IDENTITY AND iDENTITY: SOCIAL NETWORKING AND IDENTITY CONSTRUCTS, A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS

Amanda R. Cosgrove

A Thesis Submitted to the University of North Carolina Wilmington in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree of Masters of Arts

Department of English

University of North Carolina Wilmington

2010

Approved by

Advisory Committee

Colleen Reilly Nicholas Laudadio

Anthony Atkins Director

Accepted by

Dean, Graduate School

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT …………………………...………………………………………………………...iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ……………………………………………………………...……....iv DEDICATION ………………………………………………………………………………....... v LIST OF FIGURES ……………………………………………………………………………...vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTIONS - WHY SOCIAL NETWORKING? ……..……...………......1 CHAPTER 2: DEFINITIONS AND METHODS ………………………………………………..8 CHAPTER 3: PLACE AND IDENTITY: A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF TWITTER ……19 CHAPTER 4: FACEBOOK AND THE BODY: A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF FACEBOOK …………………………………………………………………………………….42 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS ………………………………..……………………………….58 WORKS CITED ………………………………………………………………………………...63

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ABSTRACT

This thesis is a rhetorical analysis of popular social networking sites Facebook.com and

Twitter.com. Using M. Jimmie Killingsworth’s Appeals in Modern Rhetoric: An Everyday

Language Approach as its foundation, this analysis explores how issues of time, place, and

authority impact social networking users. Specifically, issues of time, place, and authority come

together to appeal heavily to the site users’ personal identities. These appeals to identity, in turn,

create a connection between the physical bodies of the site users and the sites themselves.

Because of the connection between user and site, the lines between the two blur and users begin

to feel as though the sites themselves are a part of their physical bodies. Social networking sites

are often described as spaces free of traditional identity structures such as gender, class, and race.

This thesis, then, aims to explore if or how social networking sites can both be outside of

identity structures and so heavily reliant on identity structures simultaneously. This thesis asks

the question: do social networking tools truly allow for a destruction of identity structures that

can often create division, or do they simply reinforce them?

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Dr. Diana Ashe for assigning the essay that would become this

thesis and for encouraging me to write about Twitter when others found it to be a less-than-

academic topic for analysis. I would also like to thank Dr. Colleen Reilly and Dr. Nicholas

Laudadio for agreeing to serve as readers for this thesis, for their continual support throughout

the writing process, and for all of their feedback and advice.

I would like to thank my thesis director, Dr. Anthony Atkins, for all of his help and

support throughout my entire graduate career. Thank you for your help with this project and with

many others.

Finally, I would like to thank my fellow graduate students. I am so glad to have met all of

you and would not have made it through the past two years without you.

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DEDICATION

This project is dedicated to my parents, Kathy and David Cosgrove. Mom and Dad,

without your support I would have never even gone to college, let alone written a thesis. Thank

you for reading to me, buying me books, taking me to the library, and making me go to school

even when I didn’t see the value in it. Thank you for instilling in me a desire to ask questions,

explore, and learn. Thank you for giving me the gift of education and the ability to believe in

myself.

Thank you, also, Emily, for being younger than me so that I could go first without

everyone finding out that you are really much smarter than me.

I love you and it is because of the three of you that I finished this. Thank you.

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Twitter account ………...….……………………….………………………………….21

Figure 2: Profile for Twitter creator Jack Dorsey…….……….…………………………………22

Figure 3: Twitter timestamps ……………………………………………………………………25

Figure 4: Twitter homepage for nonusers ……………………………………………………….32

Figure 5: Twitter profile design 1 ……………………………………………………………….34

Figure 6: Twitter profile design 2 ……………………………………………………………….34

Figure 7: Twitter bird logo……………………………………………………………………….37

Figure 8: Twitter profile design option ………………………………………………………….37

Figure 9: Twitter world AIDS day bird …………………………………………………………37

Figure 10: Twitter profile bird …………………………………………………………………..38

Figure 11: Twitter security owl …………………………………………………………………38

Figure 12: Twitter over capacity whale …………………………………………………………39

Figure 13: Facebook profile options …………………………………………………………….45

Figure 14: Facebook’s own profile ……………………………………………………………...46

Figure 15: Facebook newsfeed ………………………………………………………………….48

Figure 16: Facebook notifications ………………………………………………………………49

Figure 17: Facebook friend count ……………………………………………………………….52

Figure 18: Default Facebook photo ……………………………………………………………..55

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTIONS: WHY SOCIAL NETWORKING? When I started graduate school I wanted to learn about identity. I was fascinated with

terms I had heard during my undergraduate career such as ideology, feminism and popular

culture. I wanted to read novels and discuss these issues. Meanwhile, I wanted to continue a

project I began when I was an undergraduate student that aimed to explore language and writing

development and social networking technologies, specifically within the context of the

composition classroom1. So I did both.

As I began teaching I found myself continually telling my students that ‘everything is an

argument,’ and that ‘everything is a text.’ At some point I realized that I should probably tell

myself that as well. I realized, on a personal level, that I had already begun to wrap my brain

around the ideas of identity in literature, but that I was allowing social networking sites to

continue to operate as innocuous texts unworthy of the same analysis I applied to printed

documents.

However, I was still on the fence about whether or not social networking sites really

mattered in a worthy-of-academic-study sort of way. Much of my initial Googleing on the topic

reinforced this notion, as well as many discussions I had with friends, family, and fellow

graduate students. Entities such as Facebook and Twitter just seemed so frivolous. I saw them as

places for tagging party pictures and carrying on pointless conversations. Then the 2009 Iranian

elections happened.

1 The study, performed with Dr. Anthony Atkins and Sarah McKone, surveyed undergraduate students in basic studies English courses at the University of North Carolina Wilmington about their perceived writing skills and the impacts they felt “text-speak” such as text messaging and online writing influenced the way they wrote in the composition classroom. The respondents reported, generally, that they did not feel that a distinct influence existed.

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Social networking tools such as YouTube and Twitter played big roles in this event.

Many people in Iran were able to communicate with the outside world using these tools and

much of the news we watched in America came from these sources. What I didn’t know was that

the U.S. State Department valued the information being gathered from these sites so much that it

actually requested that Twitter not enact previously scheduled site maintenance the week after

the election because it would cause a break in Twitter access for a significant period of time

(Johnson). This surprised me. The importance of social networking sites was starting to become

clear to me, and how they connected with identity as well. Through this political event, Iranian

citizens became reporters and revolutionaries; social networking impacted who they were as

people.

Similarly, when a devastating earthquake hit Haiti in January of 2010, the world seemed

to respond in newer, faster ways. To donate money to the American Red Cross, you could text

the word “relief” to a designated number; to show support for those impacted by the natural

disaster you could change your Facebook profile picture to a Haiti relief logo; to raise awareness

for the cause you could Tweet #haitisupport on your Twitter account. The same kind of

technology-based activism was seen when Twitter and Facebook profiles were turned red for

World Aid’s day, green for the 2009 Iranian elections, and maroon for the victims of the Virginia

Tech shooting. This may seem like inconsequential or impact-less activism because it occurs

within the context of social networking sites, but the Iranian election alone showed that use of

social networking tools and other communication technologies to spread news and information

was the fastest, most reliable option available for both those inside and outside of Iran. The State

Department understood that Twitter was providing it with invaluable, first hand accounts –

including photographs and videos – from the ground, and that losing even a few hours of such

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information could have serious effects on intelligence gathering. Major news outlets such as

NBC, CNN, and Fox News also understand the invaluable information gathering abilities of

social networking sites and have begun to use Twitter and Facebook as legitimate sources of

information, using Tweets and Facebook posts as newsgathering tools for first hand accounts,

amateur reporting, and viewer opinions.

Social networking sites are also important for news sharing regarding minor pop cultural

events. When John Mayer wanted to apologize for discussing intimate details of his relationship

with Jessica Simpson in a Playboy interview, he did not wait to be interviewed again, instead he

posted an apology on his Twitter feed. And it worked; almost instantly E! Entertainment News

was sharing the post with its viewers. Celebrities, news outlets, Universities, and even politicians

now recognize that social networking tools such as Twitter and Facebook are not only good

opportunities for reaching target audiences, but that they are in fact imperative, invaluable means

of survival. With a wealth of personal information so readily available through online social

networks, it seems that to not Tweet or Facebook is to allow oneself to flirt with social or

political irrelevancy in both the private and public sector. The danger of irrelevancy has been

rapidly recognized by a wide variety of individuals, businesses, and organizations and because of

this understanding of social networking exigency, social networking tools are now the ‘it’ means

of communication for a wide variety of users.

