Social Media, Peer Surveillance and Spiritual Formation
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A session prepared for AHRC workshop on Religion and Surveillance. Taken a lot of prep, and still feel it needs more. Got me thinking about a lot of things in further layers than in the past ... let's see how it goes! I typically use more slides than minutes so...
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Social Media, Peer Surveillance and Spiritual Formation
- 1. Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis Senior Lecturer in Digital Marketing Manchester Metropolitan University Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 Image purchased: Stockfresh http://bit.ly/peer-surv
- 2. Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 Image purchased: Stockfresh Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl Assumes an observed gaze Social Media
- 3. Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 Barker, C. & Jane, E.A. (2016) Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice, p.103 Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 4. Self-Regulation via Foucault “Within a Foucauldian frame, as discourses are historically specific, so also are their subjects, displaying certain attributes consistent with the construction of knowledge at that time. Discursive formulations mediate the construction of identities, disciplining their subjects into a particular way of thinking and acting, promoting a specialist language, defining what knowledge and practices are, and are not, appropriate for ‘subjects’. Foucault believed that subjects would regulate themselves, encouraged by society to fit in the discursively defined concepts of what is ‘normal’. For example, within wartime society, ideals of citizenship defined what was ‘normal’: it would be unusual not to want to be fit, healthy and prepared to die for your country. Technologies of normalisation create, classify and control irregularities in the social body. They isolate and correct anomalies ‘through corrective or therapeutic procedures’, that look like they are ‘impartial techniques for dealing with dangerous social deviations’. For example, VD is presented as a ‘dangerous disease’, as different from other diseases, but this can largely be seen as a result of religious discourse. Behavioural changes need to be made by subjects in order not to put themselves ‘at risk’. Subjects become ‘masters of their own slavery’ as they exercise ‘self-surveillance’, requiring them to act upon themselves, ‘to monitor, test, improve, and transform’ themselves.” Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 Extract from Lewis, R.M. (2004), Unpublished PhD thesis.
- 5. “Institution” is used here to indicate any source of mediating activity between human beings. In this sense, all private and public organisations and establishments are institutions because they regulate aspects of human behaviour as third parties, i.e. without being subject to cultural negotiation (Lianos, 2001a: 16ff.; 2001b; 2000). A supermarket, a bank, a ministry and a web portal are all important sources of institutional sociality and normativity, and they should be understood, because of their combined effects on their users, as parts of the same regulating universe. These combined effects generate a new stage in the development of social regulation. Lianos: Social Control after Foucault Surveillance & Society 1(3) 414 Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 http://www.surveillance-and-society.org/articles1(3)/AfterFoucault.pdf Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 6. “The Ordinary Internet” Google has become so naturalised “it no longer seems to have an origin. It’s as if it always was – and therefore always will be – a part of us.” Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 Hillis, K. Petit, M. & Jarrett, K. (2012) Google and the Culture of Search Routledge p3 Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 7. “We have brought many ‘habits, inclinations and prejudices… endemic to society as a whole’, and it’s no longer its novelty, uniqueness or it potential to transform life, but its very pervasive ordinariness that gives the internet its significance.” Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 Miller, V. (2011) Understanding Digital Culture, London: SAGE Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 8. Digital Citizenship Digital etiquette: Displaying appropriate and responsible behaviour while online Digital literacy: The proficiency to access, understand, participate in or create online content. Digital security: Securing one’s own personal information. Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 https://www.arts.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/articles/the-adaptive-moment-a-fresh-approach-to-convergent-media-in-aust-jmrc-report/ Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 9. Shaping Public Discourse Online “… most shared lists have a powerful ability to shape public discourse. If an article about financial reform happens to make the list, while one about environmental reform barely forms short, that initially small difference in interest can quickly become magnified. As more people see and share the article about financial reform, citizens may become convinced that financial reform deserves more governmental attention than environmental reform, even if the financial issue is mile and the environmental issue severe.” Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 Berger, J. (2014) Contagious, p.97
- 10. Moral Panics “If modern people worry over whether digital electronics threaten to corrupt religious experience, their grandparents worried about the intrusion of electrical light into sacred spaces, and their great- grandparents debated the permissability of musical instruments for worship.” Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 Adam, A.K.M. (2012) ‘The Question Concerning Technology and Religion;, Journal of Lutheran Ethics, p.5 Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 11. Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 https://www.ted.com/talks/sherry_turkle_alone_together Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl I share, therefore I am Sherry Turkle, psychologist and MIT professor of Social Studies of Science and Technology
- 12. Self Identity? “Social media can be used more as an address book, with privacy settings allowing access to different levels of information, while the public parade of connections offers social identity and status.” Lewis, B. (2014) Raising Children in a Digital Age, p.106 Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 13. Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 Image source: Stockfresh Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl Peer Surveillance
- 14. Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 http://drbexl.co.uk/2017/02/11/symposium-online-anonymity-right-threat-crcc2017/ Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 15. Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl 1. (God) 2. Parents 3. ‘Kids’ 4. Newspaper 5. Enemy Who sees this?
