Representing speech and action

Texts have social effects, some of which will result in changes through causality between a text and a change in the ‘real’, tangible world. Fairclough states that prolonged advertising, for example, contributes in shaping our identities into ‘consumers’, and similarly are our gender identities affected by continued advertising, to name a few realms. (Fairclough 2003: 8.)

Language use is socially determined. Within the social setting, there is an asymmetry concerning action on the site, a gap of silence between Michelle Obama and the other participants as she does not respond to any of the comments given, that is, there is an absence of acknowledgement from her side regarding the other participants. However, her not responding seems ‘natural’ because of her higher status. Social rules governing behaviour are regarded as different for her. Consequently, her not responding – and that being natural – also positions the others into a lower position: from the default setting of ‘participant’ which would assume an equal status, they are – through her silence – positioned into ‘followers’ signifying a lower status. The prevailing social condition determines what is normal and what exceptional, and her being silent in the textual world of the page becomes thus a ‘normal’

feature, instead of signifying a malfunction in communication, due to discoursal conventions people jointly hold. The participants, regardless a shared objective, hold different positions, and that determines presuppositions of action which become sustained by language use as a form of social practice (in this case, the one-sidedness of communication). The sets of conventions and the varying social identities of participants determine the limits for individual choices between normality and abnormality (even unsocial behaviour) in interaction.

Writing as a mode has its own potentials of meaning making: it has words, clauses, grammar and syntax, and resources such as font, bolding, frames, or colour. The communicated interaction entails virtually everything on the pages: the pictures, the videos, verbal text, layout, and occasional diagrams, that is, different modes for representation and communication. Taking place online, there cannot be gestures or touches, things attached to normal interaction and conversing when people physically meet; no tones of voice, no physical movement, no physical smile or signs of emotion, no spoken words (except, of course, on the videos), and so forth.

Nevertheless, there are a plenty of other means to pursue interaction and to maintain desired rhetoric objectives. These means are virtual, multimodal tools forming discursive interaction. Emotions, gestures and touches, in other words, physicality is transformed into virtuality through new forms and tools of interaction. Quite a lot becomes also inadvertently revealed as the medium is relatively new (in 2012), and people have not quite yet learnt to hide all they might wish to hide. There may also be technical hindering; or there has not yet formed a consensus of what is on its way of becoming naturalised, and what might be sanctioned (not

‘liked’) by the group. One could say that it is these early stages of new forms of communication where people reveal most of themselves, as the norms are not yet fully established.

In my view, participants on the investigated Facebook site are, at the very least,

‘tangentially’ involved in constructing and sustaining an order which is mainly determined from outside the page itself, and being harmonised with structures beyond the scope of what these participants assume to be participating with. They are not in control of the discussion although that supposedly is the very purpose of a grassroots involvement. Although the various customising choices give a user a feeling of control and choice, an individual has very limited control of the fundamental settings of the ‘service’. Internet discussion becomes institutionalised and increasingly pre-structured, following algorithms and procedural settings that cannot be passed or changed.

I will give you a set of two events on the site, each portraying a photo message posted by a participant on the comment chain.

Example (2): 30 August, 2012

[Image deleted on the Comments section]

A photo in the users’ comments portrays three men who are sitting confronted with a heap of bloody corpses, Barack Obama is situated in the middle. The man in the left has put his hand in front of his mouth, with his right hand placed on Obama’s eyes as preventing him from seeing, Obama placing his hand onto the right ear of the third man (who is using his own hand to cover his left ear). The message is that of muted senses: no talking, no seeing/watching, no hearing/listening in front of a catastrophe ahead. The photo is followed by (another) user’s comment: “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me.’”

That posting of that day is today missing, it has been deleted. ‘Michelle Obama’, the persona behind the profile, and the holder of her postings (besides Facebook Inc.), is authorised to add and delete what she chooses (and, to be accurate, so can the staff behind her profile and her content but here they function as one and the same actor). – Why delete the entire chain of a posting due to one unwanted comment in it? Had the person who posted the comment been the one who also deleted it, the rest of the chain would have been spared: thus, it was not the poster who decided to take it off.

On a grassroots support site, deleting a single commentary on a chain would read as restricting people’s voice, it would leave a gap in the chain of commentaries; therefore, the profile owner must delete the whole section in order to hide the deed: to flush down the

‘tarnished’ chain of ‘misplaced’ commentary. It needs to be noted that deleting the entire posting with all its comments – due to one unwanted photo on the chain – also muted the other member’s voice.

The published photo was visually heavy and, absolutely, raised questions, but ‘Michelle’

did not trust the users’ judgment to figure it out themselves. – Deleting all of the comments

and the original posting will leave no trace on the site, and thus, one cannot discuss the matter in the group any further, either. There is no evidence that the posting ever existed. The action in the chain is suspended, the content is modified, and the poster (actor) is cancelled.

Example (3): Member’s posting

In Example (3), the user’s photo (on Nov 1^st 2012; Figure 3) states, on a pink background:

“President Obama / has fought / for / planned parenthood / and the / millions of women / who rely on that / for / healthcare.” The image is a comment on Michelle Obama’s posting from the same day stating: “Only one candidate in this race is a proven advocate for women’s health care. He needs you to volunteer this weekend: (a link).”

In the member’s posting on the Comments section, the ‘MILLIONS OF WOMEN’, the uppercase text in the middle, is written on a banner in a large font which accentuates its significance; it is also situated in the salient middle of the photo. The message is placed on a distinctive background colour of pink. It assigns Barack Obama, as the Carrier of his post (acting as president), and using a declarative mood, as an Actor for women (fighting for them).

The pink background colour derives from the inner qualities assigned (attributed) to the female gender, pink being a socially sanctioned symbol for ‘soft femininity’, a traditional choice for representing femininity; one might think that it is even too obvious an attribute, worn-out – but nonetheless, a safe attribute during election time (you cannot go wrong with it). Femininity is signalled and symbolised also by the cursive handwriting, which – funnily – Figure 3. On Nov 1, 2012.

is used only in the least meaningful filler words of the written message (i.e., conjunctions, prepositions). – These are the individual user’s choices but echo also the values and perceptions of the American way of life. Therefore, they also serve the eligible identifying processes at work on the site.

Comparing the two user’s images (Examples 2 and 3) – the image of Example 2 being deleted, and Example 3 still existing on the comments section – we easily grasp the reason for their different moderation: Figure 3 represents safe, familiar values, it is socially ‘approved’, and it also follows the agenda of the campaign (and is used to propagate that); therefore, it does not breach the prevailing practices, the negotiated order, on the site or in the society – and, at the same time, it functions as an advertisement for the campaign themes.

Examples (2) and (3) are individual examples but they do pinpoint the overall expectations towards the members: their role is to follow the set markings of the profile postings, discuss but not unduly contradict or disturb. The demarcation lines are thus framed by ‘Michelle Obama’, not by individual users who, nevertheless, in Example (2) might have ended up into the same conclusion (that the image should be deleted), however, on a shared site that should have happened through joint reflection, and through a social negotiation process by the group as ‘collective agent’ – ultimately, by a moderator who is a member of the group, in the group.

That would have given the impression of grassroots action.