ASSIGNMENT COVER SHEET 95567 Digital Media in Social Context
ASSIGNMENT COVER SHEET 95567 Digital Media in Social Context SUBJECT NUMBER & NAME NAME OF STUDENT STUDENT ID NUMBER STUDENT EMAIL STUDENT CONTACT NUMBER NAME OF LECTURER / TUTOR DUE DATE ASSESSMENT ITEM NUMBER/TITLE WORD COUNT 95567 Digital Media in Social Context Juanita (Wanida) Sammanee 11171081 [email protected] 0479096806 Meredith Jones 18 June 2012 Assignment Item5: Major Essay 3296 Academic staff may use plagiarism detection software (such as Turnitin) for checking student work or when plagiarism is suspected. The Turnitin system verifies the originality of your work, checking for matching text on the web, through electronic journals and books, and in a large database of student assignments from around the world. For further information see the FASS Study Guide at http://www.fass.uts.edu.au/students/assessment/preparing/study-guide.pdf or the Turnitin website at http://www.turnitin.com/static/turnitin_splash.html . I confirm that I have read, understood and followed the advice in my subject outline about academic integrity. . I am aware of the penalties for plagiarism. This assignment is my own work and I have not handed in this assignment (either part or completely) for assessment in another subject. . I have attached a stamped self-addressed envelope for the assignment to be returned to me if this is the final assessment item for the subject. . If this assignment is submitted after the due date I understand that it will incur a penalty for lateness unless I have previously had an extension of time approved and have attached the written confirmation of this extension. Please provide details of extensions granted here if applicable ___________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________ ________ Signature of Student: If submitted electronically tick here to indicate you agree with the above Date: 18/06/2012 What Do Ants, ANT and Facebook Have in Common: A Study of Networks. Juanita Sammanee Digital Media in Social Context University of Technology, Sydney [email protected] (61) 0479 096 806 Abstract Actor-Network Theory is a way of thinking about social issues without any specific point of view and without assumptions about the importance of any particular causes and effects. Recent discoveries about the ancient “natural” insect social networks of ants allow us to apply this method to compare these with the very recent “unnatural” online social network Facebook. The striking similarities in structure and function of these two systems suggests that both are an expression of a deep pattern inherent in life itself and challenge the distinction between the natural and unnatural . Digital Media in the Social Context Juanita Sammanee 11171081 2 We are not alone on this planet. We share the world with other things including animals, plants, elements, objects energy and lately our technology. Especially, actants like humans, plants and animals have been living together for such a long time associated as “natural” networks. They are all important parts of networks which connect to each other and sometimes in a complicated way to recognise. Clearly, humans are not the only living things which have a wide network and live in a colony; animals particularly ants are also similar to us in many respects, they communicate with each other in the same colony as well as with different colonies. Today (2012) we have been living in technological world with deeply symbiotic relationships between humans and non-humans where technology is involved. We have Facebook which is a social utility connecting us with others from around the world via the internet. To have a better understanding of those relationships, Actor-Network Theory (ANT) is an important philosophical method to analysis and explore the relations between swarms of different things tied up as a “Gordian knot”. It is a way of thinking more clearly and approaching details. This essay will apply an ANT approach to ants and Facebook equally, although one is perceived as “natural” and the other as “unnatural”. This essay will apply ANT to looking at social network structures and activity to understand how Facebook works and how ants work in their social networks. ANT treats these two as the same. Actor-Network Theory (ANT) grew out of studies of social issues in laboratories and other technology environments. It has been developed by Bruno Latour, Michel Callon and many others (Latour & Woolgar 1979; Callon, 1980; Callon 1986b) and at Digital Media in the Social Context Juanita Sammanee 11171081 3 first it seems complex and difficult to understand (Cressman 2009 p.1). A lot has been written about it and it has been applied to a few difficult social issues with some good effects. Bruno Latour is a French professor of sociology at Sciences Po Paris in France, he began his career focused on philosophy and then became interested in anthropology and the social sciences (Latour 2011). Also, Latour is best known for his book “We Have Never Been Modern” which is considered by many to be his finest work (Harman 2009, p. 57). It is best understood by reading about its application in practice, beginning with Michel Callon’s study of a failed attempt to save the Scallops in St Brieuc Bay (Callon 1986a). ANT is a way of thinking about issues, especially social issues where technology is involved. It is as much a philosophy as a social science “theory” and its name does not help people understand it: “There are four things that do not work with [the name] actor-network theory; the word actor, the word network, the word theory and the hyphen! Four nails in the coffin.” (Latour 1997, p. 1). Much has been written about ANT and Latour is particularly concerned that it is misunderstood. He would like to rename it, perhaps as the actant work net method (Latour 2005, p. 143). The main reason is that network has come to mean the internet in the modern world but in ANT it means the communication between the “actants” in a network. It is not about rapid transmission of information but it is about understanding and co-operations and combining energy between humans and animals and machines to produce information and results (outcomes), “It is the work, and the movement, and the flow, and the changes that should be stressed” (Latour 2005, p, 143). ANT is also generally associated with equal treatment of human and non-human actants, all objects are at the same level. It describes things in the same kind of way as philosophy and Digital Media in the Social Context Juanita Sammanee 11171081 4 sociology does, which is not necessarily true or false but it is more important how do things relate and associate together. For example, if we want to understand a particular social issue using ANT, “it is important not to start out assuming whatever we wish to explain” (Law 1992, p. 2). The involved “materials” of the social are all vital it is not only humans which are important as many people usually think, “…that people are who they are because they are a patterned network of heterogeneous materials” (ibid). In particular ANT does not accept many dualities “Latour places all human, nonhuman, natural, and artificial objects on the same footing.” (Harman 2009, p. 15). Actor-Network Theory does not look at only one object and it is not to find out what is right or wrong but to analyse, understand and improve social issues. It encourages looking at the overview of an issue and down through every layer, actant or group of actants and the relationships and interactions between them. Generally, an issue or situation would not be generated from only one cause but a lot of things combined. To have better understanding of a problem, ANT is an important method to help people think “out of the box” and see each cause of the problem clearly. The end result seems like a “birds-eye view” of a situation but that is not the only goal. It is more like a 3-d view where the investigation moves into detail to establish the actants involved and connections between them without any assumptions about what is important. The perspective and distance are also included; it is like using a camera to photograph many different views of a subject, changing focus from detail to distance. Also, it can help people to see the problem in a different “light” and this can really help to fix or at least improve the situation. A good example of this is Burgess, Clark and Harrison (2000) in which a qualitative analysis of how the different attitudes and Digital Media in the Social Context Juanita Sammanee 11171081 5 beliefs of farmers and ecological scientists were failing to produce good land management. Using this method, what can we learn about the social networks in ants and Facebook? Ants, like all colonial insects, reproduce in a colony from a single female known as the “Queen Ant”, although she does not seem to exert direct control over the colony. All the ants born in a colony have very similar DNA, like the cells and organs in multi-cellular animals such as humans, although the ants are “free-range” organs, unbound to one physical body. Many researchers studying ants give each colony a name since they are like individual animals, for example “Beth” and “Gozde” (PinterWollman et al. 2011, p 2). The ants are dependent on the colony for survival, only ant larvae (the “babies”) can digest solid food because the adults’ narrow waist (the petiole) allows only liquid food to pass (Gibson 2012; Kirksey 2012). Figure 1: Ant carrying Larvae (Gibson 2009). Digital Media in the Social Context Juanita Sammanee 11171081 6 The adults bring solid food back to the colony and the larvae digest it and produce excess liquid food which feeds the adults (Figure 1). Recent studies of ant behaviour have revealed complex networks of actions and behaviour which are very important in their life and provides evidence that they have a degree of intelligence and they act individually and autonomously as well as cooperatively (Pinter-Wollman et al. 2011; Litten 2011). Figure 2: Leave Cutter Ants cooperating to move a huge load (Moonchinda & Suthiyananon 2002). Many of these behaviours are similar to those of humans in motivation and effect (Figure 2). The relationships between the actants in each system are beneficial to the whole network in some cases and detrimental in others. Ants vary over a wide range of behaviours and some are very aggressive and destructive like the little fire ant (Kirksey 2012, p. 24). Ectatomma ruidum is a very unusual ant with many more positive relationships than negative ones (ibid). We will use information about ants in Digital Media in the Social Context Juanita Sammanee 11171081 7 general and Ectatomma in particular to analyse their social networks using an ANT approach. Facebook is an online social network made possible by a technological communications network. Anyone who can access the internet can join Facebook and get a personal page to store their information. The page also functions as a message board for others to communicate with its owner. Members post images and links and documents as well as messages into their personal or group page to build up a “picture” of themselves and their life like a kind of diary (Figure 3). Figure 3: Image of a Facebook page (Finn 2012). The network which is the concern of this essay is the social network formed by the relationships between Facebook members and the objects which “translate” the thoughts and actions of its members (Latour 1997, p. 1). Most of those members are humans but some are common interest groups including companies and some are computer “robots”, programmed to try to influence