- 16. Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 17. Anonymity? In the early years of the Internet, most online communities demonstrated a deep respect for anonymity and pseudonymity, particularly within MUDs (multi-user dungeons), where many sought to escape into fantasy worlds. A huge amount of early research concentrated on online identity, which was heavily focused on the loss of face-to-face clues, and on deceit, particularly the concept of “disinhibition”: when technology appears to offer a buffer from traditional consequences. People will say and do things online that they would not otherwise say or do, because they have lost the clues of the feedback cycle. Most interactions online are still regulated by power relations and social thinking that exist offline. Pseudonyms were not intended to disassociate users online/offline personas, but this did affect expectations as the world rolled into the twenty-first century, specifically the dissociation between one's online identity and offline identity. Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 Drawing on Leaning, M., The Internet, Power and Society: Rethinking the Power of the Internet to Change Lives, Chandos, 2009, p. 55 Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 18. Mary E. Hess (2014) Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezproxy.mmu.ac.uk/doi/10.1111/dial.12084/epdf Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 19. Giulia Ranzini: Impression Management “Social media, in particular, have amplified this phenomenon promoting networks construed around individuals, using their personal narratives as a starting point and targeted towards their relevant audiences, actual or imaginary. In their engagement with others, through their social media profiles and interaction with technology, individuals approach and change their self-concepts, question their ideas over who they are and give new spaces to their emotions and bodies. The online and offline realms are growing more and more interdependent…” Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/232480/, 2014, p3 Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 20. Digital Savviness? “They monitored friends’ pages to ensure that they were being represented fairly, and trusted each other not to expose silly or embarrassing pictures. Those that were on the phone were considered to be private and not for sharing without agreement, although children should still consider what might happen to those photos if the friendship were to fall apart.” (Raising Children, p.108) Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 Image: RGB Stock Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 21. “There’s no place for faith in our public life” Discuss The problem with the question is that it presupposes that the 'secular' perspective found in the phrase 'public life' is without 'faith' in the first place. If faith is a combination of worldview (or how we imagine the world to be), praxis (a combination of rituals, liturgies, ethics and financial considerations), and life expectations (what, in light of worldview and praxis you expect life to be like, a kind of telos) then the 'secular' is as much a faith as orthodox Christianity. If this is the case, then it's not so much 'should faith be in the public square' but rather, 'which faith would we prefer to be in the public square?’ Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 Joshua Penduck, Ordinand, 2013 Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 22. Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 https://www.instagram.com/p/BPh7AsBAVob/?taken-by=drbexl Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 23. Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5maxzDfkTIwdvwbw1Xil_A Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 24. Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 Image Source: Purchased Stockfresh Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl Spiritual Formation
- 25. What do you understand by spiritual formation? “I guess "spiritual formation" is that journey that we are on to become mature in our faith. Including the things we know and don't know, that we see in ourselves and that we don't. Sudden earthquake like tremors that quickly and fundamentally shape our faith but also the small incremental drip drip that intentionally or not changes who we are and how we express that.” “- maturing as a Christian - it's a journey which never ends - it's part of who we are rather than something we do - includes prayer and bible study, questioning and exploring yourself and your beliefs, worshipping and listening, intentionally being with God in the every day of life.” Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 Responses from Facebook, March 2017 Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 26. Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+12:1&version=MSG Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 27. The face of God? “[If we are…] means by which God communicates and reveals himself through his Spirit, then our blog posts, status updates, tweets, artistic images, and online comments should be products of a life transformed by Christ and indwelled by his Spirit. As restored image bearers, our online presence and activity should image the Triune God.” Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 Byers, A. Theomedia: The Media of God and the Digital Age, 2013, p196 Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 28. Giving Up Social Media for Lent? How can the church be a leading light within our society, if we are seen as irrelevant, refusing to engage with the latest technology? Can we lead by example, and show that we are not afraid to experiment, not afraid to fail? If we’re not in the digital spaces, the latest ‘public square’, then we can’t offer an ‘example’ to influence the wider world. We need to be part of people’s everyday conversations, and not just arriving when we have a message to ‘sell’. Sharing our everyday lives, in which stories of humour and vulnerability are particularly powerful, allows us to connect – including with journalists, who find spaces such as Twitter a useful hunting ground for stories, and to build up trusted relationships with potential contributors to stories. Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 Lewis, B. (2017), ‘Social Media Fast for Lent? Not for Me!’, The Medianet, http://themedianet.org/social-media-fast-lent-not/ Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 29. What makes people share? • Social Currency: We share things that make us look good • Triggers: Things need to be in our consciousness to want to share them “Different locations contain different triggers. Churches are filled with religious imagery, which might remind people of church doctrine…. And once these thoughts are triggered, they might change behaviour.” • Emotion: We want to share the things we care about (exciting is more shared than sad) • Public: If something is public, and on show, it's visible to others and enters their consciousness • Practical Value: People like to share useful bits of information that we think will help people • Stories: Humans tell stories - and useful information can be embedded in what seems like idle chatter! Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 Berger, J. (2014) Contagious, p.74 Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 30. Being surveyed? “Does social media affect that? Certainly. Depending how we use it. Do we use it to explore how to do love and faith better or do we use it to justify the where we are now (the latter being more stifling to growth and formation I suspect). In terms of being watched, he most interesting aspect I think is the being watched not by the outsiders but by the insiders. So my online identity has in the past been defined by how the church goers at the place I attended viewed how I should be rather than the reality of who I am and who I believe I am meant to be.” Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 Facebook conversation, March 2017 Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 31. Bryony Taylor “.. People find it easy and more comfortable to ask questions about faith in a private space online… people on social media are directly contactable in a way that has not previously been so easy; paradoxically there is a distance offered by the online environment akin to the screen in the confessional box” Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 Taylor, B. Sharing Faith Using Social Media, 2016, p18 Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 32. A Place for Conflict? Conflict isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, and instead can, under the right conditions, create an opportunity to work through differences in a constructive way. However, when people engage in negative conflict, they’re less interested in trying to see if they can come to a mutually beneficial resolution than they are in maintaining power over the other side and trying to prove they are “right,” regardless of the methods used or the people hurt. Andrews, M. (2013), ‘In Conversation with Author Andrea Weckerle, Civility in the Digital Age’, A New Domain. Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 http://anewdomain.net/2013/04/07/in-conversation-with-author-andrea-weckerle-civility-in-the-digital-age Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 33. “The early conversations on my Twitter account are all still visible because I chose not to delete them. I didn’t ever want to whitewash my history or forget where I come from.” Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 https://www.ted.com/talks/megan_phelps_roper_i_grew_up_in_the_westboro_baptist_church_here_s_why_i_left Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 34. Network Convergence The bit I would comment on is the 'people are watching'. As a curate it didn't trouble me too much, but as a 'responsible for parish' Rector I am much more aware that what I say and do is under scrutiny. I've stopped blogging partly because of lack of time, and partly because the situations I might blog about are easily identified by those involved, their friends, relations and neighbours. We get enough local spats on social media without me inadvertently adding to them. Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 Facebook conversation, March 15 2017 Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 35. Has social media impacted your spiritual formation? “Social media has allowed the world to become smaller. This means I've been able to explore wider, ask further and question more than if I was limited to my church, family, friends and people I meet in every day life. Social media allowed my spiritual formation to take off… social media has made it so much easier than it would otherwise have been. Geography is a limiting factor to spiritual formation, especially in disability (and poverty) and social media has removed that limit. But: God is the leader of my spiritual formation and He will always find a way which works.” Does the fact that others are 'observing what you are doing' make any difference? “I feel that part of my spiritual formation is to share what I believe and why and how; and I'm sure that God uses my blog and social media engagement to help others now and in the future (it lasts forever once online). ” Do you regulate your online ‘self’? “I am me and is become abundantly clear over the years that I can't hide that online any more than I can in real life. I don't pretend to be anything other than I am, warts and all, and I've seen that God uses it all for good.” Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 Facebook response, March 15 2017 Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
