterial goods on the consumer level: community and coins.

As mentioned in chapter 1, overall feelings of community and deep connection have dramatically decreased globally. Part of this decline has come from the loss of traditional community spaces. For example, when a comic book shop or social lodge closes, it breaks apart the present community and constrains a new community from forming. Since humans are social animals requiring meaningful interactions for good mental health, having fewer communities has serious consequences. To fill this need, technocrats created social media that allow users to form and maintain social ties. In Reddit’s presentation, The Era of We, the company explains part of the idea in creating the site was to “fill the void for self-expression and belonging” (2020). One of the main ways Reddit enables communities is by allowing individual users to create a 59 community on any subject, even ones that already exist. A position Reddit calls “community for every passion” (Reddit, 2019). The feature also allows users to easily self-select into interest groups, a point well known to Reddit who incorporates it as part of their advertising business

(Reddit, 2020e). Enhancing Reddit’s community platform further is its strict anonymity.

Anonymity is a big part of Reddit’s culture, with the official rule three stating, “Respect the privacy of others. Instigating harassment, for example, by revealing someone’s personal or confidential information, is not allowed. Never post or threaten to post intimate or sexually- explicit media of someone without their consent” (Reddit, 2020b). The purpose of anonymity is to get users to express themselves authentically and with few restrictions. As said in a white paper, “Anonymity fuels authenticity” (Reddit, 2020f). The cost of Reddit’s authenticity is the suppression of individual personal connections in favor of group connections. As stated in their marketing pitch, “Brands over influencers and celebrities'' (Reddit, 2020f), further reinforced by a lack of internal identity verification allowing brand teams to manage one account and mimic a user account.

The first product Reddit sold for money was the “gold” account for $5.99 per month. An upgrade to the basic account with additional features, such as identifying new posts within a previously visited discussion (Reddit, 2020a). The account also grants access to a private community dedicated to gold account members: /r/lounge, whose theme is over-the-top extravagance with every post and image framed in gold. While it is unknown how much money this generated for Reddit, its impact is seen in the practice of “gilding” comments. After gold’s introduction, it became commonplace for one user to gift the membership to another user for

“quality'' comments and community contributions. This practice eventually proved prevalent enough for Reddit to create an entire system of rewards consisting of three tiers: silver, gold, and

60 platinum. Silver adds an award badge on a user's post and costs 100 coins. Gold gives a badge,100 coins, a week of r/lounge access, and ad-free browsing for 500 coins. Platinum provides an award with a badge, a month of r/lounge access, ad-free browsing, and 700 Reddit

Coins for 1800 coins. Coins are the way money changes hands, with the minimum cost being

$1.99 for 500 coins. Demonstrating how Reddit commodified community recognition into public displays of consumption. Offering multiple awards and giving the awarded user ‘free’ coins also helps reinforce the behavior by expanding who can afford awards and encouraging them to use the extra coins on others. However, coins are only a small part of Reddit’s revenue streams, as the real money maker is advertising.

Media Market Function

Research question two asks what products Reddit offers to other companies. Traditional media’s business-to-business products were often physical spaces or time slots with scarcity coming from the material world’s limitations. Social media is free from many of these restrictions and, therefore, must find a way to create scarcity in a near-endless digital landscape.

As such, the answer to the question is both simple and complex. Simple because Reddit only sells advertising to other companies, but complex since advertising is interwoven within the system as a whole. In general, Reddit’s advertising business can be split into two main facets: space and resources.

Space in this context carries two meanings. The first meaning refers to the physical areas

Reddit creates to display advertising. Traditional images and banner ads appear as squares or long rectangles on the screen’s right side margin and are intermixed with other unrelated information. Reddit also makes space for “native” advertising. Native advertising is when media companies disguise ads as part of the site’s usual content. On Reddit, this is achieved by placing