Likewise, many have realized that social networking sites are powerful in other ways. For

many employers, the first thing to be done when a job candidate is identified is to locate his or

her social networking profiles. It is important for employers to view social networking profiles of

potential employees because these profiles often offer a great deal of information about the

potential employee’s character. According to a survey conducted by Harris Interactive (hired by

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CareerBuilder.com), nearly one in two employers now search for social networking profiles of

potential employees (Van Grove). According to an article that summarizes the study, Harris

Interactive’s survey found that:

‘thirty-five percent of employers reported they have found content on social

networking sites that caused them not to hire the candidate.’ The big lessons you

can learn are quite obvious, but bear repeating. Provocative photos and info are a

bad idea (53% of employers won’t hire you), shared content with booze and drugs

is also highly dangerous (44% dismissed candidates for this as reason), and bad-

mouthing former employers is very risky behavior (35% reported this the main

reason they didn’t hire a candidate). (Van Grove)

People who already have jobs aren’t immune either. According to a study of corporations

that employ more than 1,000 workers, 8 percent of those corporations reported firing someone

because of inappropriate social networking (Ostrow). The majority of these dismissals occurred

because the employee posted negative opinions about his or her job (such as Tweeting “I hate my

job” or “My boss is a jerk”) or confidential corporate information. Others were dismissed

because they posted inappropriate photographs, status updates, or other media that did not

directly reference the company, but were deemed harmful to the company’s reputation

(ProofPoint).

In fact, the list of possible anecdotal evidence that could be used to show how publically

and privately influential social networking sites are, goes on and on2. In researching social

networking tools, it quickly became apparent that each day offers several new and catchy stories

2 It may be important to note that much of the news currently surrounding social networks concerns a few instances of teen suicides due to cyber bullying. This, too, exemplifies the ways in which social networks have deep, personal impacts on users.

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that could show the popularity, importance, and, yes, even danger of social networking sites.

This is most likely the case because of the sheer volume of social networking users. According to

Facebook, the site has “more than 400 million active users” (“Press Room”) and of those 400

million, half use the site at least once on any given day (“Press Room”).

Indeed, social networking is widely regarded, whether for good or bad, as a force to be

reckoned with. It is clear, from the above small sampling of studies and anecdotal evidence, that

social networking sites are making big impacts on the world in many different ways. However,

all of these examples also have something interesting in common with one another. Each shows

the impact that social networking has on identity. The humanitarian response to the earthquake in

Haiti shows how social networking helps to create, or at the very least, reinforce community. The

use of social networking tools during and directly after the Iranian elections shows how these

tools impact national identity and the identities of individual users. Many citizens, through

participating in newsgathering and dissemination, directly impacted the outcome of the situation

in Iran simply by using social networking tools, thus redefining what it means to be a

revolutionary, a political player, and a citizen of Iran3.

Even John Mayer realizes the impact social networking has on his – at least public –

identity. To Mayer, social networking has oversaturated the world with his sound bites and has

made the world view him as unrespectable in many ways. Mayer states during a Rolling Stone

interview that he believes that the world has received a misrepresentation of him from said sound

bites, but that he also uses tools such as Twitter to show his fans who he “really” is (Hedegaard

43).

3 Although these political participants did not achieve their desired outcome, they impacted the way government and the media deals with social networking and political uprisings.

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Finally, it is clear from the two studies cited above that the identities social networking

users create for themselves, from photographs they tag to updates they post, impact the jobs they

get and the jobs the keep or lose.

In an attempt to understand what social networking sites do for users’ identity in more

concrete ways; this thesis will complete a rhetorical analysis of popular social networking sites

Facebook.com and Twitter.com. By examining the design elements employed on these sites, this

thesis will explore how social networking tools appeal to time, place/space, and identity, and

thus become an extension of the physical body of the user. The combination of accessibility and

user-site interactions, and the language and visuals used on and about these sites, appeals heavily

to conventional conceptions of personal identity – such as gender and race – and the physical

body of the user. Because users are so intimately connected to these tools, they have a significant

impact on how users’ view their own identities and the identities of others.

Because social networking sites are so popular, they have become a part of everyday life

for millions of people and have changed the ways in which we, as a culture, share information.

Social networking sites impact how news is made and shared, how products are advertised and

sold, how friendships and other relationships are made and maintained, and the ways in which

individuals and communities view themselves. The impacts that social networking sites have

made on individuals and communities are important to question and evaluate because they relate

to so many aspects of daily private and public life. By conducting a rhetorical analysis of two

social networking sites I hope to gain insights into how these sites change, display, or in other

ways impact, who we are as a society in both public and private ways. Just as the printed word,

the telephone, and the television dramatically impacted public and private life by becoming

important parts of everyday life for millions, the Internet has changed the ways in which we

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communicate and operate as individuals and as a society. Social networking sites are now as

prevalent in our jobs, schools, businesses, and homes as books, telephones, and televisions and

thus need to be analyzed in order to ascertain how these tools exemplify, change, and define our

society.

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CHAPTER 2: DEFINITIONS AND METHODS

In this chapter I will introduce and define what social networking tools are, and I will

also give examples of some sites that fit into the category “social networking”. I will then

introduce the two sites to be analyzed for the purposes of this project: Facebook.com and

Twitter.com. Other sites such as Ning.com or MySpace.com would work as well, however, I

have chosen these specific tools because of their overarching popularity among diverse groups of

people and for their visibility in popular culture, the business world, the news media, and the

academic world, however, for the purposes of this study, the main focus will be the popular and

social world.

The popularity of Facebook and Twitter causes them to be examples upon which other

less popular sites are built, thus, looking at these two sites will give insights into many other

sites. This chapter will illustrate who uses social networking tools on a regular basis and lay out

the methods by which I will perform a rhetorical analysis of both Facebook.com and

Twitter.com.

A rhetorical analysis is the best research method for this study because it will

acknowledge that these sites are texts that have been created by specific designers and companies

that have vested interests in the sites beyond those that are explicitly stated. A rhetorical analysis

will also allow me to examine the ways in which social networking sites appeal to users and how

these appeals impact user-site interactions. For the purposes of this project, rhetorical analysis is

defined as an analytical approach that allows for a text to be broken apart into its different

elements, such as image and content, and examined based on rhetorical appeals such as time and

place.

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This thesis will look closely at two of the most popular social networking sites:

Facebook.com and Twitter.com, to evaluate how identity manifests in these spaces. However, it

is first important to clearly define a grammar of social networking sites and identity constructs.

To begin, the term “social networking site” (often referred to as “social media” or “social media

sites”) refers to sites that are interactive online spaces that allow for users to connect with other

users. Many definitions of “social networking” exist, including; “the practice by which Internet

users build relationships and bookmark important sites with like minded people” (“Glossary of

Common Web Design Terms”); “the term used to describe the activity of networking through

social sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Linked In” (“Glossary of Terminology”); and that

“social media are platforms for interaction and relationships, not content and ads” (Hopkins). In

the article “Social Network Sites: Definition, History and Scholarship,” Dana M. Boyd provides

a definition of social networking that will be useful for this project:

We define social network sites as web-based services that allow individuals to (1)

construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a

list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse

their list of connections and those made by others within the system. The nature

and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site. (Boyd)

In short, and for the purposes of this thesis, social networking sites are sites that allow for users

to connect and communicate with other users, creating communities and relationships in

domestic and public settings, thus helping to define individual users (as community members)

and society as a whole (as a larger community).

Some of the most common and popular social networking sites are Facebook, MySpace,

and Twitter, but thousands of others exist. Other popular social networking sites include

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Ning.com, which allows users to connect based on common interests such as sports or music;

gamerDNA.com, which allows avid gamers to share scores, secrets, and tips; snooth.com, which

allows wine lovers to share new finds and old favorites; goodreads.com, which allows book

lovers to share book lists on; and dopplr.com that allows users to track personal travel and share

travel tips and stories. It is important to note that social networking sites are not simply for

general communication and connection, but that they are also becoming very specialized. The

term “social networking” encompasses all sites that allow users to connect to others and

communicate in any way, be that to publish personal finance records or to simply share favorite

songs. It is clear from just this short list of examples that social networking sites perform many

functions. However, the core function of each site is the same: making connections. Social

networking sites are used to build networks of people who share common interests. These

common interests may be as general as having friends in common or taking a class together –

such as with Facebook and MySpace – or more specific, like a shared interest in similar literature

– such as with Goodreads.com.

There are thousands of social networking sites. However, there are three that stand well

above the rest in popularity: MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter, and two of those have taken the

lead among all social networking sites: Facebook and Twitter. For this reason, this study will

focus on an analysis of these two sites.

Although MySpace.com still boasts the most users – now by a very small, rapidly

diminishing margin – it is commonly agreed that MySpace is on its way out of popularity, and

that Facebook.com is taking its place4. If site growth is taken into consideration, above all other

4 Mashable.com, a popular online source for social networking news, argues in the article “Facebook Hammers Myspace on all Key Features” just what the title says, and in another article “Facebook Users vs. Myspace Users We Report, You Decide” that MySpace is known among

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social networking sites, Facebook – found at www.facebook.com – is the most globally popular

social networking site (”Bank on It”). As mentioned earlier, the site boasts hundreds of millions

of users and staggering amounts of daily activity. It was also one of the earlier social networking

sites to catch on in popularity. Originally created as a networking tool for college students

exclusively (users had to have valid University email addresses to sign up), over the last several

years Facebook has been first opened to community colleges, then high schools, and finally to

the general public, and has become the standard go-to for social networking across all age groups

and target audiences.

But what is Facebook? Simply put, Facebook is an interactive social networking website

which, as with most social networking sites, users become a member of in order to connect with

other users. Once a new user signs up for the website, he or she creates a user profile that may

include a name, a self-description, school and/or work information, age, location, photographs,

favorite quotes, songs, and movies, and other personal information. Users can then friend other

users. This means that users can gain access to each other’s profiles and can communicate with

each other. Once users have Facebook friends they can communicate via private messages and

public wall postings. Users can also upload photographs and videos, create web links, and view

the profiles of others5.

Facebook defines itself as follows; “Facebook is a social utility that helps people

communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers. The company develops

social networking users as a place for “creepers” and “lurkers”, in other words, online predators, while Facebook users seem more “legit.” Look to www.mashable.com for more on this topic. 5 Facebook provides privacy settings that allow users to control who can and cannot access their accounts. These settings allow for each section of the profile to be controlled, so that some information can remain public while other information is made private. Facebook has undergone several revisions of its privacy statement and has expanded the ways in which users can protect information due to demand for higher privacy from users.

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technologies that facilitate the sharing of information through the social graph, the digital

mapping of people’s real-world social connections. Anyone can sign up for Facebook and

interact with the people they know in a trusted environment” (“Press Room”). More specifically,

Facebook is a PHP site6 – this means that it is more than a simple HTML site in that it allows for

user interactivity. Because of this interactivity, Facebook users become partial designers of the

site: they determine what does and does not appear on their profiles, they initiate dialogue and

upload content; in short, they change the look and function of the site.

Facebook boasts more than 400 million active users. (“Press Room”). Half of these users

log onto Facebook at least once a day. Facebook creators, in a list of “company figures” also

note “more than 35 million users update their status each day, more than 60 million status

updates are posted each day” (“Press Room”). The site also says that more than 30 billion photos

and more than 3.5 billion events are created each month (“Press Room”). Facebook is not only a

popular tool for individual users, as of February 2010, according to the site, “more than 1.5

million local businesses have active Pages on Facebook” (“Press Room”). And, according to

Facebook, approximately seventy percent of users are outside of the United States and the site

has been translated into more than seventy languages (“Press Room”).

Only one site truly rivals Facebook in user volume and frequency, the much newer

Twitter, found at www.twitter.com. Although younger than Facebook, Twitter grew by at least

50 percent each month of 2008 and into 2009 (”Bank on It”). Twitter is a social networking

6 PHP sites are different from basic HTML sites because PHP “allows you to manipulate web page content on the server just before a page is delivered to the client browser. It works like this: A PHP script runs on the server and can alter or generate HTML code at will. An HTML web page is still delivered to the browser, which doesn’t know or care that PHP is involved in tweaking the HTML server” (Beighley 3). This distinction is important because it allows site creators more access to user information in that PHP allows creators to control and change how user information is formatted as the site users upload it. PHP creates sites that are interactive for users and creators.

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website that allows users to post short – 140 characters or less – status updates to share with

friends and family. Users create profiles and find people to follow7. Twitter then creates a page

(called a “feed”) for the user that displays the updates (called “tweets”) of all of the other users

the user has chosen to follow. This allows users to keep up with friends, family members,

colleagues, and even celebrities or politicians through one site8.

Like Facebook, Twitter is an international site. It is currently available in English,

French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish, and can be used via SMS9 from many countries

that do not yet support the site (”About Twitter”). As can be seen from the examples of Haiti and

Iran in the previous chapter, the global aspect of social networking sites is important to how the

sites function on social and political levels.

In order to better explore these two sites, this study will perform a rhetorical analysis of

both. For a broad framework for the rhetorical analyses I will be using M. Jimmie

Killingsworth’s Appeals in Modern Rhetoric: An Ordinary-Language Approach, primarily his

discussion of time, place, and authority to show how Facebook and Twitter have used time,

place, and authority – in relation to user identity – to create wildly popular social networking

sites; this will be done by applying Killingsworth’s model of rhetorical analysis to Facebook.com

and Twitter.com and by drawing upon Lester Faigley’s essay “Material Literacy and Visual

Design,” and Kristie S. Fleckenstein’s Embodied Literacies: Imageword and a Poetics of

Teaching to discuss Twitter’s use of appeals to the physical body.

7 To “follow” another user means to subscribe to their feed, so that the posts of the users being followed are visible on one large newsfeed. 8 Many celebrities and public figures, such as Oprah and President Obama, have twitter feeds. Many celebrities now hire writers to post feeds for them. These writers are called “ghost tweeters.” 9 SMS stands for “short message service.” SMS messages are text messages sent from cell phones.

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These theorists work well because they offer overarching models of analysis, which

create a good foundation for a primary look at the sites. This study will use Killingsworth’s

model for starting a rhetorical analysis that involves a discussion of three positions and a

medium of exchange, then show, through looking at the language and visuals of Facebook and

Twitter, how both sites appeal to time and place and that each site employs appeals of both

authority and non-authority and appeals to the physical body to appeal to potential users. Finally,

this study will show that Facebook and Twitter rely heavily on appeals to celebrity or “cool.”

Killingsworth begins his model for basic rhetorical analysis with three positions and a

medium of exchange. The three positions he discusses are the position of the author, the position

of the audience, and the position of value (Killingsworth 1). Fleckenstein’s discussions of

appeals to the body merge well with Killingsworth’s discussions of appeals to age to show how

the appeals discussed overlap and rely on each other to be successful. Killingsworth’s

discussions of appeals to race form a foundation for discussing appeals to age, race, class,

gender, and sexual orientation. Finally, the analyses informed by Killingsworth and the others

listed above help to answer how, through appeals to time, place, and body, Facebook.com and

Twitter.com help to reinforce and even develop user identity.

Social networking sites appeal to the idea that they are an extension of the user’s physical

body and thus a bodily necessity likened to speech or limbs. The idea that a piece of technology

is an extension of a user’s physical body is not a new one. Many technologies have been viewed

as extensions of the physical body throughout history, such as the pencil, the hammer, the

personal computer, and the cell phone10. As Dennis Baron explains in “From Pencils to Pixels,”

10 Viewing cell phones as extensions of the physical body is becoming increasingly prevalent in popular media, especially in cell phone commercials themselves. Many companies liken cell phones to the human body and/or to the robotic body in advertisements.

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writing tools have always been seen as a part of the user’s physical body. Even the word “pencil”

means “little tail” which refers to artist paintbrushes and also shows how such tools have always

been in many ways connected to the physical body of the user (Baron 32-33). As Baron makes

clear in his essay, the personal computer has usurped the pencil as the primary writing tool, and

by doing so, has also become an extension of the user’s physical body.

It does not seem unusual, then, that social networking sites appeal to their users’ physical

bodies since the sites are a part of the larger technology of the personal computer, which has

replaced the technology of the pencil. However, social networking sites take the appeal to the

physical body a step further in that they also claim to be an expression of the users’ identities11.