- 36. Thank You Questions? Social Media, Peer Surveillance, and Spiritual Formation. Dr Bex Lewis, AHRC Religions Consuming Surveillance Workshop, Edinburgh, March 2017 http://bit.ly/peer-surv Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
Notas do Editor
- 30 mins, small group, with 15 mins for Q&A afterwards. So, I wanted to pull together some of the ideas that I’ve been working on over the last 7+ years, and try and shuffle the patchwork into some sort of order, related to this particular topic, and will take each of these elements in order, considering: What is it about social media (and digital) culture in general that shapes our expectations of what we can/want to do in those spaces? What does ‘surveillance’ look like within social media, especially when we understand ourselves to be observed in the space? What are the social norms, and (how) do we self-regulate with an awareness of being observed? How does social media impact our spiritual formation, and how do (a couple) of social media users perceive that? So, it’s very much a work in progress, and I’m hoping this kickstarts some conversations over the next few hours, and interested to hear how it connects with other’s work, and how this might develop further. It’s a classic ‘if I had more time, it would be shorter’ piece!
- First, most obvious point, is that social media assumes an observed gaze. It’s a public arena, even those aspects that are ‘private’ and peer-to-peer are ‘performed’ for another, if not the mass audience that is assumed for all social media – there IS AN AUDIENCE, and it’s a space that is very much embedded in contemporary life, for western cultures at least.
- For this paper, I wanted to return to Foucault, as used within my PhD, re-emphasised by coming across this in a potential textbook for my students, which explicitly ties Foucault’s notion of the panopticon, where one is observed, but the observer is not seen by those undertaking activities, and that we have become used to a “continuous, anonymous and all-pervading power and surveillance operating at all levels of social organisation.,” and thought the question that we choose to “opt-in to such intense scrutiny and surveillance” was interesting (there are those who have tried to resist, but the digital is so interwoven in contemporary society…
- So, I pulled a small piece from my PhD, which considered how the government sought to regulate citizen’s behaviour through posters, which were thought to represent ‘the people’, and particularly interested in the notion of what is ‘normative’ behaviour within particular communities, and how people submit to self-regulation and self-surveillance in their behaviour in order to ‘fit in’ with what others observe about their lives…
- It’s something that many associate with the web and ‘selfie culture’, but it goes much deeper than that. Offline, from paying local tax instalments to taking cars for an MOT, we live through a multiple range of institutional activities that monitor and verify conformity, and those ‘rules can have beneficial effects (e.g. paying for NHS, safer roads), although it tends to ‘other’ those who don’t conform, and it’s interesting to watch that evolve within social media, as the etiquette evolves, although of course it’s not free from the power relations that shape the rest of society. The article continues “New technologies for collecting personal information which transcend the physical, liberty enhancing limitations of the old means are constantly appearing. These probe more deeply, widely and softly than traditional methods, transcending natural (distance, darkness, skin, time and microscopic size) and constructed (walls, sealed envelopes) barriers that historically protected personal information.” Manuel Castells remarks (1996:469): “[the] networking logic induces a social determination of a higher level than that of the specific social interests expressed through the networks: the power of flows takes precedence over the flows of power. Presence or absence in the network and the dynamics of each network vis-à-vis others are critical sources of domination and change in our society: a society […] characterized by the preeminence of social morphology over social action.” (Flows= technological infrastructure, places (nodes, etc), and people) – still something new am looking at, so still circling within a Foucauldian narrative.. With the concept of social morphology Durkheim classified the ‘substratum’ of society according to how human populations are distributed and organized across space. I have noted that Deleuze – talks about the ‘crisis of the institutions’ https://cidadeinseguranca.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/deleuze_control.pdf, but I haven’t really taken that path.
