Facebook influences social aspects of communication

Communication theories provide a framework by which we can analyze current trends in international communication and information technology, giving us tools to explore the underlying realities of our symbolically created social hierarchy.

James Carey in particular offers two different historical understandings of communication: transmission and ritual. Transmission centers on space and transmitting “signals or messages over distance for the purpose of control.” On the other hand, ritual focuses on time and the “maintenance of society in time; not the act of imparting information but the representation of shared beliefs.”

Concentrating on the social aspects of the act of communicating, we learn how time and space methods contribute to maintaining the social status quo and promoting a social hierarchy, aka the prevailing image of how the world should work. The images or stories the media delivers to society communicates the reality of social order and how individuals identify themselves – gender roles, racial roles, supervisor, teacher, etc.

In his article, James Carey discusses how society (usually the middle class) creates historical reality and news as a cultural form, driving the “hunger for experience” that the news provides.

“This ‘hunger’ itself has a history grounded in the changing style and fortunes of the middle class and as such does not represent a universal taste or necessarily legitimate form of knowledge but an invention in historical time, that like most other human inventions, will dissolve when the class that sponsors it and its possibility of having significance for us evaporates.”

The proliferation of information technologies is highly dependent on the middle class and what it sees as important to their lives. The radio, TV, Internet, and mobile phones became popular and widespread due to social group perpetuated their importance. Each of these technologies drastically changed the way people communicate and exchange information as well as defining social norms.

In class we discussed how Facebook fits into this social aspect of communication. According to a recent Washington Post article, Internet users now spend more time “socializing” on Facebook than on any of Google’s sites. Clearly Facebook is a ritualistic way that people are communicating today. It represents a maintained act of communication, a medium for a different way to interface, becoming a social structure in itself in which people identify themselves and their community.

Carey would probably agree that Facebook has radically influenced social aspects of communication in the same way it has also continued to promote social hierarchy, as it is predominantly a tool of the middle class.