61 ads within the list of user-submitted posts and only distinguishing the advertisement with a small text tag next to the post’s title saying “promoted.” To increase the perceived worth of ad-space, images and native advertisements are placed ‘above the fold,’ meaning users will see them before scrolling the page. A design slightly altered on the mobile site where ads are mixed into the stream of posts and appear within the second or third screen scroll. The second meaning of space refers to spaces safe for advertising. Advertisers are traditionally cautious about attaching brand names to platforms due to fears of alienating or offending customers. Therefore, companies are more apt to invest in advertising if space carries less risk of harmful publicity exposure. A relatively recent example of these issues happened on Youtube, where advertising for mainstream products was played before racist or risqué videos. As advertising is a significant revenue source for Reddit, an estimated hundred million sales, great effort is expended creating spaces safe for advertisers. This is done through many different community design choices and interventions. Design choices include automatic age-gates for adult content, giving moderators the ability to keep their communities off the front page and obscuring images that might be problematic in professional settings. Direct intervention occurs when administrators ban a user or community due to their content or behavior. Individual-level punishments are uncommon as they are mostly handled on the community or moderator level. Community punishments are solely the administrators’ domain and only when they are pushed to a legal or PR limit. Otherwise, Reddit is happy to host communities so long as they do not interfere with advertising. For example, for many years, a racist community called r/coontown was popular and well known throughout

Reddit. However, it was allowed to continue until mainstream news and society became aware of the community. Once made public, the administrators reacted by first quarantining the community, placing barriers to entry before eventually banning the community outright. This has

62 become a semi-regular occurrence a few times a year as the admins have banned or punished groups of communities in waves. All of this effort is to carve out safe spaces where companies can advertise without fear of attaching their name to a problematic site.

The second product offered to advertisers is resources. Resources are available to all advertisers, with many being freely available to the public. To start, there are several case studies outlining how different companies have utilized the platform. These are supplemented by various presentations, brochures, and other resources that offer guidance on using the platform in bite- size chunks. Additionally, like many large advertising networks, Reddit offers online lessons and articles that help teach the system’s conceptual aspects and how to use the system. For example,

Targeting: By Community explains the proper way to use targeted advertising and target the audience (Reddit, 2020e). Targeting by interest is a big draw on Reddit since an advertiser can easily find the group of most likely purchasers. Especially considering the time and cost an advertiser would need to invest in pinpointing their audience members in a decentralized mass.

However, the most critical resource Reddit gives advertisers is an image. Image encompasses the total impression and connection a company has with its customers. On Reddit, an image essentially makes a brand or company feel like a fellow person/user and creates an emotional tie. This leads to more significant sales as users think brands are more authentic and have more positive feelings toward the brand and its products. To create the conditions necessary for a company to use this synthetic image, Reddit has incorporated several design features. In general, these features are meant to emphasize groups and lessen individuals’ impact while also making them interchangeable. One such part is anonymization, as it helps to reduce individual contributions. It is much harder to recognize a screen name than a face or symbol, notably when usernames can differ by only a single letter or capitalization. Anonymization also creates the

63 perception that users are more honest/open since their risks from being truthful are low. This means that a user’s overall experience within a community feels authentic or genuine on a personal level. This can be seen in Reddit's Role in the Path to Purchase and Reddit Advertising

Policy: Overview that emphasizes the power of community and “authentic conversations” for advertisers. Additionally, advertisers are further aided by Reddit creating an environment of consumption.

Commodity Circulation

Research question three asks how an organization creates an environment of consumption. In the case of Reddit, consumption can be conceptualized as content and product- oriented. Content consumption encompasses Reddit’s need for users to return to the platform and consume its content continually. Product consumption describes how Reddit creates an environment encouraging the purchase of goods.

Reddit employs a variety of tactics for user retention. Some are standard for social media, while others are only viable due to unique design features. An element shared by Reddit and all social media is hyper-personalization, or when content and advertising are highly focused on an individual user’s interest and personality. On Reddit, hyper-personalization is facilitated by users’ ability to choose what communities and content are presented to them. For example, users can replace disliked posts from subreddits with news ones, reducing the likelihood of seeing disliked content and focusing on their interest. If a community does not fit a particular outlook, users can easily create a community around that perspective and interest. As Reddit says in its article, “a community for every passion.” An example of this splintering effect can be seen in the community r/gaming [~30 million], which then had a schism creating r/truegaming [~1 million], and r/truetruegaming [24]. Of course, this community’s specificity would be useless without

64 something drawing users in; user-generated content.