- One of the most powerful institutions as part of our marketised/advertising led age, as Google seeks to ‘organise all the world’s information’, and in doing so, shapes what is knowledge via algorithms (note- human written, although machine learning is increasing). Difficult to investigate the full power, because we are so embedded in it… it has now become a part of our everyday life, and sometimes trying to focus specifically on the digital = problematic.
- Early optimism about the revolutionary potential of the internet may have been misplaced (Miller, 2011)…. We thought it was going to change everything, but in fact it has layered upon what was already there, and in fact, as we have stopped noticing it’s there, maybe we’ve stopped questioning what it does/how, etc. = importance to challenge
- Again, from Barker/Jane, (p466), there is a question as to how far people understand this new environment, as “The internet is not a new medium, ….it is a new media environment, where all forms of content circulate and are recirculated, marked by an unprecedented diversity of users and producers. We need a fresh and adaptive approach.” “We no longer live in a time where governments can exercise a top-down approach to pre-vetting all media content and acting as all-seeing gatekeepers…” so we need to self-regulate in concerns for privacy or… The first concern = etiquette (so self-regulation of the display of ‘the self’, what some would call the ‘photoshopped self’, although this action has existed well before Photoshop), the second - we need to understand that people have different levels of access to the internet (material, mental, meaningful use, etc.), and the skills, and third, in many ways we seem to worry more about children/sex, than privacy, but as the internet has become increasingly commercialised … are concerns about privacy, though debatable whether more concerned about commercial or governmental access.
- Digital literacy is particularly important within this context, noting that to go viral = needs lots of people to share at same time… but the end effect is that computer-mediated algorithms and machine learning affect public discourse – beliefs have power actions. Recent book re government attempting to manage people’s attitudes/behaviours through ‘nudge’ policies (e.g. changing small words, etc.) “Churches, business, parents and schools all have a hand in shaping what young people learning and think.” (Nudge - P246)
- As AKM Adam puts it impossible to encounter the divine without any mediation by human products – even if disrobe, dismiss all tech tools and disappear into the wilderness for months – are still a product – or have habits from living in a technologically defined culture. (p4 – Journal of Lutheran Ethics- 2012), and when look at it specifically within technology/faith perspective, there have always been moral panics – it’s part of change (all need educative support for change to be effective – gentle nudging). Note from Masters teaching: Imagine you wanted to research resistance to organisational change. For a long time, business and management scholars made the ontological assumption that resistance to change was highly damaging to organisations. They argued it was a kind of organisational misbehaviour, and happened when change programmes went wrong. Consequently they focused their research on how this phenomenon could be eliminated, looking for types of employee that were most likely to resist change and the management actions that could prevent or stop resistance. More recently, some researchers have started to view the concept of resistance to change differently, resulting in a new strand of research. These researchers see resistance as a phenomenon that happens all the time whenever organisational change takes place, and that benefits organisations by addressing problematic aspects of change programmes. Their different ontological assumptions mean that they focus on how resistance to change can best be harnessed to benefit organisations, rather than looking for ways to eliminate resistance (Thomas and Hardy 2011). http://www.academia.edu/13016419/Research_Methods_for_Business_Students_Chapter_4_Understanding_research_philosophy_and_approaches_to_theory_development_
