University of Amsterdam Department of Media Studies New Media & Digital Culture MA Thesis 2015 -2016 24 June 2016 Social Engagement in Times of Mourning A Platform Analysis of the Social Activity in the Aftermath of the Paris and Brussels Attacks By Jennifer Swagers | 5947030 Name supervisor: Esther Weltevrede | Name second reader: Richard Rogers ABSTRACT This thesis outlines how social engagement has been facilitated on Facebook in times of mourning as a result of crisis events. It states that there has been a shift towards a new kind of engagement that is partly dependent on Facebook’s grammars of action. To perform this study, this research made use of four cases and their data, namely the Pray For Paris Community Page, the Pray For Paris 13/11/2015 Group, the Pray For Brussels Community Page, and the Pray for brussels Group. The four cases were created in the aftermath of the Paris and Brussels terror attacks, which took place the 13th of November, 2015, and the 22nd of March, 2016. Through the Digital Methods tool Netvizz, this research extracted the data of the first two weeks of each of the four pages, after the related crisis event took place. This research is placed in a critical discursive analysis about engagement in relation to platform studies, by using theories about engagement, mourning, grammars of action, and affordances. The analysis indicates that the Like-endorsement is a new form of intentional memorialising in times of mourning as a result of crisis events, which leads to a contribution in the field of platform, mourning, and engagement studies. KEYWORDS Mourning; Engagement; Facebook; Crisis events; Platform studies; Digital methods 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION -3 1. THEORETIC FRAMEWORK: SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT ON PLATFORMS - 5 1.1. USER ENGAGEMENT AS INVOLVEMENT-ENGAGEMENT - 6 1.2. ENGAGEMENT FACILITATED BY THE TECHNICITY OF PLATFORMS - 12 2. METHODOLOGY: ANALYSING DATA OF FACEBOOK PAGES - 19 2.1. PLATFORM STUDIES - 22 2.2. DIGITAL METHODS - 23 2.2.1. NETVIZZ - 23 3. ANALYSIS OF FACEBOOK AND THE FOUR PAGES - 26 3.1. GRAMMARS AND ENGAGEMENT IN THE AFTERMATH - 27 3.2. TWO ADDITIONAL FEATURES - 48 3.3. THE LIKE-ENDORSEMENT - 51 4. CONCLUSION - 52 REFERENCE LIST - 54 2 INTRODUCTION When people are mourning, they used to act on the use of habits that are integrated into cultures and religions, like lighting candles, wearing black, walking silent marches, or praying to honour the deceased. This was, and still is, a way of thinking about someone who passed away, to memorialise a tragedy, or to show solidarity to the relatives of the victims. However, as the social life of people has experienced a partial shift towards social network, so did the various ways of mourning and the way in which people experience life and death. The Dutch funeral insurance, N.V. Nederlandse Uitvaartverzekering Maatschappij, argued for instance that they noticed a shift from obituaries in newspapers towards social network sites, like Facebook, where people reacted with comments out of sympathy and solidarity (Westerink n. pag.). But also online memorialising became a more regular thing with registers for condolences on specialised websites for victims of wars and crisis events, for famous people, but also for ordinary people who passed away (Walter et al. 282-283). On Facebook, profiles of deceased persons did turn into online memorialising pages. Also the digital RIP statuses of users on social network sites became a frequent phenomenon (Walter et al. 285). However, recently a new way of online mourning took place after the world was shaken up, again, with terror attacks by the Islamic State (IS) in Western Europe. On the 7th of January 2015, terrorists attacked the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris. 17 people were killed by terrorists of the IS (NOS, 2015 n.pag.). A period of national mourning followed in France. It was all over the news, there were marches in and outside of France to show solidarity, powerful political figures publicly decried the attacks, people were laying down flowers and were lighting candles on the place of the attack. But, beside that, it was the social engagement on social media that was overwhelming in this time of mourning. People changed their profile picture into an image with the sentence “Je suis Charlie” (I am Charlie), the hashtag #jesuischarlie was often shared, and many groups and community pages were created on Facebook with the name Je suis Charlie. This kind of social engagement was expanded in the aftermath of the Paris terror attacks, which took place on the 13th of November, 2015. An attack that became one of the most severe terrorist attacks since 9/11, whereby 130 people were killed by terrorists on multiple locations through self-bombing and shootings around the centre of Paris (NOS, 2015 n. pag.). The IS claimed the attacks (RTL Nieuws n. pag.). In the aftermath of the Paris terror