I recently had an unpleasant exchange on Facebook.
On an otherwise productive Sunday afternoon, I was perusing my facebook feed when I ran into the comment you can see in the screen shot. As someone who considers herself to be pretty rational (most of the time anyway. For evidence otherwise see: that time in class when we talked about dead bodies on the news), I immediately knew that any anger towards the facebook "friend" or craving for informational justice would not be satisfied by engaging her in a discussion. I had evidence of this after reading the Kushin and Yamamoto piece on Friday. Their results clearly stated that online expression, such as the types of dialogues that take place in various social media frameworks, were related to situational political involvement but not to political self-efficacy. They cited incivility as a reason online exchanges might often be unsatisfying.
I realize that the evidence I am bringing forth to support their argument is merely anecdotal and is not representative of any solid sample size.
However, my intention at the onset of this brief and discouraging encounter was not to bolster their findings, but to perhaps change the status quo. Could I encourage this "friend" to seek some information and maybe retract a controversial statement? As you can see, I didn't succeed, but one could argue that I could have taken a different approach. Perhaps I could have been a little nicer or a little more encouraging.
Are most political debates that take place on social media platforms doomed to incivility? Is this a problem that's unique to a generation? What would you have done differently in dealing with my facebook "friend"?
This is a very interesting post Christine. I agree with you that these comments were inappropriate to make. Representative Giffords has given so much for our country that any jokes about her, or her situation, are highly inappropriate. In my opinion, violence like that should be no part of political protest. Now, I know the questions at the bottom aren't meant for me to answer, but I would like to comment on one of them.
ReplyDeleteAs far as Facebook arguments being doomed to incivility, it seems as though this may be true. In my experience, any arguments that originate on Facebook quickly (usually within 2 or 3 comments) become hostile, personal, and out of control. On top of that, typically some other interested party feels the need to jump in to support one side or the other. In my opinion, Facebook is not the appropriate forum for any substantive political debate. In fact, its not the forum for any type of substantive debate at all.
People like to get on Facebook and act like they know exactly what they're talking about, when in reality they couldn't be more uninformed. Then, when they are called out on it, they can't admit they re wrong, so they start hurling personal attacks. This has been my experience anyway. It irks me that people try to act like experts on Facebook. If you are going to post something of substance, at least get your facts straight.
Don't get me wrong, Facebook is great for a lot of things. I don't think political debate is one of them.
This is really interesting Christine, and I empathize with you, as this has happened to me in the past as well. I also think that Rob is right when he says Facebook is probably not the place to have a civil discussion about politics. While one's identity and information is made clear on Facebook, I think there is a still a veil that people are able to hide behind (their computer screen), which might allow for more hostile language than normal.
ReplyDeleteI think that because online conversations lack a certain human element, it is easier to get nastier, faster. Online forums that allow for anonymous comments whether on new sites or YouTube comments section tend to be the most filthy, whereas smaller communities like political blogs or Facebook, to an extent, may be a bit more civil (although I have no empirical data to back this up).
If our communicates safely behind our monitors rather than interacting with people on a face-to-face level, I think this could very well have an effect on what we call civil "public" discourse.