- Sherry Turkle, psychologist and MIT professor, and author of books such as ‘Alone Together’ (TED talk = 3+ million views) – who typically asks - as we expect more from technology, do we expect less from each other? With this quote she was referring to the ‘photoshopped self’ that we produce online – which she describes as a deliberately created self in which we share only those things that make us look good, part of a crowd, or that are easy to share, taking little time to think… As I said, I have a bit of a quibble with this, in that I think we have a certain amount of ‘performance’ in everything we do … we need a certain amount of wisdom in what we share and engage with, and so that negative connotation that many have about a ‘constructed self’ online... As I wrote in a paper, which was published for the European Conference on Social Media a couple of years ago “We have to argue, however, that we exhibit different ‘social selves’ in different situations, and the online environment is simply another social situation in which we are learning what is appropriate to share, and what would be better reserved for a different social situation or a different technological medium, with questions as to whether the convergence of digital media is making it harder or easier to be ‘digitally in disguise’ and how easy it is to wear our ‘digital skin’.” http://www.reclaimingconversationbook.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Sherry-Turkle-credit-Peter-Urban.jpg
- A short segment from my book … As a side question - Is there a difference about being observed as ‘an avatar’ (where can choose to look entirely unlike yourself, and many do), and as ‘you’ (where have to make self invisible through blocking photos, etc. or find ‘your best presented self’)
- So, to return to what we said, social media is about assuming a gaze, assuming that you’re watched (at least in the public content that you post, although many forget that everything is being recorded – e.g. FB interaction, Google searches, etc. producing some very interesting datasets for researchers to engage with, but … Note – picture = automatically assumes negative connotations, but does it have to …
- What happens when that data is collected in aggregate? In many ways this is not a new issue – Gavin Drake last week was speaking about his wife Jill Saward, known within the media, as the ‘Ealing vicarage rape victim’, and how no newspaper published details of who she was in full, but in putting the jigsaw of pieces together, she was fully identifiable (law has since been change). At this event earlier this year, Timandra Harkness, journalist and Research Fellow, spoke about how we are producing huge datasets of information, questioning who has access to them – and how can they be strung together … journalist looking at open data sets e.g. taxi rides in US, combined with e.g photographs in the newspaper – can identify people’s addresses/whether paid a tip, etc. Also in the picture, someone in the dark web looking at drug transactions … where is TRUST playing a part in this?
- If we return to the openly accessible web, this is a slide I use in many of my presentations, and even quoted on The One Show in 2015, with the first point down to whether it’s a faith or secular audience … thinking about the content that we ACTIVELY post (rather than that which is collected about us as we undertake activities on the web) and how we manage that…
- This is one of the slides I used quite often in workshops, started with young people, but expanded to all… encouraging people to think about what they post online, and what that says about them…Those of faith are human beings, so we do what many others do – we take selfies, we ‘perform’ in the online spaces … … encouraging people to ‘be themselves’, but also engage ‘some wisdom’ about what they are sharing, as social media is a public space, and shouldn’t therefore just ‘vomit’ thoughts all over it! Is it all just a ‘waste of time’ – no doubt online = full of triviality but is that all it is – redundant conversation is key – it would be tiring to speak at a deep philosophical level AT ALL TIMES. Think within religious = the ‘Protestant work ethic’ has infected the discourse – “are you wasting time?” – assumes that we’re all using it the same way/negatively (the moral panic that every generation has had, and the technological determinism that is so prevalent) AKM Adam – p7 – permissible uses of technology = clothing, shelter, food prep, but impermissible – entertainment, comfort, self-indulgence.
