[Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian schools

Mon Mar 12 11:49:46 PDT 2018

David,
FB does seem to be something new as a medium of communication in as much as
it operates on an asynchronic timescale that previously did not exist
(i.e., conversations that happen at the timescale of a few hours, sometimes
days, and very very seldom, weeks). Along with that is the cheapness of the
medium of communication (vs. say, a telegraph or a letter - both of which
are forms of asynchronous communication, more the letter than the
telegraph).
Those are two things that seem new to me about the medium (although
list-serves, those technological dinosaurs, seem to be able to do both of
these things and yet FB is not the same thing as a list serve. What might
account for that difference?).

But that question seems a little beside the point of this article. The
question here seems to be: what did FB do in *this case*?

Here are some suggestions from the authors of what FB did for the Four
Movements:

"by using Facebook pages as a communicative tool, students could coordinate
demonstrations occurring at the same time in different cities, which was
possible due to the expansion in the number of Facebook pages." (p. 61)

and, less thrillingly (for those who care about "free speech" and "public
discussion", but perhaps censoring is an important part of any social
movement? David, maybe this was part of your point?):
"From the posts analysed in this study, we observed that page organizers
authorized only posts that supported the Four Movements, blocking or
deleting posts that were against them."

and:
"Having a motive and motivation, as suggested by Rantavuori and colleagues
(2016), the use of Facebook pages as a form of human–technology interaction
strengthened the collaborative aspect of the activities and enabled new
ways of envisioning the future, which potentializes collaborative agency."

and most simply, in conclusion:
"In this study, we discussed how students used social media, more
specifically Facebook pages, as a
mediational communicative tool for organizing, developing, and expanding
the Four Movements.
The expansive learning process demonstrated by the students and the
transformation of the object of
the protest was enhanced by using these networks as a form of
human–technology interaction."

and one that I didn't quite understand:
"In contrast to previous research on human–technology interaction (Bardram
& Doryab, 2011; Cunha
Jr., Van Oers, & Kontopodis, 2016), the instability faced by the Four
Movements led to the adequacy
of the instrument, and to the transformation of the object." (p. 63).

Others' thoughts?
-greg

On Mon, Mar 12, 2018 at 6:34 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
wrote:

> Thanks for finding and sharing the link, Andy, and thanks Michael and Mike
> for bringing the absolutely relevant connection to Parklands.
>
> There was not so long ago a discussion here as well as in a couple of
> articles in MCA about how crises leading to development most often result
> from quantitative increments that lead to qualitative leaps such that new
> forms of organization emerge from previous ones. So, David, I don't see why
> increments in the pace of circulation (e.g., of information) would not be
> expected to bring with them changes in the organisation of the whole
> economy system. I would not say that social media is just bringing a lot
> more of the same, just as I would not a priori reject the possibility that
> bringing a lot more of the same might not end up bringing new qualitative
> forms of communicating. The observation that "like" is intransitive in
> Facebook is interesting; but to me it needs to be put in its larger context
> of use. And so, are we analysing Facebook as a grammar closed up in itself,
> or as one more chain in a larger grammar of possible cooperation?
>
> I am myself concerned that Social Media like Facebook may be amplifying
> dichotomical thinking beyond the innocuous and often way-to-verbose essays
> we academics enjoy entertaining with much more complex verbal forms than
> Facebook's intransitive "likes", only that the confrontations now seem to
> be moving to family's dinner tables, quarrels among protesters in public
> squares, or previously unheard of incarcerations for publishing tweets and
> rap songs that critique the crown in a supposedly modern democracy like
> Spain (e.g.: http://cadenaser.com/ser/2018/02/20/tribunales/1519135083_
> 106543.html). But the article here discussed also shows that there are
> forms of organization that these technologies are affording that may bring
> more positive changes, like the case again in Spain of March 8th women's
> strike, the extent of which no politician or journalist had anticipated and
> which led the government to quickly adopt a much more equity-friendly
> discourse than even the evening before (https://www.youtube.com/
> watch?v=4_11iIELdfc). So, no, probably that one strike, or that one
> social media that may have made it possible, won't change the system. But
> they seem to incrementally add to something, don't they?
>
> Alfredo Jornet
> ________________________________
> New article in *Design Studies* "Imagining Design: Transitive and
> intransitive dimensions"
> Free print available: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr
>
> ________________________________________
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> on behalf of Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org>
> Sent: 12 March 2018 06:39
> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian schools
>
> That headline does not exist, but is it this:
>
> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/us/parkland-students-social-media.html
>
> Andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
> On 12/03/2018 4:02 PM, mike cole wrote:
> > Michael - I have been trying to find a digital copy of a story in today's
> > NY Times titled "the social media warriors of parkland." For some reason
> it
> > is not visible on the digital version.... yet. Maybe someone out there in
> > xmca-land can find it for us? I will check again
> > in the morning to see if it appears.
> >      It seems especially relevant to Monica and Fernando's article, and
> to
> > David's comment that "  it is very hard for me to pinpoint any
> > actual new form of thinking or new form of speaking which was made
> possible by
> > Facebook."  The voices and forms of speaking used by the students was
> not,
> > so far as I could tell, the source of data. There are no quotations of
> any
> > students speaking differently. I assumed that this article was about
> > collective action.
> > Monica and Fernando - I confess I had difficulty following parts of the
> > article, perhaps because I am a very seldom user of Facebook. In
> > particular, I had difficulty understanding Figure 3.  Were the people who
> > started M1 also those who started M2-M3? ( " Once students achieved the
> > object of the activity—in the first case, to avoid the closure of the
> > schools—they focused the protests on another object").
> >
> > Did the M4 people get the idea from M1 through a FB connection form M1?
> Did
> > you get any sense of what distinguished pages that got a few hundred
> versus
> > 10,000 reactions?
> >
> > Harshad - Did you think the article failed to consider social issues?
> There
> > is no information about you on the xmca membership
> > page, so it is difficult to know from what part of the world you are
> > writing. Unless I miss my guess, some people will wonder at your
> > use of the word "man" where the local practice might put "humankind" or
> > some other gender inclusive term.
> >
> > David - Daylight saving time tonight so I find myself "working late."  It
> > got me to wondering how many people live in Seoul. A lot, it turns out.
> > About 9-10 million. That got me to wondering about how much faster all
> > those people would be getting around on horses with all the horse plops
> to
> > clamber over. And all that hay to haul into town for the morning rush
> > hour.  :-)
> >
> > mike
> >
> > On Sun, Mar 11, 2018 at 8:25 PM, Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Hi David,
> >>
> >> I'm sure those meddling kids won't come back on your lawn any time soon.
> >>
> >> But really, the article did not say Facebook is a new type of
> technology.
> >> I believe they said that it's a form of human-technology interaction and
> >> suggested perhaps social media was a new type of human-technology
> >> interaction.  I don't agree with this phrasing. I tend to think of
> Facebook
> >> more as an application of Internet technology - but either way Facebook
> is
> >> just a form or an application. Is the internetworking of computer, radio
> >> and satellite communication an enormous step forward in how humans
> >> communicate.  I think so - it's really extraordinary on a number of
> levels
> >> but that's really not the conversation for this article.
> >>
> >> I do think the authors have done an analysis that is interesting and
> >> possibly important, especially when one considers what is currently
> going
> >> on down in Parkland (some might be happy to know that, at least from
> what I
> >> have read, Facebook isn't dominant or even that important for these