User-generated content is the lifeblood of Reddit and serves an essential function in creating an environment of consumption. Content is made through user discussion posts or links to external sites/content. Since any registered user can post, content is continuous and presents something new with great frequency, encouraging users to check in regularly. Without this style of content, Reddit would be highly restricted by both budget and time, most likely necessitating a reduction in the number of subreddit subjects. With content found or created freely by users, the costs for Reddit are reduced to zero, allowing the company to put more resources into other areas. Additionally, the continuous consumption of content helps keep communities active and enables further relationship and cultural building through discussions/interactions. This system’s cyclical nature draws users in, creating content, strengthening ties, attracting new users, and developing and enhancing the “authenticity” which brands can exploit. Additionally, content and advertising flow expose users to a continuous stream of consumptive messages to consume services and products.

As described above, advertising is deeply interwoven into the design of Reddit. On desktop/laptop devices, ads appear on the right side of the screen, once at the top and the bottom of all the other information in the column. Looking at the mobile site, ads appear as a user scrolls vertically through discussions. Only promoted ads appear, but they are far better integrated into the mobile site’s appearance and appear more frequently though not as soon as on the desktop site. Reddit also places advertisements for its products. On all UIs, award icons are displayed under awarded comments. On mobile, there is always a coin icon inviting the user to click it to find out more information, further normalizing and suggesting to other users that they should purchase coins. Together these aspects help construct an environment that encourages constant

65 consumption. By creating a space supporting near-infinite permutations of communities, along with a continuous stream of free content, Reddit can bring in users based on their interests, then push them to be community members and then tap into the emotional connections based on that for advertising. So at all times, users are either being advertised too, advertised to surreptitiously, directed toward/seeing commodified actions, or being psychologically prepared to be manipulated, creating a cyclical system of consumption. Tied to the processes of consumption are also several ideologies Reddit enables and reinforces.

Domination

Research question four asks what dominant ideologies Reddit enables and supporters through its various systems and designs. Due to their orientation, media become conduits for the dominant ideologies of their society and creators. The ways company’s express ideologies are vast and may be extremely subtle or highly blatant. For example, social media site Parler clearly identifies itself as a place for conservative views. Overall, Reddit reinforces three primary ideologies: Capitalism, Corporatism, and Americanism.

Capitalist ideology is rooted in the premise that ownership of productive means should be owned by private individuals rather than through collective control. On Reddit, capitalism underlies every facet of its design and motivation for being. Like any American corporation,

Reddit is required to have a financial outlook, essentially enforcing a profit motive. To generate profit, Reddit needs ways to extract labor and value. The mechanisms for extraction are threefold. First, as a system, it commodifies communities by creating a virtual meeting space that the company has actual ultimate control over, a walled garden. Second, to encourage user interactions, Reddit uses a hook or draw in the form of user-generated content. With this constant stream, Reddit encourages repeat views and helps establish communities for later exploitation

66 via advertising. Three, Reddit further commodifies the community space by creating a digital award/coin system to reinforce the community’s rewarding good content and allow Reddit to

“pay” exceptional content while profiting.

As it is distinct from capitalism, corporatism is the belief in a societal organization based around specific groups, namely corporate entities. Corporatism favors hierarchical structures as they mirror corporate systems, such as having a dominant head figure like a CEO. On Reddit, corporatism manifests in how subreddits are structured and Reddit’s terms of use. A single user creates a community and becomes head moderator, who selects other subservient moderators, acting abstractly like a CEO and board of directors within a traditional corporate structure. As with their business counterparts, moderators have great latitude in their opaqueness and decide their openness level to the community. This power indifference is further seen in the terms

Reddit sets for their users, which give the company authority over copyrights and aspects of the community fit for commercialization (Reddit, 2020d). Though not currently used, the clause provides Reddit instant use of valuable resources over the creators and users.

Americanism in this work refers to beliefs and viewpoints that often co-occur in the

United States. For example, viewing weapons as a natural right with nearly no restrictions is relatively common in the US but rare elsewhere. Reddit expresses adherence to this ideology through its rules and operating structure that draws heavily from an American perspective. For example, freedom of speech is near-absolute, barring content Reddit cannot legally host. Over time the rule has seen more restrictions, particularly hate speech (Reddit, 2020b), but the company still adheres to the free speech ideal as much as possible. Structurally, the way Reddit implements community creation reflects the idea of a marketplace of ideas, with harmful ideas naturally losing out to better ones. Though again, Reddit has had to take a more direct hand to

67 direct the market, particularly with the popularity of some extremely racist communities.

