Exploring Facebook's Success through Presence (original) (raw)
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THE HOLLOW USER: THE PRESENCE OF IDENTITY CONSTRUCTED ON FACEBOOK
During the last ten years the use of social media has greatly increased: social networks, especially, are widespread among a large amount of people, of different ages and gender, and from all over the world. Our presence online involves a great part of our time, and this kind of instant communication has been integrated in our lives: from the accomplishment of tasks, passing through the sharing of contents, news, information from every field, until interactive discussions and exchange of opinions, sending messages. The first necessary function, though, to be a part of this particular cyberspace, is the construction (or re-construction?) of our identities through the building of the "user profile", which is supposed to be our mirror online, and the public presentation of it. This new presentation of self in everyday life, to say with Goffman's words, has become a new dimension of the Self, a (social) presence in the cyberspace achieved through the presentation of our self, and through the interaction of it with the cyber-world of the others. This paper investigates specifically the case of Facebook, the network where the phenomenon of identity is clearly in evidence.
Trapped in Facebook A grounded theory exploration
Facebook is the biggest social network and therefore it is of interest to view how people get immersed into the user experience of it. Not much has been done about immersion into Facebook and how it entraps the user in a never-ending flow of impressions. Using a combination of qualitative interview studies and think-aloud walkthroughs we set out to study this phenomena. We found a varying mix of immersion, from those who couldn't stop looking through their feeds to those who just used Facebook as a phonebook. We also found that while many wanted to reduce their usage of Facebook, none seemed able to make that plunge. From this we find design implications for both designing for immersion and avoiding entrapment. One key to the former is to have an error free environment, while the latter would be to make sure that all information is searchable.
Information Technology & People, 2019
Purpose Mobile Facebook (m-Facebook) creates many business opportunities for brands and firms while increasingly drawing interest in scientific literature. However, research is scarce on the immersive experiences prompted by m-Facebook, and how these experiences facilitate users’ engagement, their positive attitude towards Facebook and their continued use of it. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach This paper theoretically and empirically analyses m-Facebook users’ immersive experiences, along with their affective and behavioural effects. Findings The results reveal the important role of imagery, presence and flow in the context of m-Facebook; the interplay between these three immersive phenomena; and the influence the user’s optimum stimulation level has on them. Originality/value The investigation offers a foundation for understanding users’ immersive experiences on m-Facebook, and informs practitioners who aim to enhance users’ engagement with, attitude towards, and continued use of m-Facebook content.
Uncovering the Facebook Experience: Insights into Users' Behavior and Motivations
International Journal of Advanced Scientific Innovation - IJASI, 2023
Academic literature on Facebook in the fields of management, economics and psychology is reviewed in this article, where we focus on users of this social network to understand why they signed up, how they form networks and how they engage, and how companies can exploit and benefit from Facebook. Although many interesting topics have been covered, the study clearly reveals that much of the work done so far has been limited to certain situations, it analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of the studies, and suggests avenues of research for the future.
Proceedings of the 35th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
The primary purpose of this paper is to describe the theoretical underpinnings of the construct Para-social Presence (PSP). Para-social presence refers to the extent to which a medium facilitates a sense of understanding, connection, involvement and interaction among participating social entities. PSP treats web site as a valid social actor and attempts to capture the emerging interaction between a web site and her visitors. We then borrow extensively from communication literature to develop an instrument to measure this construct. We will use confirmatory factor analysis to develop the salient features of this multi-dimensional construct. Even though, we focus on PSP in a specific context-ecommerce, we believe that PSP is a construct that is more general and powerful that can be used in many different contexts, including distributed group support systems environments.