the actions of the human members Digital Media in the Social Context Juanita Sammanee 11171081 8 for various causes and enterprises. Facebook was first established in 2004 for use by university students in the USA and opened to the public in 2006. It developed rapidly, having 100 million users by 2008 and 900 million by February 2012 (Wikipedia 2012). Facebook, like all social networks enables its members to exert power and control over other members, a major concern of ANT: “This theory -- also known as the sociology of translation -- is concerned with the mechanics of power. It suggests, in effect, that we should analyse the great in exactly the same way that we would anyone else…they are no different in kind sociologically to the wretched of the earth” (Law 1992, p. 1). The Facebook network has no overarching control, it grows organically as a result of the actions of its individual members. Facebook is a modern example of a social network with which I am familiar and its digital web interface allows a rich, although limited range of interactions which is suitable for an ANT analysis. By comparing this modern social network with one evolved over millions of years in the world before humans, we can “shed light” on both the nature of social networks and ANT. It also helps to free our thinking from the influence of human “exceptionalism” (Haraway 2008, p. 244), making us better able to see the processes clearly. The ant networks are “natural” social networks and share many characteristics with humans’ technically based networks. We will compare this network with the social networks of ants using an ANT approach. Firstly, Ants build themselves a physical nest usually on and under the ground, which has a number of connected chambers, while Facebook users live their virtual lives in a Digital Media in the Social Context Juanita Sammanee 11171081 9 “space” which they build up in the Facebook website by adding digital information. Each member has a personal space which is divided into three “chambers”, private which only they can view, protected which their “friends” can view and public which anyone one can see. Other Facebook users become friends of a member by applying and being accepted before they have access to the protected space. Both spaces have a single entrance, Ectatomma colonies contain upwards of 300 ants (Kirksey, 2012 p.14), but they interact with ants of other colonies in their daily travels. Facebook users have an average of 190 friends (Backstrom 2011), but also interact with others outside their “colony” using the public spaces. Some ant colonies can grow to hundreds of millions of individuals (BBC News, 2009); however, each ant’s network of individual interactions is limited because their communication requires physical contact. Similarly on Facebook some users have thousands of friends but the number with regular two-way interactions is much more limited as we will explore below. To build their place of living, ants need and use a lot of things (actants) around them to build their nests; for instance, the ants themselves, the queen, babies, soil, leaves, weather, food, forest and environment, without any one of them their life would be different. Many years ago I had an ant farm made from a glass bowl and sand and I placed several ants in it with some sugar for food. They first touched each other for a few minutes, then they touched the food and then they started digging a nest. Once they had made a tunnel in the sand, they went and fetched some food. I loved watching those ants work together. Digital Media in the Social Context Juanita Sammanee 11171081 10 Likewise, building a personal Facebook space also involves several things necessary to make it work as a social network; for example, the internet, computers, electricity, the users, images, documents, the Facebook website, Mark Zuckerberg and the team, chats and emails. Both natural and unnatural and humans and non-humans are all important, allowing the social network to live and grow (be and become) somehow. The first things that a user places in the space are their identity (real or fake) and usually an image to express how they would like to appear. Both ant colonies and Facebook networks are built to a plan. The plan for the ant colonies is in the genetic code of the ants and each species builds their colony to the same plan with similar methods and materials. The plan for a Facebook page is in the website code which determines what type of materials can be used to build up the information and appearance of each page. Both ant colonies and Facebook networks have security systems to protect their community from attack or robbery by others. Ants have odour and shape to identify the group in a colony whereas Facebook users have user name and image as their identity. Also, ants protect their nest with a guarded door similar to the way users in Facebook have passwords protecting access to their home page/community. Both ants and Facebook users communicate constantly between members, for ants using sight, sound, touch and pheromones (scent) -- for Facebook using chat and post. Ants use their actor body to communicate, it is more face to face and it has sight, real smell and personal touch (Kirksey 2012, p. 4) which social networks like Facebook have not yet discovered how to do. They use computer touch (mouse and keyboard or Digital Media in the Social Context Juanita Sammanee 11171081 11 touch screen), sight and sound. Humans have good vision compared with most ants, so the communication of Facebook is still quite effective without the co-presence of ant communication. Although, Facebook users cannot touch other members, they can read from a post showing other’s feelings and opinions at that time. They cannot know everything as if they were together with the person in physical