Although tools such as a pencil for a writer or a hammer for a carpenter may be linked to, and

even be symbols of, the user’s identity, social networking tools operate on the assertion that their

functionality lies in their ability to create and change identity/identities12. Indeed, social

networking sites tout themselves as social connectors that allow individuals who may have

otherwise not created social connections between each other to do so13. In this way, these sites

become bridges between individuals who may have otherwise not associated with each other. It

is often asserted in both joking and serious manner that online identities are different and even

11 The definition of “identity” for this study is explicitly in the following pages. However, for the purposes of discussing “identity” as it is used in popular media when discussing social networks, identity is anything and everything that is linked to a person’s user profile, from personal photos to favorite quotes. All of these components combine to create the “identity” of the user. 12 The “identity” being referred to here by social networks is that of social stigma. Identity is used with a negative connotation here to argue that identity is a bad aspect of face-to-face communication because it is based on superficial signifiers such as appearance and socio-economic class. Thus, social networks argue that they are free of such “identity” because they exist in the digital world where such superficial signifiers are not valued, can be masked, or are simply not relevant to the networks being created. 13 One of Facebook’s main tenants is “giving people the power to share and make the world more open and connected” (“Press Room”). To view all of Facebook’s goals and objectives visit www.facebook.com/facebook.

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better than real life identities because Internet users are kept at a “safe” distance from other users

and because of this distance feel more liberated to express themselves without the fear of direct,

face-to-face judgment. A popular country song by Brad Paisley called “Online” describes this

phenomena with the lyrics “but there’s a whole nother me/that you need to see/go checkout my

MySpace/’cause online I’m out in Hollywood…/I’m so much cooler online” (Brad Paisley).

Although this song is one of many humorous interpretations of online identity, it does point to a

very real phenomenon: the recreating of personal identity in a safe – or at least perceived to be

safe – online environment. Creators of social networking sites recognize this unique functionality

and claim it as one of their strongest assets. According to many social networking sites, social

networking tools allow for the destruction of hierarchy-enforcing identity structures such as

gender, race, age, class, and sexual orientation14. As is often asserted by Internet and technology

creators, these sites are spoken of and framed as spaces that are free of social constructs such as

the above listed, and thus allow for users to exist outside of these constructs. But is this really the

case? Do social networking tools truly allow for a destruction of identity structures that can often

create division, or do they simply reinforce them?

This study draws upon the work of many who have analyzed how technology –

specifically Internet technology – impacts identity. As Gian S. Pagnucci and Nicholas Mauriello

show in their essay “Masquerade: Gender Identity, and Writing for the Web,” the term ‘identity’

applies not to clearly definable terms of identification such as age and sex, but instead to

14 Facebook frames itself as a space free of division and exclusion based on identity. Likewise, Twitter explains to users that its foundation is built on equality for all users. To view Facebook’s policies visit www.facebook.com/facebook. To view Twitter’s policies visit www.twitter.com/about. Both sites are frequently updated and reconfigured, however, the language of the policies always seems to point to these ideas of equality and space free of negative identity structures. Both sites also have blogs, which and be accessed via these links, with more information about their policies and goals.

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perceived identity that users impose upon themselves and others based upon less stagnant issues

of identity such as gender and sexual orientation (Pagnucci). Bronwyn Williams takes this

definition of identity one step further by noting in the article “What South Park Character Are

You?” that identity, again both personally imposed and imposed by outsiders, on the Internet

hinges on the hard to define cultural currency of ‘coolness’, ‘hipness’ and celebrity (Williams).

Williams argues that the perceptions others have of you as an online identity are constructed in

direct relation to popular culture, in that as a user you must prove yourself to be relevant in order

to fit in. One can do so by connecting himself or herself to popular culture icons such as

musicians and actors (Williams).

With Williams in mind, and for the purposes of this study, the term ‘identity’ refers not to

easily prescribed personal identifiers such as age and sex, but instead to societal means of

classification and identification such as gender, race, and ‘coolness.’ Identity is the persona

constructed by an individual through the clothing he or she wears, the way he or she speaks, the

people he or she spends time with, the job he or she holds, and now, the way he or she presents

himself or herself on social networking sites15. However, identity is also the perception others

have of a person based on his or her dress, speech, friends, and social networking profiles. As

Pagnucci and Mauriello, and Williams, are quick to point out, there is often, in both the natural

and virtual world, a distinct disconnect between what one perceives his or her identity to be and

what others perceive his or her identity to be (Pagnucci, Williams).

15 Many other researchers have defined and discussed identity as related to Internet technologies. Some reference examples include Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble (1990), Julia Kristeva’s many works on identity and gender identity and Donna Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century” published in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (1991).

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Only a few years after their initial popularity, social networking sites have permeated

every aspect of American life. Social networking tools are no longer simply the domain of

adolescents and young adults looking for friends and relationships. Social networking tools such

as Facebook and Twitter are being used by millions of people for business, networking,

newsgathering, entertainment, and, of course, socializing. With such tools moving from popular

to commonplace, how have the meanings of personal identity and communication changed?

Many have discussed the connections between appeals to the physical body and technology16.

This thesis will address how social networking sites, specifically Facebook and Twitter, become

a part of the physical body, how the designs of these tools propagate this, and what this changes

about personal and professional online identity in terms of age, gender, socio-economic

background, race, and sexual orientation of the user.

16 See, again, Dennis Baron’s “From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technology” and Donna Harroway’s “Cyborg Manifesto” for more on this.

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CHAPTER 3: PLACE AND IDENTITY: A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF TWITTER

Although Facebook has been around for several years longer than Twitter, I begin this

study with a rhetorical analysis of Twitter for several reasons. For one, Twitter is much newer

than Facebook, which means that it more accurately exemplifies the current trends in social

networking that will allow for a better understanding of how current and up-and-coming social

networking sites use rhetorical appeals to gain, build, and influence their audiences. Because

Twitter has been developed and has gained popularity in only the recent past, it is indicative of

how sites are currently constructed and what is currently popular among social networking users.

Twitter is also greatly influenced by Facebook. Twitter is often considered a new and improved

version of Facebook17. Because Twitter is influenced by Facebook, looking at Twitter first will

allow this study to then compare how Facebook uses similar appeals as Twitter and how those

appeals build upon one another. Finally, Twitter is a more straightforward site than Facebook.

Twitter is made up of user posts only, and does not have the same sophisticated profiles that

Facebook is known for. Facebook is a complex site with many functions, while Twitter is a site

dedicated to one specific function: status update sharing. Because Twitter is less complex than

Facebook, its rhetorical appeals are less complex as well. Looking at Twitter before Facebook

will allow this study to illustrate how a more complex site builds upon the appeals of a less

complex site.

Killingsworth begins his model for basic rhetorical analysis with three positions and a

medium of exchange: the author, the position of the audience, and the position of value

17 Because Twitter’s main function is sharing information through a newsfeed, it is commonly asserted that Facebook’s newsfeed influenced Twitter. However, Twitter is also influenced by other RSS feeds, which began before Facebook was created. The two, however, because of their similar popularity, growth, and audience, clearly influence each other.

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(Killingsworth 1). These foundations are important for the discussion of authority, space, time,

and identity to come. Killingsworth describes his positions as follows,

The three positions are the position of the author (or agent of production), the

position of the audience (the reader, viewer, user, judge, jury), a position of value

to which the author refers (such as economic well-being, moral goodness,

physical health, spiritual enlightenment, family attachment, community solidarity,

amusement and diversion, anything that has worth or value in one’s life).

(Killingsworth 1)

And the medium of exchange is explained,

[a]uthors communicate to an audience through a medium such as a spoken

language, writing, radio, television, or e-mail, working indirectly by appealing to

the position of value. Successful appeals move the audience, the result of which is

the alignment of the three positions.” (Killingsworth 1)

The authorial position is probably the most difficult to identify in this context. There are

many people and corporations that worked together to create Twitter. However, for the purpose

of this project, they will be referred to simply as ‘Twitter’s creators’. The position of these

creators will be analyzed throughout the essay. However, a few things are important to state

about them. Twitter is currently not-for-profit and the creators worked to create Twitter mostly

as an experiment in social networking and Web 2.018 technologies. Because Twitter is a

password-protected site (users must create accounts and log in to see the site), the audience

18 Web 2.0 refers to interactive sites and programs that allow users to participate in some capacity with the tool. For more information on Web 2.0 sites, see “What is Web 2.0?: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software” available through www.oreilly.com.

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members for Twitter are those who have Twitter. This is important to note because these creators

have an interest in the rhetorical appeals that will be analyzed in this chapter.