Constructing Facebook: constituting social space online
This thesis explores the ways in which Facebook is created as a space and how this space is produced through the presentation of the self and the friendships that Facebook contains. The focus of the thesis is on understanding the interplay between the constraints of Facebook’s framework, and how users act within it. To address this focus, this research takes a critical realist approach. To embody a critical realist approach in the social sciences is to use a combination of methods in order to elucidate the phenomena at hand. As such, this research takes a case study approach to Facebook which combines a variety of methods in order to approach the object of study. These methods include a structured questionnaire, semi-structured interviewing and observation. From the results generated by these methods, I argue that Facebook, while new in many ways, is not inherently more disruptive to friendship than other forms of mediation that have preceded it and should be understood as part of a continuum of changes that have shaped the expression of friendship. In fact, Facebook removes some of the temporal aspects of friendship, being no longer location or place specific as it relocates some of these characteristics to Facebook. The architecture of Facebook means that friendships become simultaneously dynamic and static, as they can be maintained with little effort, while remaining current. Using Facebook as a hub through which to manage friendships means that users must present at least a portion of their selves to be presented for consumption and comment. Not doing so tacitly resists the pressure that Facebook puts on users to be part of its social hum. Deciding on the ‘right’ way to present the self requires accounting for the space one is acting in, similar to face-to-face interaction. The sharing of the self helps to facilitate impromptu socialising regardless of corporeal presence.Building on these results, I argue Facebook can be best understood as a parochial space that contains known, although not necessarily intimate others. Facebook is a place and a space – an abstract space rather than an organic space created by capital for its own purposes. Even so, abstract space can be resisted and re-shaped. People demonstrate agency in reshaping both in how space is used to ‘get around’, but also in how social relations are formed, maintained, ordered and sustained. The popularity of Facebook has helped foster a reconfigured parochial sphere that be framed as a return to gemeinschaft,and the ‘village square’. There is little of the public realm or the stranger about Facebook. Although Facebook potentially gives the comfort of Tönnies’ gemeinschaft village square it does have some important differences. Rather than bestowed through birth and kinship,this village is intentionally created and ‘curated’ by the user to meet varied social and relational needs and obligations. Relationships are formed, ordered and sustained reflexively according to the dictates of Facebook’s architecture and the reflexive preferences of the user. This research extends the current literature by critically re-examining how Facebook can be understood as a space beyond dichotomies of public and private. This thesis argues that re-contextualising Facebook as a parochial space means that the implications of this space for the presentation of the self and the friendships represented within this space must also be examined. In critically examining these aspects, this thesis concludes that users can and do exert agency to use Facebook in a way that best suits their needs. However, social obligations, technical structures, and corporate interests, mean the village is not fully within our control.
An Investigation of the Factors Driving Users to Engage with the Social Networking Site Facebook
2017
Purpose – Facebook is the most used Social Networking Site in the world. In this study, the researcher investigates the factors that motivate individuals to keep using Facebook throughout the years and compare if any of these drivers indicate different levels of commitment: brand engagement, brand loyalty and brand love towards the SNS. Design / Methodology / Approach – The approach to this research was qualitative and the results were the product of in-depth interviews with Facebook users who provided the information needed to achieve the research objectives. Findings – The findings of this study indicates that Facebook usage is motivated by the needs of: Social interaction, the need to belong and utility value. The indicators of brand commitment revealed were: time spent, brand trust, good perceptions of brand image and emotional attachment by the participants to Facebook. Originality / Value – This paper is the first of its kind that evaluates three concepts in the area of brand ...
See you on Facebook! A framework for analyzing the role of computer-mediated interaction
2011
Empirical studies have documented a decline in indicators of social participation in the last decades. The responsibility of social disengagement has been often attributed to pervasive busyness and the rising pressure of time. In this paper we argue that computer-mediated interaction, and particularly online networking, can help mitigate this downward trend. We develop a logical framework for assessing the role
Social Presence and Customer Brand Engagement in Corporate Facebook
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
To enhance consumer brand experience, marketers are increasing engagement in brand communities by using social media technology enabling them to interact directly with customers. Past studies reported that perceived social presence contributes to positive consumer attitudes towards websites selling physical products, but there has been limited research about how this works for social media corporate webpages. This pilot study examines the effects of social presence on customer engagement with the brand in a corporate Facebook environment. In-depth interviews were conducted with 18 corporate and 4 marketing communications manager Facebook users. Results show that brand engagement results from viewing information, followed by clicking the like button, comments, and sharing. Motivations include informational, entertainment, economic, self-expression and socializing benefits. Social presence is important for engagement with products and people in the online brand community, which makes consumers more informed and positive about the brand, thus enhancing the brand experience.
The Facebook Project-Performance and Construction of Digital Identity
2008
Abstract: In recent years an impressive number of youth have taken to joining popular online social networking service (SNS) websites. One of the most famous and prosperous of these within the US college student community is Facebook. com. Facebook functions as a purposed network of identities, deposited expressions, and interactive media that make for a meaningful digital space that has become interlaced into the day-to-day lives of most students.