- From a part-drafted piece of work on anonymity, emphasising the importance of maintaining consistency between one’s online/offline identity as they become increasingly blurred.
- - And Hess sums up what typically argue – that as networks increasingly connect people in different spaces = difficult to disconnect without a lot of work!
- Talks about our identifies being ‘performed’ differently depending upon the audience that we are addressing – has always been the case – perform, reflect, chance action based on response, but that this has sped up because of the speed of (potential) response – if don’t get enough ‘likes’ then will take it down [can see this in resistance from students to use their social media for university assignments, when they have carefully created a different personality] or change – re Erving Goffman(1959) – self-presentation as a theatrical performance. Impression Management – attempt to communicate type of information of the image that they wish to project (doesn’t mean inauthentic?) On social media, as if on stage, we perform who we are on a daily basis (profile pics/user names, etc.), select audience (choose platform/accessibility of profiles within), and involve ‘fellow actors’ in their plays (e.g. tagging friends in photos) … a dialogic process of co-construction. Are other pre-internet theorists – one of the fascinations as a historian is continuity/change – the internet simply offers a new space in which we project onto the outside world – but it’s affordances change what is possible… often people assume that social media allows for deception, actually see that for many = inspires honesty (disinhibition) – and at least seems realistic to the users themselves as per their own perception.
- … and then if we see what kids do with it … see how they’re quite savvy about their audiences and what/where they will share when… if they share it’s when things have ‘gone wrong’.
- And of course, there’s the question of how public our faith lives should be …
- Couple of e.g.s of faith in the public square (literally and digitally in this case) Performance of social justice – also every time I sign a petition (slacktivism – has actually had some pretty big wins)? Can’t tell from that that I got there towards the end, etc… though if you re-contextualised it within my Facebook I explictly said that… placing the gospel in the public sphere Risk, potential comes from this performance – as online/offline worlds blur – invest emotion in this … impacts on mental health?
- This is less ‘performative’ and more about accessibility, but still interesting re visibility… https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5maxzDfkTIwdvwbw1Xil_A One of my arguments is that churches are not on most people’s radar these days, but their friends are – so if people are sharing, and sharing within a personalised context (so not feeling sold to) then e.g. Bible verses, stories of everyday life changes, etc. are relevant – as are going to church – where most people don’t know what goes on inside = some demystification – provide an area where people know they are ‘off camera’ (partly all those concerns about children on camera, especially adopted children) … Being part of a community = good citizen of faith and the world = demonstrating care for those within pastoral care, and each other… are webcams that will do facial ID and count whether you attend or not (have a problem with that, but… ) Knowing being observed by others (in the church – local/wider) – how does that affect our ‘public performance’ – is there a restriction of what we think is acceptable, inc managing e.g. younger users social media access (under 13’s reported to parents if spotted).
- Hess – mentions those who would argue that faith formation must be embodied, so digital can’t be, but let’s look briefly at if/how it can be…
- So, I asked a couple of non-theologian friends via FB if they would give me definitions of what they understood by spiritual formation. Then had a look on bible.com: “The short-hand definition I would offer could perhaps be worded as “the intentional transformation of the inner person to the character of Christ.” It is intentional in two ways: It is part of God’s will for the individual believer, and the individual believer makes a conscious choice about it; it is transformation in that it involves definitive, measurable growth in a certain direction; it involves the inner person in that it concerns itself with character, thoughts, intentions, and attitudes more than actions, habits, or behaviours; it has the character of Christ as its goal and standard of measure.” https://bible.org/seriespage/towards-biblical-definition-spiritual-formation-romans-121-2 Transformation, and maturing…
- So, if we take one of my favorite/life verses – to ‘take your everyday, ordinary life’, including your social media living (as we’ve said that’s part of everyday life), place before God as an offering, questioning the culture, and spending time with God so that that influences how we behave (which can be via some of many digital tools, including e.g. Tim’s work on YouVersion, or, in a way that’s not so commonly thought of in the way we construct Bible study/prayer as a personal/individual thing, whereas can be done in conversation as we did with BigBible for a few years – it’s how we learn other things, so why not this?)
