Facebook, Maps and Trolls.

‘Maps are both mirrors and shapers of place and space. They reflect how we see the world, or “our” world. They are powerful (especially because we believe them to be representations of reality). They inform and shape how we act in and conceptualize space and place. Maps serve a purpose’ Kuttainen (2017).


Following this quote from Kuttainen, it can be implied that social networks can form and shape how we act and perceive what is the truth. Today, people tend to depend more on social media as it has altered our representations of reality. Why do people trust the values and truths of these online social networks? In this case Facebook, why do people log on to these realities?

Much like a map Facebook has direction, colour and text. Users log on and create profiles and pages and talk about one thing to another. These profiles and pages that users have created are much like maps of people’s lives, and each profile tells a different story. Woods wrote that ‘Different maps are like telling a story, but from different points of view’ Woods (2006). Using Facebook users can reflect on their personal lives, they will distort their realities, however to portray how their space as being ‘better’ then others. Facebook allows users as they scroll through their timeline to reminisce on old memories, and even seemingly banal disclosures that would remind them of more complex stories that were not immediately obvious Lincoln (2016). For many, Facebook has shifted from being the site on which to document carefree student days to a space where a more professional identity can play out Lincoln (2016). Since Facebook has such a broad space it allows for people to Flaneur about.

The Arcades Project is Benjamin’s review to show the bourgeois (conventional) experience of nineteenth-century history, then it would reveal the true history that caused the abstract mask. ‘In the bustling, cluttered arcades, street and interior merge and historical time is broken up into colourful distractions and displays of ephemera. Here, at a distance from what is normally meant by “progress,” Benjamin finds the lost time(s) embedded in the spaces of things.’ Eiland (2002)

Illustration 1: A hilarious meme about the internet trolls. Sonnet (2017)

Barnes wrote about Cyber-Flaneur, in Facebook terms can be also known as trolls. These are users who start trouble then sit back and watch the fireworks. These ‘trolls’ start fights but upsetting people by posting provocative or off-topic messages online with all intention on infuriating and annoying readers. These trolls are comfortable online cause no one knows who they are, they are attracted to the excitement of social networks. “The tactical player does not seek to compete with the institution, or take over power, but primarily seeks to fulfil his or her individual needs behind a facade of conformity Pauwels & Hellriegel (2009)

Users of Facebook need to imagine the real-life space that they must occupy to be able to live in the cyberspace of the Internet. These spaces are defining limitations of the Internet and cyberspace. There is a communication between real and virtual spaces and can be seen through cybernetic space. This space is used to identify the relationship between space, culture and identity.

Referencing

1. Kuttainen, V. (2017). BA1002: Our Space: Networks, narratives, and the making of place, week 4 notes [Powerpoint slides]. Retrieved from https://learnjcu.jcu.edu.au
2. Wood, D., Kaiser, L. W., & Abramms, B. (2006). Seeing Through Maps. Oxford, United Kingdom: New Internationalist Publications. 
3. Lincoln, S. (2017) For the first generation to grow up on Facebook: online identities hold both promise and pitfall. Retrieved from http://theconversation.com  
4.  Eiland, H (2002) The Arcades Project. Retrieved from http://www.hup.harvard.edu/  
5. Sonnet, N. (2017) Fending Off Online “Trolls” in the Age of Digital Journalism. Retrieved from https://santaclaranews.org/2017/04/20/fending-off-online-trolls-in-the-age-of-digital-journalism/
6. Pauwels & Hellriegel (2009). Retrieved from  https://www.igi-global.com/chapter/