The relationship between sexuality and communication technologies is changing. In media life, people are increasingly seeing themselves and others through the social network service. Social media users “sign up” their name, age, and sex before they have access. Once attained, the user is afforded a ‘configurable networked self’ that is voluntarily serviced with and within the social network. With growing aspects of use, especially in younger people to ‘communicate their own life story’, the SNS poses and imposes differential user-experiences rooted in media logics. For media to embed its logic into social-sexual practice it must contend with deep human emotions or ‘sub-processes’ that are at the core of psychological development; ‘how people understand themselves, how do they think of themselves; do they label themselves, and do they announce or enact that identity to an audience or in a social setting?’. A person’s sexuality then, their gender expression and identity, are part of one’s developed consciousness. Principled archetypes - the socio-cultural norms and values of femininity and masculinity - are violently in flux. Under the integration of social media into social life the psychological recognition and reconfiguration of one’s sex i.e, their sexual identity, orientation, fantasies, feelings, behaviors, and desires, are becoming part of an assemblage of interdependent media networks. As Walgrave et al lament, such logistics change ‘how the characteristics of SNSs accommodate needs inherent to adolescent development [which] may explain why adolescents have rapidly and enthusiastically integrated SNSs into their daily lives’. The evolving characteristics of SNSs are not only dependent on active interactional and communicative needs executed within the service but also produce differential user experiences based on the information supplied with the service.
The paper investigates this phenomenon, specifically how age, location and/or sex effects the Facebook SNS user experience – to explore the relatively uncharted territory of how new media logics symbiotically service people’s desires as a form of media-embedded practices.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Mediatisation and Sexuality
2.1 The Service
2.2 Aliasing and Algorithm
2.3 Facebook’s Alias
3. Facebook User Analyses
3.1 Controlled Conditions
3.2 Age 13: Findings
3.3 Age 25: Findings
4. Deconstructing the Alias
4.1 The Algorithmic Life
4.2 EdgeRank
4.3 Nexus of Practise
4.4 Actor-network Theory
5. Social Network Sexualities
5.1 Performing (Sexual) Desirability
5.2 Servicing (Sexual) Desire
6. Mediatisation of Desire
6.1 Crises of Individuation
6.2 Surveillance and Stalking
6.3 Symbolical Mastery
6.4 Displaced (Self) Mediators
7. Conclusion
Research Objectives & Key Themes
This paper investigates how social media logics and algorithmic processes influence user experiences regarding sexuality, desire, and identity. It aims to uncover how age, location, and sex-based categorization by platforms like Facebook "alias" the user to service economic and algorithmic goals, effectively mediatising human desire.
- The role of algorithmic identity (aliasing) in SNS.
- How Facebook’s affordances differentiate user experiences based on demographics.
- The mediatisation of sexual desirability and performativity.
- Computational surveillance and the "displaced mediator" status of users.
Excerpt from the Book
Aliasing and Algorithms
Unlike the user’s social media presence, profile or persona, the user’s alias is this distortion or under-sampled version of configurable Self. Traditionally used to define how distortion occurs when processing images, film, and sound, ‘aliasing arises when a signal is discretely sampled at a rate that is insufficient to capture the changes in the signal’ (Olshausen, 2000 p.1). Through aliasing, the self-qualifying ‘signal takes on a different persona or a false presentation due to being sampled at an insufficiently high frequency’ (p.2). This ‘algorithmic identity’ (Cheney-Lippold, 2011) is an evolutionary part of a weapon of math destruction, where ‘all knowledge - past, present, and future - can be derived from data by a single, universal algorithm' (Domingos, 2015:27).
Machine-learning algorithms now station the communicative highways of the Internet (Google 2017). Data is centralising around cloud technologies and services that implement such algorithms; ‘using both simple and complex sorting mechanisms at the same time, they combine high-level description, an embedded command structure, and mathematical formulae that can be written in various programming languages’ (Roberge & Seyfert 2016). These programming languages are only fluent to a small few who have studied the computational programming of algorithmic cultures – talents of which have been soaked by big data empires. These largely misunderstood mechanisms are driving ubiquitous media futures in which those with the highest capacity of algorithmic logics and control embody an overarching command structure.
Summary of Chapters
Introduction: Outlines how communication technologies are transforming sexual identity and how social media services "configure" the self to fit media logics.
Mediatisation and Sexuality: Explores how SNSs act as "identity workshops" that integrate computer-mediated communication into the public and private spheres.
Facebook User Analyses: Details a controlled experiment testing how Facebook’s suggestion algorithms respond to different age, sex, and location variables.
Deconstructing the Alias: Examines how big data and machine-learning algorithms treat user identity as a measurable, computable "alias" rather than a human persona.
Social Network Sexualities: Analyzes how online platforms normalize specific sexual behaviors and performative identities through their programmed affordances.
Mediatisation of Desire: Discusses the psychological and societal implications of having one's desires modulated and commodified by platform algorithms.
Conclusion: Summarizes how Facebook’s technological determinism creates a "sexual economy" that requires deeper interdisciplinary investigation.
Keywords
Mediatisation, Social Network Service (SNS), Algorithmic Identity, Aliasing, Facebook, Sexuality, Digital Desire, Data Capital, Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC), Gender Performativity, Surveillance, Machine Learning, Computational Logic, Identity Workshop, User Experience
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the fundamental focus of this research?
The work examines how modern communication technologies and social network services (SNS), particularly Facebook, influence and reshape human sexuality, desire, and identity through media-embedded processes.
What are the primary themes discussed in the paper?
Key themes include the algorithmic construction of digital identities (aliasing), the mediatisation of desire, the commodification of personal data, and the role of SNSs as gatekeepers of social norms.
What is the central research question?
The paper explores how new media logics symbiotically service users' desires and how age, location, and sex affect the social media experience through algorithmic categorization.
Which scientific methods were employed?
The author utilized a qualitative controlled experiment, creating various "fake" Facebook profiles across different age groups, locations (NZ and US), and genders to observe how the platform’s "options for discovery" and group suggestions differed.
What topics are covered in the main section?
The main sections cover the theory of mediatisation, a breakdown of how algorithms like EdgeRank function, the application of Actor-network Theory to online power structures, and the performative nature of sexual desirability on social platforms.
Which keywords best describe this study?
Crucial keywords include Mediatisation, Algorithmic Identity, Aliasing, Facebook, Sexuality, Digital Desire, and Data Capital.
Why does the paper use the term "alias"?
The term is borrowed from signal processing to describe how a user’s complex, real-world self is "distorted" or "under-sampled" when translated into the simplified code and binary categorizations used by social media algorithms.
What did the user analyses reveal about Facebook's suggestions?
The study found that Facebook’s suggestions often do not reflect popular demand but are instead heavily influenced by demographics, with noticeable biases toward heteronormativity and, in some cases, racially or religiously charged content.
How does the author connect individuation to social media?
Drawing on Jungian psychology, the author argues that SNSs disrupt the balance between "internal self-qualification" and "external self-qualification," leading to a state of being "well-organized but lacking in authenticity."
- Quote paper
- Henry Louis Sterling Appleyard (Author), 2017, Sexual Alias. Mediatisation of Desire in Social Network Services, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/418401