- My former colleague Andy put this well – we become transformed – and therefore we are ‘the face of God’, especially for the many for whom church is now irrelevant. We’re in a ‘recommendation economy’ as James Poulter would call it – what are we recommending – the latest consumer goods, Jesus – both/neither – does it matter?
- Reading about how some seek to make themselves invisible (from) technology, led me back to a piece I wrote earlier this year, about those who‘visibly disappear’ – e.g. for Lent, typically because people feel that they are ‘addicted’ (further research needed – most people = bad habits), or that they are ‘wasting too much time’ (again, contested, why does every drop of economic value need to be wrung out of every activity?)
- Don’t want to go through this slide in detail, as you could go back and look online, but interested particularly in how we share the things that make us look good, and the things we care about, and how we make them public. It’s typically about telling ‘our stories’ – unless we ‘over-curate’ them.. Berger, p33 - “Self-sharing” follows us throughout our lives. We tell friends about our new clothing purchases and show family members the op-ed piece we’re sending to the local newspaper. This desire to share our thoughts , opinions and experiences is one reason social media and online social networks have become so popular.” [Is there a pressure to SHARE faith, to be authentically faithful?] P39 – we all want to be liked, the desire for social approval is fundamental to the human condition. Think about Tim Hutchings – shares via YouVersion, and their massive datasets also … willing participation, but how much do we understand it?
- So, here, we see an example of how the online/offline interaction is important, and how pressure externally affected online profile.
- One of the things that one of my dissertation students noted (and has now turned into a Grove book), is that the disinhibition which is blamed so much for e.g. cyberbullying is the thing that allows people to ask more questions than face-to-face … they don’t need to stutter, go red, or fear being trapped in a room – but once trust has been built up – offers an opportunity in which to converse…
- Social media can also be a space for conflict, but there are ways and ways of doing conflict … it’s always a topic that generates good debate in conversations in training courses … concerns about others observing these negative debates – can we manage difference gracefully (not if recent events are anything to go by), although others are concerned about the push for ‘false unity’ and the display of that… and how we move to a more ‘GRACE-ful’ way of sharing the Christian message.
- Thought this was an interesting example of conflict that emerged on Twitter – she’s now married one of the people that she engaged in, and left Westboro Baptist Church, having been a ‘real ambassador’ for them … “In 2009, that zeal brought me to Twitter. Initially, the people I encountered on the platform were just as hostile as I expected. They were the digital version of the screaming hordes I'd been seeing at protests since I was a kid. But in the midst of that digital brawl, a strange pattern developed. Someone would arrive at my profile with the usual rage and scorn, I would respond with a custom mix of Bible verses, pop culture references and smiley faces. They would be understandably confused and caught off guard, but then a conversation would ensue. And it was civil — full of genuine curiosity on both sides. How had the other come to such outrageous conclusions about the world? When my friends on Twitter stopped accusing and started asking questions, I almost automatically mirrored them. Their questions gave me room to speak, but they also gave me permission to ask them questions and to truly hear their responses. It fundamentally changed the dynamic of our conversation.”
- Have to recognise that whatever hat are wearing it, are wearing it in all dimensions … and this impacts online behaviour.. And see that impacts offline… Stoddart talks about Jews/Christians making themselves invisible before the authorities in Biblical times – people in public roles are also doing so (and probably also those NOT in public roles)
- So, going to finish with this comment … social media has allowed the world to become smaller – for someone with a disability/low income, this is powerful, but the importance of seeing social media as part of the toolkit, being aware of its affordances and constraints, and therefore using it with wisdom… and the notion that one can be ’authentic’ online – well that’s a hot potato, but there’s a sense that the surveillance is a 2-way and positive thing (unlike Foucault’s one way panopticon!)