> >> students. Adults have been using it more for larger organizational
> events
> >> like the March 14 walkout and the March 24 march).  I have read some
> >> articles on organizing on online forums (and actually wrote a not very
> good
> >> one a few years back). Most of them are communications based an don't
> have
> >> strong theoretical underpinning which is why I think this article might
> be
> >> an important step forward.
> >>
> >> I think the idea of using third generation activity theory might be a
> good
> >> idea for this type of analysis. I myself have seen ties between the
> >> trialogical approach being developed by Hakkareinan and Paavola and
> what is
> >> going on down in Parkland. The students are creating their own projects
> and
> >> then getting the larger community to buy in to and support what they are
> >> doing which is in turn changing the quality of their activities. I have
> my
> >> own ideas on why this is suddenly happening and direct communication
> >> technologies like Twitter and texting (which seem primary vehicles) are
> >> only part of it.
> >>
> >> Anyway, this particular article I think is really timely and should give
> >> us a lot to think about.
> >>
> >> Michael
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@
> >> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of David Kellogg
> >> Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2018 6:03 PM
> >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian
> schools
> >>
> >> So in the fifteenth century, Gutenberg exapted extant technology already
> >> widely available in China and published a single text using moveable
> type
> >> which started a profound intellectual, cultural, and social revolution
> >> whose effects we still feel today: the rise of Protestantism, the
> >> Counter-Reformation in, among other places, Brazil, the Wars of
> Religion in
> >> France, the vicissitudes of a multii-confessional (political) State and
> >> ultimately those of a multi-confessional (psychological) state, In the
> >> twentieth century, Ford similarly exapted extant technology, this time
> >> nearly two millenia later than China, and mass-produced automobiles
> using
> >> Taylorism, forcing everybody to buy an identical product with
> >> interchangeable parts made by factories with interchangeable workers.
> >> The automobile "revolution" did not even give us new roads, and in Seoul
> >> today traffic moves notably slower than it would on horseback. Clearly,
> >> there are some forms of technology that are actually semiogenic--and
> others
> >> which merely circulate capital at a faster rate and actually slow the
> >> movement of people and new ideas.
> >>
> >> So my question is very simple. How do we know that "Facebook" (which as
> >> the name implies was originally designed to help Harvard freshmen decide
> >> which classmates were sufficiently hot to "like") is really one of the
> >> former technologies?.There are very clear signs , beyond the obvious
> ones
> >> surrounding the American origins, that it belongs to the latter
> category,
> >> and not a few of them appear in this very article. First of all, the
> >> authors are honest enough to associate Facebook with reactionary,
> >> xenophobic, populist movements like the clowns who run the "Five Stars"
> >> movement in Italy. Second, on the very first page, the authors try but
> do
> >> not really seem to be able to distinguish between the "post first and
> >> organize later" technologies of Occupy Wall Street and the use of social
> >> media by the four movements in the article (including one actually
> called
> >> "Occupy Everything"). And thirdly, it is very hard for me to pinpoint
> any
> >> actual new form of thinking or new form of speaking which was made
> possible
> >> by Facebook. If anything, Facebook seems to narrow semiogenic power to a
> >> single consumer/computer menu. Ford said, you can get a Model A in any
> >> color you like so long as it's black. Facebook tells us the same thing,
> but
> >> makes the verb "like" intransitive.
> >>
> >> David Kellogg
> >> Sangmyung University
> >>
> >> Recent Article in *Early Years*
> >>
> >> The question of questions: Hasan’s critiques, Vygotsky’s crises, and the
> >> child’s first interrogatives <https://www.tandfonline.com/
> >> doi/full/10.1080/09575146.2018.1431874>
> >>
> >> Free e-print available at:
> >> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full
> >>
> >>
> >> On Sun, Mar 11, 2018 at 7:30 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <
> a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Dear xmca'ers,
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> it is (bit over) due time for introducing the article for discussion
> >>> from MCA's 2018 Issue 1, before Issue 2 comes upon us soon.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> The selected article, by Monica Ferreira Lemos and Fernando Rezende da
> >>> Cunha Júnior, is about two topics that were thematised in the last
> >>> ISCAR congress and that ought to be of much relevance to current and
> >>> future CHAT-related research: Social media and social movements. In
> >>> particular, the article examines how students use social media for the
> >>> organization and development of 4 social movements in Brazil.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> The article is attached and is Free access during the discussion
> period.
> >>> It can be accessed free in the following link:
> >>>
> >>> https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10749039.2017.1379823
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> The authors have kindly agreed to participate in the discussion and
> >>> they will be introducing themselves soon. I hope you  will find the
> >>> article interesting and please don't be shy to share anything you
> >>> might have learned reading it, anything you might wonder about it or
> >>> that you would like see discussed. Having authors engage in dialogue
> >>> is a great opportunity that this community offers and that makes sense
> >>> the most when many of you participate. Good reading!
> >>>
> >>> ?
> >>>
> >>> Alfredo Jornet
> >>>
> >>> New article in *Design Studies* "Imagning Design: Transitive and
> >>> intransitive dimensions"
> >>> Free print available: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr
> >>>
> >>
>
>

-- 
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu
http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson