Follow Them,Closely

Abstract

The ability to gather millions of data snippets of social media interactions offers a fascinating glimpse of the dynamics of the (digital) public sphere, a wealth of data asking for interpretations. This article pleas researchers not to rely solely on algorithms, but to resort to ethnographic methods to follow the citizens behind the social media users.

Big data are sexy. When we visualize the graphs of millions of interactions in social media, we get a fascinating glimpse of the dynamics of the (digital) public sphere that sociologists of the last century could never have dreamt of—a wealth of data asking for interpretations. And that is where big data fall short, where I plea researchers not to rely solely on algorithms, but to follow the citizens behind the social media users, closely.

Social media use is intimately embedded in the daily practices of people. Their online conversations shape their offline activities, and their offline personas are selectively (re)presented online. The distinction between on and off do not actually mean much anymore for the digital citizens, their online life always on and available in their pockets. However, the distinction is still relevant as an analytical strategy. As researchers interested in social media, with a wealth of online data available at our fingertips, we may have the temptation of taking the online world as the world, a self-contained object of study. Thinking explicitly of online and offline contexts and interactions in the life of citizens forces us to seek the methodological gateways to put social media into the wider context of daily life, to explain the meaning of all those pictures and hashtags posted by each individual.

Social media is an intriguing stage for social interactions. Goffman, (1959) would have been thrilled by the ambiguities and tensions that online platforms lead to regarding the presentation of the self see also (Sternheimer, 2012). The ultimate paradox is that in the digital environment, users can control much more what they share of themselves and at the same time are more prone to show their personal back stage to a much wider audience than in face-to-face interactions. In journalism, for example, this still provokes uncomfortable situations when reporters share personal opinions on social media that contradict their front stage mask of professional neutrality. But, at the same time, it has been seen as an opportunity to regain public trust by being more transparent about their work. Ethnographic research that observes both online and offline constructions of the self can help to make sense of these contradictions and how do people deal with them.

I welcome social media for what it has of disruptive, for how it creates opportunities to rethink our place in society and our relationships. The contradictions it makes evident between public and private, between who we think we are and who we want to be, between collective consensus and polarization, and all these issues that matter to sociological inquiry already existed before the Internet era. Social media exacerbates them, answers more urgent and more complex than ever.

Not everything happens on social media, not everybody is online. Looking beyond the online conversations, putting them in context, is the safest guarantee to avoid taking a part of society for the whole. And then social media users decide, sometimes, to disconnect——momentarily or permanently. Their motivations, their fears, and their convictions when refusing social media can reveal so much about the meaning of digital life, and big data will never tell us that story.

Social media is not a mere laboratory of social life. It is a catalyst of the social. It deserves to be analyzed in the full context of the lives it is meshed within. The digital stage has very real consequences on the other stages of life. It can help you grow. It can also kill. Researchers need to be there, as close as we can, to make sense of the intersections between the blurring stages of our lives.