The audience of Twitter is any and all Twitter users. Twitter users are those who have

signed up for Twitter and have set up profiles. There are active and inactive Twitter users. Active

Twitter users frequently tweet and check status feeds. Inactive users may have set up accounts

but do not use them with frequency. The below figures, Figure 1: Twitter Account and Figure 2:

Twitter profile for Twitter creator Jack Dorsey, are examples of what newsfeeds and Twitter

accounts look like.

Figure 1: Twitter Account

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Figure 2: Twitter profile for Twitter creator Jack Dorsey

The position of value for Twitter is less easily located and defined than that of the

audience. The purpose of Twitter, and what makes it valuable, is often argued about in

conversations about Twitter19. In fact, many of the recent newspaper articles about Twitter and

discussions of Twitter on television have asked the question ‘why Tweet?’ Many in popular

media seem to believe that Twitter is pointless and thus valueless. However, Twitter identifies

19 I found, when discussing my project with friends and colleagues, that many people see Twitter as valueless. A common sentiment I heard expressed was that Twitter was a waste of time and a narcissistic means of communicating every last thought to people who probably don’t even care. A simply Google search of news articles and blog posts about Twitter finds similar results.

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one simple answer to the question ‘why use Twitter?’, “[w]hy? Because even basic updates are

meaningful to family members, friends, or colleagues – especially when they’re timely. Eating

soup? Research shows that moms want to know. Running late to a meeting? Your co-workers

might find that useful. Partying? Your friends may want to join you” (“Why use Twitter?”).

Therefore, the position of value that Killingsworth would be interested in would be this

statement. According to Twitter, Twitter is valuable because of its simplicity and because of its

ability to connect people. Twitter also is valuable for entertainment purposes. Users can check

Twitter as a way of keeping up with fun, entertaining information. Finally, the medium of

exchange for Twitter is the Internet. Without the connecting force that is the Internet, Twitter

would fail.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of Twitter is its obvious obsession with timeliness.

Twitter establishes an appeal to time in several ways. Primarily, Twitter makes it clear that time

is of the essence with the length limit it places upon user posts. Because posts can be no longer

than 140 characters (which rarely translates to more than two sentences), users post updates

rapidly. Users’ posts are not like traditional blogs, or even other status updaters such as the status

feed on Facebook, which allows users much longer posts, because a clear length cutoff is

provided. Twitter caters to the issue of space efficiency in many ways. One such way is that

Twitter, with the help of an outside program, allows users to shorten URLs to what are referred

to as “tiny URLs” in order to include them in tweets without taking up too much space. Links

also help with the issue of space because they can allow users to include photos and videos

without wasting precious space. The fact that Twitter users’ posts are so short shows that Twitter

appeals to the idea of exigency. Twitter appeals to the idea that what is happening right now is

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more important than what happened in the past. Killingsworth discusses the importance of

exigency and kairos. He writes,

[k]airos has to do with finding the right argument at the right moment. Exigence

suggests that topics emerge as urgent considerations at a particular historical time.

The power of both concepts depends upon the author and audience coming to an

agreement that the moment has arrived for a certain topic to receive close

attention. Right now is the time. (Killingsworth 38)

Twitter certainly operates on the values of both kairos and exigency. Due to the space

constraints that users must deal with, all words must be carefully chosen for a tweet. This need to

carefully choose words points to an issue of kairos. Users must be concerned with saying exactly

the right thing. The issue of time emphasis points to the importance of exigency. Users are truly

finding the right argument at the right moment with each tweet posted, or at least that is what

they are claiming to do.

It is not through length restrictions alone that Twitter uses an appeal to time to attract

users. A timestamp accompanies each post a user makes. However, the timestamp does not give

the time at which the post was made. Instead it tells how long ago the post was made. For

example, immediately after a post is made, a timestamp of “less than five seconds ago” will be

added directly below it. This time stamp will continue to change from seconds to minutes, and

from minutes to hours, and, eventually to days. Figure 3: Twitter Timestamps, gives examples of

what these timestamps look like.

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Figure 3: Twitter Timestamps

Along those same lines, users’ ‘tweets’ are arranged in chronological order, with the most recent

post appearing at the top of the page. The combination of timestamps and the chronological

ordering of posts shows again Twitter’s appeal to exigency. Twitter is clearly placing the highest

value on the most recent posts. This shows that time is one of the most important aspects of the

site, and that time is one of the strongest appeals Twitter makes to its users.

Killingsworth’s discussion of the news media and advertising industry’s simple appeal to

time can be applied to Twitter. Killingsworth argues that these industries use a simple appeal to

“newness” and the idea of “news” as an appeal to time. These same appeals are used for Twitter,

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which is based on the idea that users need to know what other users are doing right now

(Killingsworth 39). Just as Killingsworth says that news media pushes the idea of up to the

moment information gathering, Twitter also places significant importance on what is happening

at the very moment at which it happens.

As with most websites, Twitter blurs the line between time and place. Killingsworth

discusses this by addressing the frequent appeal of ‘virtual space.’ The term ‘site’ alone

demonstrates that the Internet is seen as a place (Killingsworth 66). This is true of Twitter as

well. Twitter encourages its users to create a “place” for themselves. Users set up profiles, pick

people to follow (those users picked to “follow” show up on their user feed), upload profile

pictures, and design their own pages to create a place/space. This appeal to place is directly

connected with Twitter’s appeal to time. For Twitter, time is a virtual place. Twitter is also a

mobile virtual place. Killingsworth writes, “[m]obility is a crucial value in modern life”

(Killingsworth 54). Twitter surely works to appeal to mobility, as already seen with the various

ways in which users can post to Twitter. It is an appeal to mobility that Twitter can be used

almost anywhere. Users can post tweets from cell phones, computers, and other devices such as

iPods, allowing them to tweet from a variety of locations and while on the move. Because of

these options, Twitter is never linked to a single computer, or even to computers as a whole,

making it less connected to the technology used to participate with it, and more connected to the

user himself or herself. Likewise, Twitter, because of its mobility, does not link users to a

country of origin. Twitter can be assessed via cell phone in virtually any country, as long as the

user has portable Internet access or text messaging abilities. This further dislocates identity from

any specific place and puts more emphasis on identity as linked to time and timeliness.

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Like Twitter timestamps, Twitter has recently announced that it will launch place tags.

Twitter plans to begin adding a tiny icon after tweets which, when clicked on, will pull up a map,

showing exactly where the tweet was posted (Parr). This impending Twitter improvement shows

that Twitter creators are continuing to recognize the important part place plays for the site.

Figure 4: Impending Twitter Place Tags, gives an example of what place tags look like from a

pilot program started in New York City.

Figure 4: Impending Twitter Place Tags

Twitter does not only appeal to place through individual user’s status feeds, but also

through the networking of users together. Twitter appeals to place by creating communities of

users. Users pick other users to follow and thus create networks of people being connected

through Twitter. In this way, users are pinned down to a specific place, but it is a virtual one.

Users are connected in a web that exists digitally and physically. A physical web is created via

the PHP and HTML site. The site is housed in a server where PHP converts and controls

information that is then given back to the user via HTML. Users are divorced from this place

because it is irrelevant to them. It does not matter where the information is housed, and does not

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effect – at least in the developed world – what users have access to it. However, the connection

does have a concrete location the iteration of which occurs in digital form.

It is partially through these appeals to time and place that Twitter creates authority

because the time-place created is an exclusive one. Here Killingsworth’s discussion of insider

audiences and discourse communities is helpful. It is through the establishment of an insider

audience that Twitter appeals to authority (Killingsworth 11). Upon first look at Twitter it

appears to be an egalitarian community. It appears that users have a great deal of autonomy, and

that Twitter itself does not appeal to authority. However, upon closer analysis of Twitter it

becomes clear that Twitter makes two large appeals to authority. The first appeal to authority that

Twitter makes is through the site itself as authority. Although Twitter is open to all web users, it

is still an exclusive site that is constantly creating a division between those on the inside and

those on the outside. This creation of an insider audience also gives Twitter seemingly absolute

authority. Because all users must become a part of Twitter before they can even see the site, they

are always operating under the authority of Twitter. Users must buy into what Killingsworth

calls “absolute authority”, or authority that goes unchecked and unquestioned, in order to be a

part of the Twitter community (Killingsworth 11-13).

Likewise, Twitter operates upon a continual division between insider and outsider.