attacks people around the world showed their support to all Parisians. On social media platforms, numerous users started sharing their engagement with the Parisians in different 3 ways. Especially the hashtag #prayforparis and the related image became popular among the users. After the London artist Jean Julien twittered a self made Eiffel Tower peace sign with the text “Peace for Paris”, it quickly became a symbol for the brutal attacks. This was also visible in the many new Facebook pages with the page name Pray for Paris that were created the day after the attacks to show their support to the Parisians. It was remarkable to notice how many people were actively socially engaged with the attacks on Facebook, in a time that was officially called as national mourning by President Hollande (Brummelman n.pag). Furthermore, Facebook launched for the first time features as support and solidarity towards the Parisians. On the 22nd of March, 2016, the world was shaken up by another unexpected crisis event. Brussels was startled with terror attacks at the airport Zaventem and their subway station. 32 people died as a result of the attacks (NOS, 2016 n. pag.). Also the days after the Brussels attacks were officially called a time of national mourning by the government of Belgium (NU.nl n. pag.). The attacks were memorialised on social network sites in a similar way as the previous attacks. People all over the world showed again their engagement on social network sites, this time with the hashtag #prayforbrussels. Although terrorist attacks are not new, neither is showing solidarity in times of mourning, but it was striking that people were so involved with these events, with the victims, and the survivors who they most likely did not know personally, but still felt the need to show solidarity in these times of mourning in the form of social engagement on social network sites like Facebook. The research question taken by this thesis is: How is the social engagement facilitated on Facebook in times of mourning as a result of crisis events? The way this research is being done is through researching 4 case studies, related to the Paris and Brussels attacks, namely: the Pray For Paris Community Page, the Pray For Paris 13/11/2015 Group, the Pray For Brussels Community Page, and the Pray for brussels Group. The Paris attacks are chosen, for the reason that they reached a new social engagement level on Facebook, that was facilitated by the users and by the platform as well. The Brussels attacks are chosen since they form the most recent crisis event in Western Europe at the moment of this research, and on the basis of these attacks this research is able to research if this new social engagement remained. Previous researches studied how engagement is formed, and how mourning experienced a shift towards social network sites. Previous researches also performed software studies to untangle technology that has been integrated and facilitated by platforms. Though 4 much has been written about online engagement on social network sites, how social media platforms are integrated in users’ daily lives, even so far as mourning on social network sites, no academic research has been conducted into, what this research argues, a new kind of social engagement on Facebook in times of mourning as a result of crisis events in Western Europe. A research that is important, since terror attacks in Western Europe are a current social problem, which has already led to a lot of victims with a huge extent and continuity of a threat for more terror attacks in Western European countries (National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism n. pag.). Furthermore, social network sites became a reflection of their users’ social lives and activities. Facebook alone has “1.09 billion daily active users on average for March 2016” (Facebook – Company Info). This contributes to the reason for measuring social engagement and topics of broad and current interest, in the field of digital media, and specifically on social network sites. The thesis is carried out from a digital cultural perspective, while doing a descriptive and methodological analysis. It will discuss in detail how user engagement is achieved in relation to technology, and particularly in times of mourning in the aftermath of the Paris and Brussels attacks. It will furthermore untangle how user engagement is facilitated by Facebook in relation to the four cases. This thesis suggests that there is a need for a new concept that can define this new kind of social engagement on Facebook. 1. THEORETIC FRAMEWORK: SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT ON PLATFORMS This research is placed in the critical dialogue about how social engagement is facilitated on Facebook in particular. It focuses partly on how engagement, in relation to times of mourning, is facilitated by the motivation of users, and partly how platforms, like Facebook, are able to structure engagement.