The digital tribe and the network nation

This is a continuation from yesterday's blogpost entitled: Digital Tribal Identity

I will argue here that within the present information age, where digital communication technologies have fractured the tyranny of distance beyond repair, and where computers have become pervasive and ubiquitous, identification through digital mediation has become the new cultural capital (Bordieu & Passeron, 1990). Cultural capital is the set of ‘invisible bonds that tie a community together’ (Curtis, 2004, p 72) without which societal cohesiveness begins to unravel. It is this ‘social glue’ - such mutual understandings and exchanges that occur on a daily basis – that holds together the basic building blocks of social life in which people simply ‘look out for each other’. In the real life community, people work hard to sustain such mutual exchange, and its value is instilled in them from an early age. This results in the transmission of the culture from generation to generation.

For the digital community, such tribal identification operates at least within the social and individual levels, but may be inherently more complex, transcending age, ethnicity, gender and other social divisions such as disability. Paradoxically, it is largely the individual figures within this equation who act in concert to perpetuate the social cohesion of the tribe. Even stranger in the digital age, such exchanges are conducted regularly through one or more mediating technologies.

The anthropologist Erving Goffman suggested that the performance of the self is a social act designed to regulate the impression one presents to others. Goffman’s notion of impression management in public spaces evokes the construction of the self simultaneously in the mind of the individual and in the collective mind of the audience (Goffman, 1959). We see ourselves reflected in the eyes of the other, and adjust our behaviour to conform and remain accepted by those with whom we choose to identify (Cooley, 1902).

Rheingold (2002) applies this ‘theory of being’ to the use of short message service (SMS) texting by young people – who they send texts to, and receive them from, defines an element of their social identity, as constructed by themselves in relation to the others in their SMS circle of communication. Such small friendship circles may be physical, or virtual, or a combination of both, but for the individual, this may matter little, but remains very much an essence of his or her identity as a tribal member. The content of the text message may also be secondary to the fact that the message has been sent, and the perception that the sender has been ‘thinking about you’. Such management of impression is projected through the technology to show the sender in a ‘best light’ to others.

Tomorrow: Always connected

References

Bordieu, P. and Passeron, J-C. (1990) Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. London: Sage Publications.
Cooley, C. H. (1902) Human Nature and the Social Order. New York: Scribner.
Curtis, M. (2004) Distraction: Being human in a digital world. London: Futuretext.
Goffman, E. (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday. Rheingold, H. (2002) Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Basic Books.

Tribes, clans and totems

Now that my new edited volume 'Connected Minds, Emerging Cultures' has finally hit the bookstore shelves, I have a little time to reflect on the contents of the 17 chapters, by 19 authors. Over the next week or so, I will post up some (very brief) excerpts from the book and add some of my own post-publication commentary. As I do, I hope that you will respond with some of your own comments and views, so that we can promote some new debates right here, right now.

Now I have the final version of the book in my sticky little mitts, I've been revisiting one of my own chapters, entitled 'Digital Tribes, Virtual Clans', (Google Books has partial content here) a contribution which in retrospect could be considered quite a bold one. In Chapter 6, I take the reader on a tour through what I consider to be a number of 'virtual clans' within the 'Internet Tribe', and argue that these clans are emerging as a direct result of sustained interaction through social networking tools and other technology mediated communication. I argue that as clans (e.g. Flickrites or Facebookers) become more specialised, the generation of their artefacts becomes more pronounced. One of my favourite sections in the chapter reads:

Each clan ... has a totem, a symbol that represents it and distinguishes it from other, possibly rival, clans. In primitive clans, the totem was often a representation of an animal or tree. Durkheim suggests it is easier for clan members to project their feelings of awe toward a totem than toward something as complex as the clan itself. For ... virtual clans, their totems - the traditional rallying points for all tribal activity - are patently the social networking tools within the World Wide Web. Not only are these digital spaces objects of intense interest and rallying points for the clans, they also act as transmitters of units of cultural knowledge (p. 67).

I would be interested to hear how other people perceive social networking services, and whether subtle differences can be detected in the way people generate their content, represent themselves and interact with others. Flickrites, Twits, Plurkers, Facebookers, Myspacers, Beboids, etc. Are the social networks acting as totems, or am I ...um.... barking up the wrong tree? (Image source: daltontrail.com)