Although Twitter must work to appeal to a larger audience in order to gain more users, it does so

by creating exclusivity. The first way that Twitter divides insiders from outsiders is through the

simple question of access. In order to be a Twitter user one must have Internet and computer

access. This seems basic, but the issue of where Twitter exists excludes users who simply cannot

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get to it20. A user must have Internet access in order to participate in the site. A user must also

create a profile to have access to the site; in order to create a profile a user must have a valid

email address. Those who do not have Internet access (a significant number of people

worldwide) or who do not have or wish to share their email addresses cannot access the site and

are left on the outside21. Exclusivity is reinforced after a potential user chooses to create a profile

by validating his or her email address because once this is done the potential user is then

instructed to create a password that will allow him or her to access the site. The use of a

password reinforces to the user that he or she is a part of an exclusive, closed community.

Similarly, once a user creates his or her profile, he or she can decide to either have an open,

public profile, or a locked, private profile. All other Twitter users can view public profiles. Only

those specifically designated by the user can view locked, private profiles. This creates another

insider-outsider-community within the larger insider-outsider-community of Twitter, and a

hierarchy is formed even among those who do use the site. This directly negates Twitter’s

assertion that it operates outside of hierarchy and exclusivity. Twitter’s creation of community

points back to Killingsworth’s medium of exchange because it shows just how important issues

of access are in determining who does and does not use the site. It is, then, not only true that the

medium of exchange is necessary for being able to appeal to desired audiences, but it is also true

that the medium of exchange is important for excluding those who are not members of the

desired audience. Again, it is clear that it is the medium of exchange that allows users (the

20 As earlier stated, Twitter can be posted to via SMS messages and thus is generally available worldwide. However, more than two-thirds of the world’s population does not have access to Internet or cell phone technology and is left out of participating in Twitter. 21 These issues of access perpetuate the pushing of technology onto those who do not wish to participate in it. As technologies become more and more relevant and useful to everyday life, as well as popular, it is harder to resist using these technologies.

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audience) and creators (the authors) to connect. It is also apparent that the medium of exchange

for Twitter is more complex than Internet access alone.

Twitter also excludes potential users with a more complex issue of access. Although

Twitter can be used with only an Internet connection and computer, the language on the Twitter

website shows an emphasis on having more than this, such as cell phones and special

applications. Twitter asserts a valuing of simplicity through its own definitions of itself22.

However, Twitter does not always encourage simplicity for its users. Instead of allowing one

way to access and update Twitter accounts, users have available to them a multiplicity of

tweeting options. Twitter puts an emphasis on the many different technologies that users can

incorporate, “By accepting messages from SMS, web, mobile web, instant message, or from

third party API projects, Twitter makes it easy for folks to stay connected” (“About Twitter”).

Furthermore, Twitter puts an emphasis on what technology was used to post an update in the

same way that it puts emphasis on the time at which an update was posted. Below each tweet,

along with the timestamp previously discussed, is an acknowledgement of what technology was

used to post the tweet. For example, “5 seconds ago via txt” might be written under a post. This

would mean that the tweet was posted from a cell phone text message. Other options include via

web, tweet deck (a downloadable Twitter management program), or twitter phon and twitterberry

(cell phone applications for Twitter). Although Twitter is not actually requiring that users have

these resources, it is clear that these resources are valued, this valuing of more technology also

creates a hierarchy within Twitter users that further excludes those who do not have such

resources. The fact that this exclusivity works (Twitter is getting more and more popular) does

not completely align with Killingsworth’s assessment of authority and insider audiences.

22 See, again, Twitter’s about page via www.twitter.com/about.

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Killingsworth argues that “[n]o authority is absolute, no evidence is free from questions and

counterexamples. Interpretation is the way of the world, and crafting effective appeals is the way

you bring people to your side and stimulate cooperative action” (Killingsworth 23). Although it

is clearly important to Twitter to have users, it is through exclusivity that Twitter’s identity is

formed. Absolute authority makes Twitter more desirable to its target audience.

After excluding those who do not have access to the appropriate technologies, Twitter

then divides again between Twitter users and nonusers. Although Twitter is open to all Internet

users, one must create an account to access the site. Without an account, one cannot see user

posts, profiles, or anything but the Twitter homepage. The homepage offered to nonusers has an

emphasis on becoming a user because it offers only a small “about” section. The user must create

an account to see anything more than that. Although public Twitter profiles are called ‘public,’

only other Twitter users can view them, not simply anyone with Internet access. Figure 4:

Twitter homepage for nonusers shows what the site looks like for those who do not yet have

Twitter accounts.

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Figure 4: Twitter homepage for nonusers

Among those who do set up Twitter accounts, only those who understand Twitter

language will be able to fully navigate the site. Twitter users must understand Twitter language

such as “tweet,” “tweet-back,” and “retweet” to fully understand what Twitter users are

discussing23. The Twitter website, even on the “about Twitter” page, does not offer definitions of

these terms. They must be learned through experience and word-of-mouth. Although the learning

curve for this language is not terribly steep, it is exclusive. Users must know and talk with other

users in order to pick up Twitter jargon.

Among users who fully understand the Twitter language and interface, another hierarchy

is set up. Those who are more frequently followed have a higher value in the Twitter world (or

Twittersphere as the site calls it). In fact, many users take part in “follow Fridays” where users 23 A “tweet” is a post made by a user. To “tweet-back” is to reply to another user’s tweet. To “retweet” is to repost another user’s post, this is similar to “liking” something on Facebook.

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list their favorite people they follow in order to help those people gain more followers. All of

these appeals work to create, not only an appeal to authority, but also to exclusivity, which

operates in the opposite way that Killingsworth discusses in that the exclusivity and creation of

an insider audience appeals not only to the insider audience, but also to the outsider audience.

This could also be considered an appeal to coolness24. Those who are a part of the Twitter world

feel some authority and thus identify with the popularity that is Twitter. This popularity may be

hard to resist even for those who are most strongly against becoming Twitter users. As Twitter

becomes more and more popular, more users participate who originally believed Twitter to be

valueless. This directly shows how appeals to authority and ‘cool’ persuade nonusers to become

users.

Twitter’s appeal to the desire for popularity relates to the second way in which Twitter

appeals to authority: through an appeal to the self (or user’s self) as authority. Twitter’s language

and design put an emphasis on individuality and individual needs. Twitter allows users to create

unique profiles and feed pages. This gives users a sense of individuality and authority. Users can

upload pictures of themselves, change their background images and designs, and control how

their pages appear to other users. However, Twitter profiles are somewhat rigid in design.

Although colors and images can be changed, the layout of the pages themselves cannot. The

Twitter interface limits individuality while offering the semblance of individuality. Figure 5:

Twitter profile design 1 and Figure 6: Twitter profile design, 2 show how limitedly users can

alter their own profiles. There are several other possible design choices similar to the two shown

that use the same core interface.

24 For more information on appeals to ‘cool’ see Jeff Rice’s The Rhetoric of Cool: Composition Studies and New Media (2007). Rice’s discussion of ‘cool’ as linked to community in this piece points to the importance of gaining “followers” as a way to show how popular one is.

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Figure 5: Twitter profile design 1

Figure 5: Twitter profile design 2

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This is another way that Twitter solidifies absolute authority while offering a small amount of

authority to users. The rigidity of Twitter’s interface helps to reinforce identity structures by

showing users that only so much of their online identity is within their personal control. In this

way, Twitter’s appeal to authority is an appeal to non-authority. This does speak to

Killingsworth’s assessment that there is no such thing as absolute authority in modern rhetoric.

Because Twitter gives users at least a semblance of authority, it must thus give up some of its

own authority, which means that Twitter does not truly have ultimate authority, but that instead,

authority is in constant negotiation between user and site. Therefore, Killingsworth is correct in

arguing that no authority is absolute. There is a negotiation between the authority of Twitter and

the authority of the Twitter user (Killingsworth 23). However, in the end, the most authority

belongs to Twitter.

As can be seen in the above discussion of authority, all of Killingsworth’s appeals relate

back to issues of identity. Twitter appeals to identity and individuality in its users through a

creation of Twitter as self. Twitter does this by appealing to body, race, class, gender, and

economy. Twitter’s language and interface encourage the idea that Twitter is the extension of the

user’s body. This appeal is made even stronger through the multiplicity of ways in which users

can connect to Twitter: users can be connected almost constantly. Killingsworth argues that

appeals to the body often work best in association with other appeals, such as appeals to race or

gender (Killingsworth 69). This is certainly true for how Twitter’s appeal to the body works.

