Potato Chipping

Linguistic Alchemy

Jon Taplin has a post today on journalism’s future (a topic about which he’s uniquely qualified to address).

Everyone knows the future of journalism is on the web, but just putting the New York Times print edition on the web is not transformative.

I think what is transformative is the work Frontline, the PBS series has been doing in integrating broadcast and web resources into some new hybrid of journalism. The best example is the Interactive video timeline they created around their epic series Bush’s war. The ability to navigate through both the video assets, the interview transcripts and search by individual participant seems to me to get close to the promise of truly interactive television.

His post harkens back to a post I read earlier this week on the Daily Kos, in which Kos targets a line in a NBC press release about how the network “as part of a free press in a free society, makes its own editorial decisions.”

Once upon a time, there were time constraints on the air, or space constraints in print. But these days, unedited footage and transcripts can be posted online. Those “editorial decisions” are nothing more than editorial meddling, gatekeeping at its worst.

There’s no reason for NBC to hide the rest of the footage. Put it all online. Let people decide for themselves whether Bush was improperly edited or not. Do the same for all interviews.

[...] It won’t just help generate a more informed electorate, but it will provide a fantastic accountability for those journalists themselves—with the source material available, their ability to skew their pieces according to their own biases will be seriously restricted.

Taplin’s and Kos’s visions share two commonalities: increased availability of content, and increased consumer autonomy. The Internet provides the opportunity for both, and exemplary online operations such as PBS and the Daily Kos take advantage.

I worry, though, that this elysian digital frontier will butt up against basic social psychology. Brains are extraordinary things. They process input at a prodigious rate and perform an estimated 10^16 operations per second, of which we are only aware of a small fraction.

Yet our capacities are finite, and for hundreds of thousands of years the ability to take mental shortcuts has been naturally selected.

This shortcut-taking tendency is the engine behind a whole host of social processes, from prejudicial behavior to logical fallacies. The same neurological phenomenon that serves us so well in discarding unremarkable information can also lead us considerably astray in a wide variety of situations.

This judgmental impairment is especially relevant here, where we are consistently taught that we Americans, by forming our own assessments and exercising our own judgments in the political realm, provide a crucial check and balance in our democratic process.

We want to believe that we can comprehend the best direction for our country, no matter how bewildering and complex the domestic and geopolitical climates appear at first blush. The mainstream media provides that service by condensing these monumental issues into simplistic language and broad plot devices familiar to any member of our culture.

As a nation, we believe that this linguistic alchemy is possible, and moreover, that it’s all we require to make an informed decision. So we pick presidents based on who we’d rather down a pint with, perform acts of monstrous reductionism with regard to Muslims, and scapegoat subpopulations for their supposed failure to adhere to our idiosyncratic standards.

The mere presence of more content, or better delivery, won’t eradicate this pretentious social norm. Although those who already challenge themselves by absorbing as much information as possible will continue to flock to these new media, the majority of us will continue to consume the most bite-sized morsels of information we can find, even if we’re unknowingly seduced into believing biased or naive reports, and even if we have the opportunity to gain a fuller picture simply by logging on.

What psychology and sociology giveth, new infrastructures or media can’t taketh away.

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What I Choose Is My Voice

Emily Gould (of Gawker fame) has a cover story appearing in this Sunday’s New York Times magazine.

A manic-depressive romp through panic attacks, wrecked romantic relationships, and schizophrenic seclusion, it traces her rise and fall as an Internet celebrity. Simultaneously rewarded and reviled—psychologically, financially, socially, even romantically—for being herself, she became invested in the idea that meeting her needs was dependent upon a public self-absorption that became increasingly dissonant and detrimental.

Needless to say, hers is a contentious narrative, as evidenced by her former employer’s catty coverage, or New York Magazine’s deprecating eye rolls here and here.

I’m not interested in evaluating the truth of her personal epic. But I find the venom directed toward her fascinating.

The assertion that “Emily Gould has made a writing career of her personal life and built a personal life around her writing career” doesn’t appear to be in dispute. She admits as much in her account.

Rather, the majority of the negative comments is preoccupied with arguing that her perception of the attention she deserves is incompatible with the actual attention she deserves (examples here, here, and here). If I’m at heart as vapid, self-absorbed, and unfulfilled as you, they sneer, at least I have the sense to keep it to myself.

This is, at heart, an argument over a social norm. Classicists studying ancient Athens call it a “performance culture.” Erving Goffman, in his 1959 work The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, called it “impression management.” It refers to our (frequent) attempts to impress upon others the perceptions we want them to have of us.

Both classicists and sociologists use the analogy of theater to illuminate how this process works. The ancient Athenian citizen, it is argued, inspired by the annual Dionysian festivals with tragic and comic plays, was always performing—in the agora, in his political duties, and in front of the gods. Plato called it “the great stage of life.” Goffman’s interpretation became known as the dramaturgical perspective. “All the world is not, of course, a stage,” he wrote, “but the crucial ways in which it isn’t aren’t easy to specify.”

It may seem odd that something as basic as juggling social roles and impressions could be a social norm. But these behaviors are taught to children at an early age and aggressively enforced in our society. In realms such as school, work, or even dating, we rely on the expectation that those we interact with will actively seek to manage other people’s impressions of them. We make decisions about our own behavior based on this expectation.