Capitalism, corporatism, and Americanism ideologies are infused within Reddit and expressed in its enactment of power dynamics, ideas, and features. As such, they also influence how communities develop and express their collective identity.

Research question five asks us to understand the audience, who they are, and why they use Reddit. Understanding the audience is an essential component of understanding the ways

Reddit influences the community. This is particularly important in ones like /r/socialism, whose core philosophically opposed not only to Reddit's corporate structure but also the economic systems and motivations which drive its existence. Additionally, understanding why audiences gravitate toward a particular medium helps understand the logic of its use. They receive some benefit, which informs the way the media interacts and manipulates users.

Overall, /r/socialism comprises suburb-dwelling males under the age of thirty. Most have minimal to moderate experiences of socialism and become interested in the topic within the last three years. Additionally, while some communities have a large contingent of daily users, most

Reddit users visit the community one to six times per week. The one community aspect that shows a great deal of diversity are the user’s specific political ideologies. Their self-administered community survey has over a dozen different socialist ideologies such as social democracy,

Marxism, and anarchism. Reflecting how the community tries to create an atmosphere of acceptance to all leftists in a kind big tent for far leftism. For example, rule seven of the disallowed submissions rules explicitly calling for civility over name-calling.

Another way to understand the audience is to examine their concerns and focuses.

Unsurprisingly for a far-left group, the subreddit’s primary focus has been capitalism, with satirical jokes or complaints being the most prevalent form of comments. The second main

68 concern of the subreddit is socialism itself, though rarely in complex debate or analysis. Instead, the focus is on famous figures, words of wisdom, and complaints about mainstream society’s misinformation on socialism. The third concern of the community is the United States government and its agencies, often with a focus on imperialism or militarism. The subreddit falls short in discussing things like feminism, women’s issues, and education. None of these are common or popular topics due to the community’s demographics. Since most of the users are young men, topics such as abortion or access to hygiene products are likely less salient to them and garner far less attention even outside of the community. Likewise, the lack of conversational complexity is partially a product of the short time most users have been interested in socialism.

Therefore, they have far less understanding than someone who has followed it for several years.

Education does occur on /r/socialism, but not in an overt coordinated fashion. Instead, it depends on the user’s self-teaching and lurking within the community to learn about the topic.

Examining the community’s use of Reddit found four primary actions: general discussion, info seeking, info giving, and resource giving. General discussion is the bread-and- butter for users, with humor often taking center stage. As such, most of the conversations on

Reddit appear to serve a release/regenerative function. This is further evidenced by the high amounts of criticism and few discussions on praxis or education present on the subreddit. If the community served a more ‘practical’ purpose, there would likely be a more focused discussion.

So it can be said the community serves as a space for effective labor over other functions.

Though it should not be said the community discourages learning or questions. A great deal of discussion is info seeking and info giving in nature. Thus another usage of the community is for information exchange and clarification.

With the various aspects of Reddit and /r/socialism explored, we can also see how the

69 two interact. /r/socialism is mostly left alone by Reddit corporate, likely due to their rules of inclusivity and nonviolent approach, meaning Reddit’s advertising space is not negatively impacted, and there is no reason for the administrators to single the community out, especially with other communities who are causing issues. Where Reddit affects the community is in shaping its biases. As mentioned above, there is a lack of content dealing with women's issues.

Attributed in large part to most users being male and because of Reddit’s poor reputation with women, leading women to concentrate into a select few women-centric subs, such as the popular

/r/twoxchromosomes. The easiest change to correct for this would be for the moderation team to engage in creating content or seeking out content focusing on one of the lacking areas. Though drawing in more women may be difficult due to how women are often treated in male dominant communities.

CTI

Research question one asks how Reddit enables and constrains /r/socialism. The typology sections explored individual system features and how they influence the community. This section focuses on the unique way Reddit engages and affirms identity. Traditional organizations are porous and gap-laden, meaning they never perfectly fit an individual’s identity and leaves room for identity gaps to form. In contrast, Reddit engages the identity levels in such a way as to emphasize personal sharing and community stability.

