The Architecture of Facebook and the Public Sphere by Caitlin Cary Burke
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The Architecture of Facebook and the Public Sphere by Caitlin Cary Burke Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Victoria Szabo, Chair ___________________________ Paul Jaskot, Co-chair ___________________________ Mark Olson Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies in the Graduate School of Duke University 2019 ABSTRACT The Architecture of Facebook and the Public Sphere by Caitlin Cary Burke Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Victoria Szabo, Chair ___________________________ Paul Jaskot, Co-chair ___________________________ Mark Olson An abstract of a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies in the Graduate School of Duke University 2019 Copyright by Caitlin Cary Burke 2019 Abstract The public sphere as defined by the philosopher Jürgen Habermas is a discursive space. Yet scholars also typically make mention of physical spaces that are tied to the public sphere. Sites such as the Grecian agora, the 18th century coffee house, and the New England meeting house, are often used as eXamples of public sphere space. These physical spaces are also evoked when theorizing the digital public sphere and online communication. A digital “town hall,” for example, was mentioned by Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, when discussing his vision for his social media platform. Yet, what is absent from these physical comparisons is a definition of public sphere space. What is the architecture of the public sphere? The need to define the space of the public sphere has become more pressing than ever. As made evident by the 2016 United States presidential election, Zuckerberg’s social media tool did not provide a true public sphere space. The public sphere is meant to bolster democracy by providing an opportunity for citizens to discuss politics freely, but Facebook negatively impacted American democracy by allowing a foreign party to target Facebook users with politically focused advertisements. The contrast between the supposed design of this digital town square and its impact, demonstrates the need to define a digital public sphere space. This thesis eXplores the architecture of various public sphere sites in order to materialize this theoretical concept and ground this communications model in the physical world. It will then focus on a virtual eXample of the public sphere in order to demonstrate iv how material boundaries can be translated to digital boundaries through information architecture and user experience design. This analysis will help to contextualize the social media tool Facebook in a history of public sphere space and clarify why the design of Facebook prohibits it from becoming a digital town square or an effective public sphere. The comparison between Facebook and other eXamples of spaces of the public sphere will point to solutions for designing virtual public sphere spaces in the contemporary digital age. v Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iv List of Figures ............................................................................................................................. viii Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... X 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................1 1.1 Spatial History and Architectural History ..............................................................1 1.2 The Public Sphere .......................................................................................................3 1.3 The 2016 United States Election ................................................................................4 1.4 Conceptualizing Public Space of the Public Sphere ...............................................5 1.5 Data Visualization and the Digital Humanities .....................................................6 2. Public Space of the Public Sphere ............................................................................................8 2.1 Habermas and the Public Sphere ..............................................................................8 2.2 Architecture of the Public Sphere Defined ............................................................12 2.3 Architectural EXamples ............................................................................................18 2.4 The Agora ...................................................................................................................19 2.5 The Coffee House ......................................................................................................22 2.6 The Meeting House ...................................................................................................26 2.7 Common Threads .....................................................................................................29 3. Digital Architecture and the Public Sphere ..........................................................................33 3.1 Information Architecture and Architecture ..........................................................33 vi 3.2 The BBS .......................................................................................................................36 3.3 BBS Successors ...........................................................................................................45 3.4 Facebook .....................................................................................................................46 4. Visualizing the 2016 Presidential Election and Facebook ..................................................54 4.1 The 2016 Presidential Election ................................................................................54 4.2 Visualizing Russian Hacking on Facebook ...........................................................64 4.3 Insights and Findings ...............................................................................................70 5. Facebook’s Digital Architecture ................................................................................76 5.1 The News Feed and the Like Button ......................................................................76 5.2 The Materiality of Technical Objects and Ethics ..................................................78 6. Conclusion .................................................................................................................................80 AppendiX A ...................................................................................................................................82 AppendiX B .................................................................................................................................106 References ....................................................................................................................................108 vii List of Figures Figure 1: Map of ancient Athens ............................................................................................... 22 Figure 2: Coffee house seating reconstructed through a VR Model .................................... 24 Figure 3: Image of pamphlets circulated around the coffee house ...................................... 25 Figure 4: Map of Vernon, Connecticut with meetinghouse at the center of town, designated by “MH” ....................................................................................................................................... 28 Figure 5: Architecture of the WELL system ............................................................................ 40 Figure 6: EXample of a UX “dark pattern in which words are used to confuse the user . 41 Figure 7: Flat IA hierarchy vs. deep hierarchy ....................................................................... 41 Figure 8: Facebook early design ................................................................................................ 50 Figure 9: Facebook current design ............................................................................................ 51 Figure 10: IRA Ad EXample 1 .................................................................................................... 59 Figure 11: IRA Ad EXample 2 .................................................................................................... 59 Figure 12: Ad Formatted on PDF File ...................................................................................... 64 Figure 13: Ad with “People Who Match” and “Interests” .................................................... 65 Figure 14: EXample of Group 1 ................................................................................................. 66 Figure 15: EXample of Group 2 ................................................................................................. 66 Figure 16: Final list of categories derived, ordered by number of impressions ................. 69 Figure 17: The University of OXford's categories and data ................................................... 69 viii Figure 18: Image of