space but they can feel sympathetic with others as in the real world. Recent studies of ant communication track individual ants with colour markers using video cameras and software analysis (Pinter-Wollman et al. 2011). The authors map ant “trajectories” (ibid p. 3), the same term used by Latour for actant interactions (cited in Harman, 2009, p. 65). The results are presented as an interaction network diagram (Figure 4) where the dots are individual ants and the colour codes represent a kind of average number of interactions for each ant (Weighted Degree). Clearly some individuals have many interactions and most have relatively few. Figure 4: Interaction network diagrams of two ant colonies in a laboratory (PinterWollman et al. 2011). Digital Media in the Social Context Juanita Sammanee 11171081 12 Another study of Facebook users in a political interest group shows a remarkably similar structure in Figure 5 (Mascaro, Novak & Goggins 2012) . In the second diagram the area of the circles as well as colour is used to indicate the number of interactions for each individual. Figure 5: interaction network diagram of a thread in a political group on Facebook (Mascaro, Novak & Goggins 2012) Another similarity between ant and Facebook communication is that the two-way communication is only a small percentage of the total. Colonies of related ants can grow to millions but only a few hundred ants actually touch any individual, similarly on Facebook, only 10% of the friends engage regularly in two way communications (Marlow, 2009). Digital Media in the Social Context Juanita Sammanee 11171081 13 Ants accept only the members of their colony in general, but some groups including Ectatomma accept ants from neighbouring colonies. Their first reaction is to bite and pull aggressively at the strangers. The real “proof” of acceptance in ants is the sharing of “gifts” of liquid food, transferred in a kind of ritual where the donor stands still and opens its mandibles with a drop of liquid food in its mouth which the receiver takes (Figure 6). Figure 6: Ant Trophallaxis (Antzzz.org. nd.). Strangers need some time from when they meet before they are accepted, “After growing accustomed to each other, after about a week, these unrelated ants started venturing into each others colonies, and eventually feeding each other with trophallaxis” (Kirksey 2012, p.20). In Facebook, there is also a delay in acceptance. Visitors must request to be accepted by going to the others public page and using the “Add Friend” button. This posts a Digital Media in the Social Context Juanita Sammanee 11171081 14 special message to the page owner with “Confirm” and “Ignore” buttons. The “proof” of acceptance is clicking Confirm. Both ants and Facebook members are threatened by fraud and deception. Social insects use deception by disguising their scent to obtain entry into stranger’s colonies to steal food or building materials (Breed, Cook & Krasnec 2012, p. 1). Facebook users are also being targeted by fraud, “Facebook has been infiltrated by Nigerian scammers and other cyber criminals who use compromised accounts to con users out of cash” (Ninemsn 2012). The defences to a bad agency entering the colony are also similar. When ants realise that they have a stranger in their colony they will combine and even “swarm” to attack the intruder and help each other to protect their nest and their members (Figure 7). Figure 7: Ants attacking an intruder (Phys.Org 2012). Similarly on Facebook, some might post and communicate impolitely; however, many other members (friends) in the same group will often attack the stranger to help Digital Media in the Social Context Juanita Sammanee 11171081 15 defending each other in a “swarm” of posts. One type of attack is “cyber-bullying” usually by young people attacking a single individual, painfully and unjustly (Mail online 2012). This is an unfortunate expression of the power of social networking misused. There does not seem to be any equivalent in ant social networks. Ectatomma ants gather food from other actants in their region. They protect plants which provide them with nectar from more destructive food gathering animals, just as humans protect their crops. They also protect certain caterpillars from predators and it receives food in return, (Figure 8), just as farmers protect their animals such as cattle and sheep. Ectatomma also forms cooperative food gathering networks with its neighbours and shares food with them. This cooperation helps all the actants survive better (Kirksey 2012, p. 22). Figure 8: Ectatomma and tending a plant with caterpillars (Kirksey 2012). In a comparable process, Facebook users gather information and entertainment images from other websites, videos from YouTube and news from offline and share Digital Media in the Social Context Juanita Sammanee 11171081 16 them first with their community and then with other communities. They also share information about real-world shops and businesses which helps them “survive” by providing more business. Thus both the Facebook network and the Ectatomma colonies have a beneficial effect on many actants in their surroundings. In conclusion, a Facebook network and an ant social network are very similar from an ANT point of view. The “natural” and the “unnatural” technological network have the same structure and use similar methods to keep their members happy and interested, protected and fed respectively. This suggests that the forces that have shaped life on earth are shaping the way we use technology. It challenges the perceived distinction between the natural and unnatural, which appear on reflection to be expressions of the same underlying mysterious “life force”. Technology is another tool – like chemistry which life uses to follow its karma. 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