What is the front page of the Internet?

I remember Reddit from a brief flirtation in the past as this mesmerising yet confusing form of social media. It took practice and constant learning to use Reddit and the 16-year-old me was not equipped. Preparing for this assessment, however, led me back to Reddit and it remains as much of an enigma as I remember it.

Reddit is social media site where links, videos, images or texts post can be uploaded by anonymous users. These uploads are voted up or down by other Reddit users depending on whether the content floats their boat. It organizes the content into subreddits which are like categories in which posts can be made in accordance with set guidelines. There are subreddits for pretty much anything, from US Politics to pictures of birds with arms.

A post gains popularity by the number of ‘upvotes’ it receives. The more upvotes a post receives in as short a time as possible equals higher the rate of the popularity of that post, making it onto the coveted ‘Front Page’ of Reddit. The front page is where the most recent and popular items circulating Reddit appear. Likewise, posts can receive ‘downvotes’, which accumulate and push posts into obscurity.

The network theory developed by Duncan Watts and Steve Strogatz of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York explained that networks depend on ‘hubs’ and ‘weak links’ to accommodate the flow of data (filipebarreto, 2013). It was initially difficult to model their theory onto Reddit’s network. I soon realised however that Reddit did not depend on its users to act as ‘hubs’ (that is, having lots of connections to users enabling wide data distribution), but ‘hubs’ in Reddit were actually the ‘front pages’ themselves. 

As I learnt, before a post makes it onto the ‘frontpage’ of its specific subreddit, it is crucial that the post receives a certain number of upvotes within the first hours of its release. These initial votes mean the difference between the rise or fall of a post. Just as hubs are important, these ‘weak links’ are equally important in the circulation of data in a network (V. Kuttenain, 2017).

 (That’s already been posted! Didn’t you read all of reddit first?!, n.d.).

Reddit capitalizes on this concept ingeniously in the way it ranks posts. Because Reddit has a system whereby the value of votes decreases with time, it can be deduced that the sooner a post receives upvotes, the higher it will get on the ‘Front Page’. So, newer posts will rank higher than older posts perpetuating the flow of information thus keeping Reddit “the front page of the internet”. Just as Professor Farnsworth says, if you didn’t read it on Reddit first, you’re probably a bit behind (That’s already been posted! Didn’t you read all of reddit first?!, n.d.).

Once I saw the way Reddit designed its network, I could see the form of power within it and who held it. (Allen, 2003, p. 4) theorizes that power is a relational effect of society and not a property or ‘thing’. When the two are separate, power itself can be seen to take either ‘instrumental or ‘associational’ forms. The former is the exercising of power over an individual and can, at its worst be malicious. The latter, however, acts as a “medium enabling… a common aim”,(Allan, 2013, p. 5). Reddit is largely associational. Users vote on items they deem worthy of appreciation and so reach their end goal of getting it seen.

Reddit remains an enigma but is also the most democratic social network I have used so far.

REFERNCES

filipebarreto. (2013, August 11). Connected: The power of Six degrees [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rzxAyY7D7k

Kuttenain V. (2017). BA1002: Our space: Networks, narratives, and the making of place, week 1 notes {Power Point slides]. Retrieved from https://learnjcu.jcu.edu.au

That’s already been posted! Didn’t you read all of reddit first?! [Image] (n.d.). Retrieved from http://i.imgur.com/4Wr0x.jpg

 Allen, J. (2003). Lost geographies of power. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.