The personal layer is a person's self-view and can only be vaguely understood since there is no way to observe the layer directly. Traditional organizations, like bowling leagues, have limited ways to express personal identity beyond an individual’s selection of that group. As such, most of the interactions in these groups are through public identity layers. On sites like

Facebook, ‘real’ public personas limit greater personal-layer expression but offer customization

70 options that interact with this layer. Reddit takes this further by using anonymity and precise interest customization to encourage ‘authenticity’ and sharing. Two behaviors that strengthen community ties and provide troves of data for advertising. Unlike the personal layer, the enacted layer is expressed outwardly to others through action. Traditional organizations have various ways individuals enact themselves such as attitude, dress, expressions, and work ethic. Likewise,

Facebook has many options for expression, though in a more limited capacity. Reddit has the fewest options for enacting-expression with only comments and submissions related to a specific interest. These limitations help to keep the focus on the community and its subject.

Similarly, the relational layer is limited in its scope and reach when compared to traditional organizations. On Reddit and Facebook, interactions between users are limited to discussion chains. Even when posting a video or picture, its context is still as a post within a discussion. However, Reddit is further limited because more abstract aspects, like reputation, are challenging to form and sustain. Often prominence only forms if an account is a ‘power user,’ mod, or has a gimmick that makes them memorable. For example, user /u/shittywatercolour became known throughout Reddit for painting poor quality watercolor art representing comments. Gimmicks like this are mostly short-lived and can still be limited to particular communities. Outliers aside, relational interactions lack distinction and are shifted mainly from a common-bond to a common-identity orientation. Finally, the communal layer is the group’s collective identity and is often expressed through group archetypes and stereotypes. On Reddit, a group’s collective identity arises like other organizations but has features to enforce a desired identity. A subreddit’s rules set an explicit set of features the group as a whole must abide by and or be punished. The addition of advanced moderation tools, like bots, further enhances this ability. Overall, this feature encourages group stability by reducing severe factionalism since it is

71 easier to form a new group than convert the current one. Another benefit is that users further filter into specific groups for advertising.

Taken together, this means Reddit limits gaps between the relational and communal layers by shifting their focus to the group. Disputes by individual users rarely go beyond the initial discussion thread, and the group’s deindividuated nature means the individual’s actions won't reflect on the group and cause an internal conflict. Under these conditions, the most likely gap would be a personal-communal conflict. However, even when a powerful enough conflict arises between the individual and group layers, the easiest recourse is to schism. This means that groups within Reddit are overall stable, helping the overall site be more profitable as constantly shifting groups would be difficult to target with proper advertising. The constant refocusing and drive toward actions benefiting the advertising business is what ultimately separates constructed environments (Reddit) from more organic environments (traditional organizations). They constrain identity to specific contexts and for particular purposes to the detriment of all other interactions. Additionally, the design features of Reddit have further effects beyond the research questions, as discussed below.

Reflections

While the typology and methods were useful tools in examining Reddit’s relationship with /r/scoialism’s interaction, they also lead to other findings useful to the study’s stakeholders.

This section recognizes three general groups of stakeholders: the users/community, the public, and academia. Each group is impacted differently by the Reddit system, its implications, and possible reactions. As such, these reflections aim to provide insights that are of both theoretical and practical usefulness.

Users and the community are negatively affected by their lack of diversity, particularly in

72 regards to gender. This bias limits their viewpoints and obscures the oppressions they seek to understand. It also contributes to a feedback loop where a lack of content fails to attract minority users, and the lack of these users perpetuates the lack of content. A good solution to the issue would be a coordinated effort to draw in more underrepresented groups and find content with issues salient to those groups. The community should also be aware their relatively hands-off relationship with the corporate side of Reddit exists due to their advertising-friendly rules and culture. As such, a greater awareness of advertising trends and public opinions may help to continue avoiding conflict. Similarly, users should be aware that though they may not directly experience advertising, such as using an adblocker, Reddit’s structure still extracts economically valuable information and affects how they communicate on a fundamental level.

One aspect affecting both the community and public is the highly commercialized nature of Reddit. Undoubtedly, most in both groups know about the massive volume of advertising sites propagate daily. However, they may be surprised to learn how much environmental design focuses on advertising. They may also be unaware of how much various systems force them to aid in their commodification. Additional concern should also arise from how similar system designs are applied beyond advertising. For example, an extremist political organization with this kind of structure would be challenging to deal with since its members would be highly homogeneous and difficult to convince outside opinions. Finally, the public should be aware of the difficulty in regulating or reorganizing these systems for greater privacy. Currently designed systems like Reddit are built from the group up for information extraction and advertising, both necessitating loose interpretations of privacy. Reworking the systems would necessitate completely new ways for them to be stable and relate to users—a process that few corporations would be interested in or incentivized to start.

On an academic level, the study’s most challenging aspect was getting users to participate in a survey. Given these problems, it would be advisable for researchers in the future to add extra months to their timeline and work directly with the moderation team if possible. Another option may be to interact with the community for an extended period to foster trust. However, that would require greater IRB scrutiny. Due to how social media sites are structured, so little distinction exists between user and market products. Instead, social media and other digital businesses have cyclical structures that flow into and reinforce each other. Making it difficult to separate user and B2B products since there is often overlap. As such, it would be better to modify the current typology and method of discussing these aspects. An alternative suggested by this research would be to examine how an organization is sustained as a whole. Finally, in the future research should focus on two primary areas. First, researchers should more closely examine the underlying infrastructure of Reddit, for example, the servers, network equipment, etc. This would further clarify how corporate decisions are linked to their material resources.

Second, future Marxist researchers should look to other industries and business types to see if this level of complex extraction and interlinked systems is unique to social media or if it is a much more prevalent phenomenon.

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APPENDIX A: SURVEY

The following survey consists of seven questions, the first four require you to select one answer from those provided. The final three are open ended and you may write as much as you wish, please answer these as completely as possible. Any question you do not feel comfortable answering may be skipped. The estimated time to complete this survey is between 10-15 minutes.

1. Age range:

a. 18-30

b. 31-45

c. 46-55

d. 56+

2. Gender:

a. Female

b. Male

c. Nonbinary

d. Other

i. Please provide:

3. Geographic Region:

a. North West US

b. North East US

c. MidWest US

d. Southern US

e. South West US 86

f. Territorial US:

g. Other:

i. Please provide

4. Income level:

a. 0-9,999

b. 10,000-19,999

c. 20,000-39,999

d. 40,000-49,999

e. 50,000+

5. Political ideology or leaning:

6. How many hours per day do you use Reddit

7. What do you use Reddit for in general?

8. What do you use /r/socialism for?

9. How did you find or come to /r/socialism?

APPENDIX B: INFORMED CONSENT

Project Title: Investigating /r/socialism through Marxist methods (temp title)

Project Director: Richard Babb PhD candidate

Institution: Bowling Green State University

Contact information:[email protected]

The present study is investigating and critiquing the way Reddit as a capitalist location enables and constrains /r/socialism in terms of larger community behavior and user interactions.

To provide greater context and understand why for users use Reddit, this survey will ask demographic questions along with usage and opinion questions about your interactions on

Reddit.

This survey is completely anonymous and does not require you to provide a name or any identifying information. The only ones with access to the data will be the project director and committee members as needed. All data will be encrypted and kept on a secure drive which only the project direct has access too.

By continuing with this survey you are acknowledging you are over the age of 18 and give permission for the researcher to use your data for this project. If you have any questions or concerns please contact the project director at: [email protected] 88

APPENDIX C: SURVEY INVITATION

Hello,

I am Richard Babb, a researcher with Bowling Green State University (BGSU) working on my dissertation which examines the relationship between Reddit and the/r/socialism community using a Marxist media framework. A key aspect of this framework is understanding the users of media and their perspectives. To that end, I have created a short survey and invite any interested users of/r/socialism to participate.

Link:https://bgsu.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0c7Exgm4WSjMLUF

Below you'll find some more technical info (IRB required disclosures) and my contact info should you have any questions. Thanks for you participation!

Project TITLE: A MARXIST MEDIA ANALYSIS OF REDDIT AND/r/SOCIALISM

KEY INFORMATION: This survey is part of dissertation research analyzing the relationship between Reddit and the community of/r/socialism from a Marxist media framework. This framework examines media platforms in terms of their audience and economic relationships.

