Comments on: Social Media Definition (redefinition, that is)

By: naaman

naaman — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:54:24 +0000

And, Ayman, some of us need to teach and need some criteria to guide their teaching. Call it “characterization of what I feel is essence in my take of social media” – I just used a more simple term, “a definition”.

By: naaman

naaman — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:50:41 +0000

Hey Eric – Facebook photo sharing is mostly with known others; I would call it “semi public”. The idea is that you publish content to some audience, not specific individuals; even if this audience is limited. Media: you are “broadcasting”, in a sense…

Having said that, there’s a fine line… Facebook and Flickr photo sharing are easily “social media” to my taste; Picasa Web may not be quite “social” enough (but getting there).

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By: ayman

ayman — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 22:30:00 +0000

As surprised as I am that Naaman is proposing definitions, I am not surprised that Judd chimed in on this one.

By: Eric Cook

Eric Cook — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:30:59 +0000

I’m wondering where private sociality occurring in the systems you mention fits into your definition, Naaman? In my dissertation work with amateur photographers, a fairly hefty percentage of my interview participants are focused primarily/exclusively on private interactions with known and (intentionally restricted) audiences — friends and family communication, for the most part.

So these are folks doing social things with media in prototypically Social Media systems (flickr, youtube, etc), but seem to violate the “public” and “visible” criteria you mention above. Would you treat this as an edge case or beyond the definitional scope? Or am I just reading too much in the way you’re using those terms?

By: Judd Antin

Judd Antin — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:53:02 +0000

Hah. You’re right. I guess we should say that all media is social. So does the definition of social media have to include something about the technical part of the socio-technical system?

Maybe we should also acknowledge that it’s hard to define entire systems as social media. The NY Times may not be social media, but nytimes.com certainly has social media features…

By: naaman

naaman — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:48:20 +0000

Yes, Wikipedia is a weird animal. I agree about the “talk page”, I would call that “Social media”. But for me what makes the media “social” is the actions it triggers (social as a consequence of the media) and not just the processes that produced it. Otherwise, wouldn’t the New York Times be social media? It relies on social interactions and contributions. I am just teasing with this answer as I know what you mean… I would just say that there’s no clear line in any such definition that allows us to judge what’s in it and what is not.

By: Judd Antin

Judd Antin — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:15:17 +0000

The “visible and durable” identity clause would be a little too restricting for my definition. I would have said social media is something like: media that relies on social interactions, contributions, or processes to produce at least part of its content.

From my POV Wikipedia is social media. True, for the majority of readers authorship is hard to find, but certainly not for all users (e.g. heavy contributors, administrators). Plus, Talk pages make up a big part of Wikipedia, and most comments there are signed. People who participate on Talk pages regularly build up reputations and social networks within the Wikipedia community.

You’ve got me thinking thinking about something like Digg as well. Digg certainly relies on social processes to create content. Some types of content are identifiable (comments), but thumbs-up/thumbs-down are not. Still, I would guess that the notion that the rankings are a social product is a big part of what makes Digg, Reddit, etc. appealing to people.