If you haven't seen this on my facebook yet, you must must must check out Radio Free Europe's The Week In Facebook.
Basically they lay out the past week's events, from big stuff like the Iranian protests (check the archives) to silly news like Michael Jackson's death which gets snuck in. It's an interesting combination of deadly serious news and a supposedly unserious time-waster.
In my opinion the combination is very clever, as bringing together these two things illuminates facets of both.
On the one side is the comparison of world politics to human drama, intrigue and frivolity. This falls in easily with the state-human comparison which is so common in PoliSci, as well as the projection of a human personality on states. We all do thing unconsciously - Russia is being belligerent, Iran is playing a dangerous game, etc.. It's connected to the realist line of thinking that black-boxes the state, that is to assume that a state is a unitary actor rather than an amalgamation of decision-makers, but instead of ignoring the evident differences in approaches, we imbue this imaginary actor with a personality to explain its idiosyncrasies. It's an anthropomorphism that has become a commonly accepted way of thinking about world politics, and can even be found in some scholarly research.
The other thing that is demonstrated here is how our methods of communication have changed to the extent that formerly frivolous channels have become a medium for serious communication. Recently on a message board I frequent, someone lamented missing out on a friend's wedding because they had failed to check their facebook and had thus missed the invite. Many people were horrified that such an 'informal' medium be used for such a formal event, but as our reliance on internet communication increases, so does the importance we attach to those communications. Not answering an email is now almost, if not just as bad as not answering a letter, and amongst people of my generation (and probably even more so for those even younger) facebook is becoming the main way we stay in touch with our closest friends. As with every new technology, what starts out as a novelty evolves into a fully legitimate communication tool with its own etiquette and norms. Facebook is still relatively new, and it remains to be seen what staying power it has, but it is increasingly becoming indispensable for the management of communication amongst younger people.
Basically they lay out the past week's events, from big stuff like the Iranian protests (check the archives) to silly news like Michael Jackson's death which gets snuck in. It's an interesting combination of deadly serious news and a supposedly unserious time-waster.
In my opinion the combination is very clever, as bringing together these two things illuminates facets of both.
On the one side is the comparison of world politics to human drama, intrigue and frivolity. This falls in easily with the state-human comparison which is so common in PoliSci, as well as the projection of a human personality on states. We all do thing unconsciously - Russia is being belligerent, Iran is playing a dangerous game, etc.. It's connected to the realist line of thinking that black-boxes the state, that is to assume that a state is a unitary actor rather than an amalgamation of decision-makers, but instead of ignoring the evident differences in approaches, we imbue this imaginary actor with a personality to explain its idiosyncrasies. It's an anthropomorphism that has become a commonly accepted way of thinking about world politics, and can even be found in some scholarly research.
The other thing that is demonstrated here is how our methods of communication have changed to the extent that formerly frivolous channels have become a medium for serious communication. Recently on a message board I frequent, someone lamented missing out on a friend's wedding because they had failed to check their facebook and had thus missed the invite. Many people were horrified that such an 'informal' medium be used for such a formal event, but as our reliance on internet communication increases, so does the importance we attach to those communications. Not answering an email is now almost, if not just as bad as not answering a letter, and amongst people of my generation (and probably even more so for those even younger) facebook is becoming the main way we stay in touch with our closest friends. As with every new technology, what starts out as a novelty evolves into a fully legitimate communication tool with its own etiquette and norms. Facebook is still relatively new, and it remains to be seen what staying power it has, but it is increasingly becoming indispensable for the management of communication amongst younger people.
And let's face it, a status update is much easier to parse than a long-winded speech.
6 comments:
I prefer to hear wha you are up to rather than too much musing
Knus
Far
It was easy to ignore such other social networking frivolity as "MySpace" but Facebook is as tenacious as herpes, once you have it, you're never getting away from it.
What frightens me is not the development of new technologies and websites that let us waste our time, but newer generations reliance on them. People are becoming increasingly socially inept and the consequences are slowly starting to catch up with us. Using facebook to invite people to a wedding is on par with using mass email to do it: nontraditional but acceptable. On the other hand the new generations' reliance on facebook in relationship dynamics and the "facebook etiquette" that goes along with it gives me cold sweats.
That polisci paragraph was too much! My eyes glazed over, give me some superficial stuff! XO Mom
P.S. I LOVE the penguins. See? I'm sooo superficial. XO Mom
That's hilarious. I don't know how you find such great stuff. You little net addict you.
... so you can catch up on 60min of political events in 5 mins on facebook; giving you 55mins for fun and games?! If only someone had told Sarah Palin ;)
Love // Rune
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