This survey has been created for the users of/r/socialism (the audience) to help understand their demographic makeup, usage habits, and opinions of Reddit. Participants must be at least 18 years old to participate in the study.

RESEARCHER: Richard Babb, fourth-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Communication

Studies at Bowling Green State University. Primary research interests include online/digital communities and Marxism.

PURPOSE: The study investigates Reddit’s enabling and constraining effects, as a social media platform, on the community of/r/socialism from a Marxist media perspective. Part of this framework involves examining a media’s audience to better understand why they use a particular 89 media. The data from this survey will benefit the study by collecting demographic and opinion data that can be used to better understand the users/community of/r/socialism. Additionally, this information will aid in examining and critiquing Reddit as a platform by providing data about the relations between the community and Reddit. There are no direct benefits to participants in this survey, nor are incentives being offered for participation in this study.

PROCEDURE: The survey is composed of seven open-ended questions. Questions one through four ask about general demographic information. Questions five through seven ask users to detail their history with the subreddit, usage habits, and their perception of how Reddit treats/r/socialism. The overall time for completion is estimated between 15-30 Minutes.

VOLUNTARY NATURE: Participation is completely voluntary. You are free to withdraw at any time. You may decide to skip questions or discontinue participation at any time without explanation or penalty. Your decision whether to participate will not affect your relationship with

Bowling Green State University. No compensation is being offered for participation.

ANONYMITY PROTECTION: This survey is completely anonymous and does not require a name or specific identifying information. The only ones with access to the data will be the project director and their advisor as needed. All data will be encrypted and kept on a secure drive only accessible to the principal investigator.

RISKS: The risk of participation is no greater than that experienced in daily life. This study asks for demographic and opinion data not specific enough to identify individual participants. An anonymous dataset created from survey data will not have identifiers for participants, nor contact information. Data will be stored for up to five years on an encrypted hard drive only available to the primary investigator.

CONTACT INFORMATION: If you have any questions or concerns please contact Richard

Babb (Primary investigator) at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) or Dr. Radhika

Gajjala (Advisor) at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]). You may also contact the

Chair of the Bowling Green State University Institutional Review Board, at 419-372-7716 or

[orc@bgsu.edu](mailto:[email protected]), if you have any questions about your rights as a participant in this research. Thank you for your time.

PRIVACY: Some employers may use tracking software and may be able to track your participation. In order to avoid these types of privacy issues, participants may want to complete the survey on a personal device and clear their internet browser and page history.

CONSENT STATEMENT: I have been informed of the purposes, procedures, risks, and benefits of this study. I have had the opportunity to have all my questions answered and I have been informed that my participation is completely voluntary. I agree to participate in this research. By continuing with this survey, I consent and permit the researcher to use my data for this project. By clicking the “Next” button indicates consent to participate.

You may download a pdf version of the form for your records here: Informed Consent

APPENDIX D: SECONDARY DOCUMENT BIBLIOGRAPHY

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2021, from https://www.emarketer.com/newsroom/index.php/reddit-to-cross- 100-

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Reddit. (n.d.). Reddit's Role in the Path to Purchase. Retrieved January 03, 2021, from

https://www.Redditinc.com/assets/case-studies/Research.PathtoPurchase.Reddit.pdf

Reddit. (2019). The Power of Community. Retrieved January 03, 2021, from

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Community-White-Paper-9.23.19.pdf

Reddit. (2020a). Coins. Retrieved January 03, 2021, from https://www.Reddit.com/coins

Reddit. (2020b). Reddiquette. Retrieved January 03, 2021, from

https://www.Reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439

Reddit. (2020c). Reddit Advertising Policy: Overview. Retrieved January 03, 2021,

From https://advertising.Reddithelp.com/en/categories/reddit-advertising

-policy/Reddit-advertising-policy-overview

Reddit. (2020d). Reddit User Agreement. Retrieved January 03, 2021, from

https://www.Redditinc.com/policies/user-agreement-october-15-2020

Reddit. (2020e). Targeting: By Community. Retrieved January 03, 2021, from

https://advertising.Reddithelp.com/en/categories/targeting/targeting-community

Reddit. (2020f). The Era of We. Retrieved January 03, 2021, from

https://www.Redditinc.com/assets/case-studies/TheEraOfWe.1.6.20.pdf