Sometimes, it’s impossible to extricate impression management from other social norms or values. Conveying a desire to have someone else think highly of you, for example, is often interpreted as a sign of respect. Partly for this reason, we get offended, frustrated, or angry when we interact with people who don’t seem to care what we think of them.

The Internet, in the process of challenging traditional notions of privacy, is also challenging the norm of impression management, and with it other associated mores such as respect. It’s not surprising, then, that those who splay their lives open like a dissected frog are attacked with unusual viciousness as prostitutes of their inner soul. The slanders of narcissism and attention-seeking are rooted in the expectation that we’re supposed to be sweeping our unsavory qualities under the rug and at least trying to make everyone love and respect us. To address them publicly (or worse, to profit socially and financially from them) is to betray an inflated opinion of oneself, an insolent opinion of others, a loin-quivering ache for attention, or all of the above.

It’s beyond my capability to judge whether impression management is “good” or “bad,” or specifically whether Emily’s reasons for eschewing/pretending to eschew it were appropriate or not. Ultimately, though, impression management is just a social construction. We can conform or not. If we don’t, however, we face real social consequences.

Appropriately, I was listening to Disarm by the Smashing Pumpkins as I read her story, specifically the part when she describes how the casual savagery she used to dispense in the name of “being herself” is turned on her. It’s a poignant reminder of how intolerant many of us are when confronted with social deviance—whether deviance from our own personal code or deviance from social constructions we’ve internalized and embraced.

Over the next couple of weeks, I sat on the sidelines and watched as the commenters — on Gawker, on other blogs and even on Emily Magazine — talked about me the same way they once talked about the targets I’d proffered for them to aim at. Many of them explicitly pointed out that this drubbing was my karmic comeuppance — after all, I’d punished other people this way. Now it was my turn. It was only fair.

(The killer in me is the killer in you.)

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Writings Preview

Unfortunately, I’m not ready yet to post any of my work in the Writings section. But here’s a preview of what I’ll have in a few weeks.

Effects of Community Violence on a Population of Young Adults

In the spring of 2008, I participated in a research project examining the effects of hearing about, witnessing, and being victimized by community violence. A population of low-risk college students (ages 18-25) was sampled and assessed for PTSD, depression, delinquency, and academic achievement. Social support and perceived safety were also considered. The results of this study are currently being prepared for publication.

High-Achieving Students (Literature Review)

This summer, I’m conducting an independent study on high-achieving students. Details to follow.

Effects of Cultural Capital on Selection and Frequency of Use of Social Network Websites (Thesis Proposal)

In the fall of 2008, I’ll be composing a thesis on the effects of cultural capital on the selection and frequency of use of social network websites.

Abstract: Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu‘s theory of cultural capital posits that parental educational attainment and parental income are major determinants of future outcomes and behavior. Cultural capital inherited early in life impacts acquired educational capital and taste preferences, and perpetuates class divisions. Researchers such as danah boyd have hypothesized that class divisions are being reflected in behavior on social network sites (SNSs) like MySpace and Facebook.

The study will use random sampling methods to acquire results from two data sources: subjects’ responses to an electronic questionnaire, and content analysis of the subjects’ SNS profile(s). The purpose of the study is to evaluate the theoretical model depicted below, derived from a combination of Bourdieu’s theories and existing research on SNSs.

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Potato Chip, v.,

in skydiving, to experience bodily undulations during free fall (similar to the shape of a potato chip) as the result of being too rigid or nervous

Welcome to potatochipping.com.

I’m a white male second-year graduate student, en route to receiving my Master’s and PhD in sociology. My primary interests are youth, education, technology, deviance, and social control, particularly the ways in which these aspects of society interact with one another.

Although school currently takes up most of my time, I have many interests, such as skydiving, biking, reading vociferously, spending way too much time online, and having a life every now and then.

This website will serve as a host for my academic work, ranging from published articles or presentations to cursory literature reviews and preliminary sketches or proposals. You can access these products via the Writings link in the top menubar.

This site will also host my informal thoughts on a variety of issues related to my sociological interests. These posts include previews of upcoming academic projects and musings on topics I’m currently too lazy, busy, or underqualified to address more substantively. My goal at all times is to provide a sociological perspective and scientific outlook without slipping into the familiar Internet fallacies of hyperbole, diatribe, and selection bias.

Although I may be distracted for a week or two at a time, I hope to write at least semi-regularly. You can subscribe to the RSS feed via the Subscribe link in the top menubar.

In addition, there are a number of features in the sidebars that you may find useful.

• The Recent Posts and Archives sections provide easy access to previous entries.

• The Blogroll lists the links of blogs I follow regularly. Although a few aren’t relevant to the content of this site, I believe strongly in rewarding exceptional blogs with paltry shoutouts whenever possible, so I hope you’ll visit all of them and revel in their excellent products.

• The Articles section contains my most recent shared links from Google Reader. As mentioned, I read vociferously and subscribe to more than 50 RSS feeds. They include all of the sites listed in the blogroll, as well as some mainstream news sources (CNN, NYT, etc.), the social news sites (Digg, Reddit, etc.), and a few other miscellaneous places. Of the hundreds of articles I skim daily, I usually share between 5-15. Clicking on the Read More… link will take you to my full Shared Links page.

• The Find Me section provides links to my profiles in various social network sites, if you’re inclined to inflate your friend totals and/or stalk me.

Finally, you can contact me using the Contact link in the top menubar. I welcome comments or questions about anything not spam-related, whether in the Comments or via e-mail.

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