Twitter’s appeal to the body is directly connected with its appeal to time and place. Without the

appeals to exigency and kairos, Twitter users would not feel the need to be continuously

connected to the site. It is this continuous connectivity that fosters an association between

Twitter and the Twitter user’s body.

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Because successful Twitter users are constant Twitter users, Twitter becomes an

extension of the body. Twitter users form an invisible connection between their bodies and their

Twitter accounts. Twitter, essentially, operates under the assumption that users’ tweets are

simply an extension of the thoughts that are already going through their minds at given moment.

Twitter becomes a textual visualization of each user’s mind. Although he is applying his

arguments to studies of literacy, Lester Faigley, in his essay “Material Literacy and Visual

Design,” discusses the ability of websites to be extensions of the person. He argues that just as

written language is the extension of the mind, and thus a material extension of the body, so is the

creation of a space on any website. Faigley uses as examples several website created by

teenagers that display their own personalities and thoughts. Although Faigley is using these

examples to show developments in literacy, the same can be said about Twitter and its appeal to

the body. Twitter appeals to the body by being both a virtual space and a material object. Twitter

is both a created space where users can extend themselves through writing and design and a

material space that can be held and manipulated through connection with technologies such as

the computer, the cell phone, and the iPod being used to create tweets. Faigley addresses this by

saying, “In spite of all the talk about the Internet as cyberspace and a virtual world, the

materiality of the Internet as a medium in unavoidable” (194). Faigley’s analysis shows how the

actual attachment to the technology involved with Twitter use aids in its appeal to the body.

The appearance of Twitter and the language it uses structure the site to look and sound

like a body, which is another way that Twitter appeals to the body. Twitter uses a bird as its logo

and images of cartoon animals and birds appear throughout the site. Figure 7: Twitter bird,

Figure 8: Twitter profile design option, Figure 9: Twitter world AIDS day bird, Figure 10:

Twitter profile bird, Figure 11: Twitter security owl, and Figure 12: Twitter over capacity whale,

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are all examples of logos and icons that Twitter uses that are connected to animals and the

natural world. Many more examples exist, including many tree and leaf images.

Figure 7: Twitter bird logo

Figure 8: Twitter profile design option

Figure 9: Twitter world AIDS day bird

Figure 10: Twitter profile bird

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Figure 11: Twitter security owl

Figure 12: Twitter over capacity whale

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Users are addressed as “tweeters” and the posts they make are “tweets.” Although these noises

are bird noises, they are associated with the human users (because the users are associated

visually with birds), and thus user posts are associated with vocal noises. Killingsworth points to

this type of appeal to the body briefly by saying, “The idea of voice in writing… is a special

appeal to the body. If you trace writing back to its source, there will always be a body present, a

hand pushing the pen or tapping the keyboard, a throat vibrating with the ‘silent’ words on the

page or screen” (Killingsworth 80). Twitter makes this appeal in a direct way by linking the

written text on the site with vocal sounds. By making such a basic connection between user posts

and vocal communication, Twitter is appealing to the body and making itself feel like a natural

extension of the physical body. Tweets become noises users make naturally from their own

bodies, and not independent texts created in a website.

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Kristie S. Fleckenstein also sees written text as an extension of the body in her book

Embodied Literacies: Imageword and a Poetics of Teaching. In this work Fleckenstein argues

that students are intimately tied to their own writing and that this is the case because students see

their writing as an extension of themselves (17-37). The combination of Twitter’s connection

between tweets and the body, as well as its physical presence in the user’s life, allows Twitter to

appeal to this idea of tweets as extensions of the physical body, and of the mind.

Twitter also appeals to identity and the body through appeals to gender, race, age, class,

and location. Twitter appeals to all of these user aspects through appeals to community. Twitter

offers users ways to create networks and connections with other users who have similar interests.

These communities are often constructed around commonalities such as gender, race, age, class,

and location. For example, Twitter is growing in popularity among mothers who share advice

with each other. Another example of this is users who connect based on region. For example,

Wilmington, NC, has a community on Twitter that connects those who live in the area to each

other25. Once again, as Killingsworth points out, it is difficult to see examples of one of these

appeals occurring in isolation. Killingsworth argues that appeals such as place are often

connected to other appeals such as appeals to race. Such connections surely exist in this context.

One of the strongest appeals Twitter makes is an appeal to ‘cool.’ This can be described

as an appeal to popularity, to celebrity, to group identity, and, again, to community. This is,

perhaps, where Twitter has the most social and political impact. Businesses and public figures

25 The line between digital and ‘real’ world is often further blurred with communities built based on location, job, etc. Groups often have meetings called “tweet-ups” where users who are members of the group online mean in the ‘real’ world.

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work to gain popularity by using Twitter as a way to show how cool/relatable they are. Likewise,

individuals use Twitter as a way of categorizing popularity based on number of followers26.

Twitter uses celebrity as an appeal to coolness quite effectively. As stated with John Mayer,

many celebrities tweet. In fact, celebrities are now hiring ‘ghost tweeters’ to update their Twitter

feeds for them. Not only are celebrities profiting from Twitter by gaining popularity and using it

as an avenue for publicizing themselves, but also Twitter is using celebrities to gain popularity as

well. Twitter appeals to potential users by offering them a space where they can connect directly

with celebrities. Twitter users can become followers of their favorite celebrities and keep up to

date with what they are doing. This creates a semblance of intimacy for the user, who may feel

like he or she really knows the celebrity or that he or she is getting insider information from the

celebrity by being able to read the celebrity’s tweets. Celebrities even, at times, have

conversations with non-celebrity users via Twitter.

Similarly, Twitter appeals to popularity. Users keep track of how many people are

following them, and value is placed on having a higher number of followers. These aspects of

Twitter both relate back to the earlier discussions of authority and community and point once

again to Killingsworth’s argument that appeals are almost always interconnected.

It is clear, from using Killingsworth’s model of rhetorical analysis, that Twitter makes

several strong appeals to its users. Twitter appeals to time, exigency, kairos, place and space,

authority, the physical body of the user, and to celebrity or ‘cool.’ All of these appeals work

together to convince the user that Twitter is a necessary, natural part of the users’ bodies and

identities.

26 Recent instances of online bullying contributing to teen suicides shows just how influential online identity as related to popularity and ‘cool’ can be.

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CHAPTER 4: FACEBOOK AND THE BODY: A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF

FACEBOOK

Twitter, as explained in earlier chapters, is in many ways a smaller version of Facebook.

Because Twitter is newer than Facebook in many ways, it is a streamlined version of the most

popular features of Facebook. Twitter creators clearly studied what was popular and unpopular

about Facebook before creating the site. Likewise, Twitter has influenced Facebook27. It was not

until after the creation of Twitter that Facebook changed its emphasis from user profiles to

newsfeeds28. When Facebook was first created, users logged in and found a home page that

displayed new messages, photos, and other communications from users and information about

other users. The emphasis of the page was the communication between users, as this was what

was displayed prominently on the homepage. However, once Twitter was created, it became

clear to Facebook designers and programmers that the most popular aspect of their site was the

newsfeed. Because of the clear popularity of the newsfeed, Facebook revamped its page so that

the newsfeed was what was prominently displayed on the homepage. Messages and other

notifications were moved from the top navigation bar on the page to a very small left corner

navigation bar. The navigation bar changed location and design with this revamping of

Facebook. The new Facebook moved the navigation bar and changed the links on it from full

words (such as “Inbox”) to logos that take up much less space. It is clear from this change that

the emphasis of the site had changed. The less important, less popular functions of Facebook

were literally made to take up less screen space.

27 See Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin’s Remediation: Understanding New Media (2000) for more on how texts work off of one another. This is a clear case of remediation at work. 28 Although it is not clear that site creators modeled Facebook changes off of Twitter popularity, it is hard to believe that Twitter’s extremely visible and publicized popularity did not influence Facebook in many ways.

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Because Twitter and Facebook have influenced each other, they also use many of the

same rhetorical appeals, some in very similar ways and some in slightly different ways.

Facebook, just like Twitter, relies heavily on appeals to time. However, Facebook focuses much

more heavily on user identity than Twitter does. Before examining these appeals more closely,

the three positions and medium of exchange must be located. For Facebook, the author is not a

single entity, and thus, is not straightforward in that the author cannot be concretely analyzed as

one person or entity. There are several people and organizations that contribute to the authoring

of Facebook. First, there are the creators of Facebook. Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg created

Facebook, with financial backing from Eduardo Saverin. Facebook quickly became popular at

Harvard and subsequently spread to other universities. Fellow students Dustin Moskovitz and

Chris Hughes helped design a larger version of Facebook as it gained popularity (Yadav). These

students, or Facebook authors, created Facebook as a hobby for friends and classmates with the

purpose of creating a social network for information sharing and entertainment purposes.

However, as the site grew, they also recognized the financial opportunities Facebook offered,

and so, they also worked with Facebook to make money. Facebook also has corporate interests

from the countless advertisers and financial backers the site has accrued over the last several

years (“Bank on It”). These corporations and businesses also operate as authors of the site

because they hold significant financial control over the site and because of this financial control

have say in what can and cannot occur on the site and within the site’s design. Finally, Facebook

is an interactive site that allows users to edit and design significant sections of their profiles. In

this way, Facebook users become authors as well, with their own interests in how the site is run.

Users want the site to be efficient, entertaining, and informative, and thus hold some power in

the position of the collective author. The complexity of Facebook authorship is an important

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distinction from Twitter because of the corporate interest that is involved. Corporate interests and

investors have motives outside of creating social networks to connect people; primarily these

motives involve advertising and, thusly, money making. Although Twitter was created for the

same purposes of entertainment, community building, and information sharing, a small group of

people created the site without the outside influence of big business interests. Twitter is still

independent of advertisers, although many news outlets and social networking watch groups

speculate that advertisement space will soon be sold for Twitter as well29. If and when this

occurs, the authorship of Twitter will be complicated, as outside interests will impact the site.

Similarly, Twitter is less interactive than Facebook. Although Twitter users create text for the

site and can change the colors and designs of their profiles, they have less access to what is and

is not included in their profiles and cannot create extensive profiles for themselves. Twitter

profiles are simply the users’ newsfeeds, while Facebook profiles are detailed user biographies

that involve significantly more multimedia. Figure 13: Facebook profile options, shows the kinds

of information users can include in their profiles.

29 While I was working on this project Twitter had yet to be sold. However, as the project was going through its final edits, Twitter began to sell advertising space. It has yet to be seen how this will change Twitter’s interface and how it will impact site users.

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Figure 13: Facebook profile options

Facebook users are also the audience of Facebook. As with Twitter, those who participate

in Facebook (Facebook users) are those who are reached by the most aspects of Facebook.

However, Facebook nonusers are also members of the larger Facebook audience because they

are being targeted as potential Facebook users. Although Facebook is a wildly popular and

populated site, like Twitter, it is not an open community. Facebook requires users to create

profiles, which can only be verified via email addresses, in order to use the site. Because of this

login requirement, Facebook is a closed community in which users operate. Users participate in

Facebook for a variety of reasons, including: to connect with friends and coworkers, to foster

new relationships, to share information such as photos, discussions, and comments, and to learn

about other people (Yadav). Potential users are also Facebook audience members. There are

many who do not use Facebook, but whom Facebook still targets (Yadav). Likewise, potential

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advertisers and current advertisers, as well as the creators of Facebook, are also in some ways

audience members of the site. Figure 14: Facebook’s own profile, gives an example of a

Facebook profile.

Figure 14: Facebook’s own profile

Facebook, because of its diverse authorship and staggeringly large audience, has a variety

of positions of value. For advertisers and corporate backers, Facebook’s value is monetary. For

site creators and users, Facebook’s value lies in its ability to connect users, and the entertainment

value of sharing photos, videos, and discussion. Facebook also holds community building value

and family building value.

The medium of exchange for the site is, broadly, the Internet. Again, users must have

access to the Internet in order to be a part of Facebook, and must also be able to access an email

account. The more specific medium of exchange is the site itself, which allows for author and

audience to exchange value, meaning that those who interact on Facebook create culture as well

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as engage in current culture. According to Killingsworth, author, audience, and value must work

together through the medium of exchange. The triangulation of the positions through the medium

leads to success (Killingsworth 2-3). Triangulation occurs when the author appeals to the

audience through the medium of exchange. Killingsworth outlines many helpful means of appeal

that can be applied to Facebook and its author and audience. The first is Killingsworth’s

discussion of appeals to time.

As with Twitter, both Killingsworth’s discussion of kairos and exigency are highly

relevant to Facebook. Facebook operates on the importance of exigency. As Killingsworth

explains it, “now is the time” (Killingsworth 38). This is exactly how Facebook operates. A

user’s Facebook homepage is largely composed of a ‘newsfeed.’ A newsfeed shows the most

recent status updates and activity – such as added photos and comments – of the user’s friends,

with the most recent update appearing at the top of the page. This shows that Facebook is

designed around the idea that what has just happened is most important. In this way, Facebook

appeals to its users by claiming relevance and exigency. Figure 15: Facebook newsfeed, shows

what a Facebook newsfeed might look like.

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Figure 15: Facebook newsfeed

Killingsworth then divides appeals to time into simple appeals to time and complex

appeals to time. Facebook uses simple appeals to time because appeals to time for Facebook are

direct. Much like Killingsworth’s example of news media, Facebook operates on the idea of

newness: what has just happened is most important. The design and order of user newsfeeds

show how important time is. Facebook profiles also emphasize the importance of newness. A

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user’s profile displays the user’s activity in chronological order, with the most recent appearing

at the top of the page. In fact, just as with Twitter, newsfeeds even include time stamps that show

exactly when posts were made. The importance of time is also shown through Facebook

notifications. The moment something happens on Facebook, Facebook users are notified via

email and via red flags that pop up on their Facebook profiles. The importance of being notified

the moment anything changes on one’s Facebook profile or friend list shows that Facebook

operates on the idea that only what is happening right now is important. Figure 16: Facebook

notifications, shows what a Facebook notification looks like.

Figure 16: Facebook notifications

Killingsworth writes that one of the major ways in which time is appealed to is through the

valuing of what is up to date, “We can say that it’s best to be up to date, valuing a break with the

past” (Killingsworth 41). Facebook is arguing that the most recent information and content is the

most important.

Like appeals to time, Facebook uses appeals to place. Killingsworth notes that virtual

places appeal heavily to ideas of place because they must constantly be arguing that they are in

fact places (Killingsworth 66). In some ways, Facebook seems to go against this appeal. The

name itself implies that Facebook is not a place, but instead a book. However, Facebook creates

a virtual place just as Twitter does. Facebook takes Twitter’s community-creating appeals to

place further than Twitter does. Facebook offers myriad ways for users to connect and build

community. First, users must friend each other, creating a network (or community) of friends30.

30 The act of adding Facebook friends is called “friending.”

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Users are also offered the option of joining Facebook networks. Networks are formed around

areas (such as Wilmington, NC) or schools (such as The University of North Carolina

Wilmington). Joining networks allows users to connect with others in similar regions. Just like

with Twitter, this encourages a blurring of the digital and ‘real’ world. Another aspect of

Facebook that fosters community building is Facebook groups. Facebook users can create

‘groups’ for virtually anything from similar music tastes to activist organizations and build

communities with other group members.

Like Twitter, Facebook has issues of authority and non-authority. Facebook, too, appeals

to authority through the creation of exclusive communities. However, because Facebook is more

complex than Twitter it employs more complex appeals to authority. In some ways, Facebook

offers users more autonomy than Twitter. Facebook users have more leeway in creating profiles.

They can pick and choose what does and does not end up included in their profiles. Users can

decide if they want information like age or telephone number included on their profile. Facebook

does not have the same length restriction on status updates that Twitter does, and it also offers

significantly more space for other profile information to be included for each user. Because of

this extra space, Facebook offers users more literal room to create individuality in their profiles.

Thus, Facebook users have more authority over profile creation than Twitter users. Facebook

does not allow for its interface to be altered at all, which is more restrictive than Twitter.

However, as stated previously, Facebook has many more corporate interests that invested in it

than Twitter has, because Twitter does not yet sell ad space. Facebook sells user information,

such as age, sex, music taste, and race, to advertisers and third party groups in order to gain

financially and to allow advertisers to tailor advertisements to specific users. For example, my

Facebook profile states that I am a twenty-three-year-old female. When I log onto Facebook, I

51

often see advertisements that say things like “23-year-old nurses needed” or “how 23-year-old

women lose weight.” These advertisements occur because my personal profile information has

been sold to third-party advertisers. And this has not been done behind my back or without my

consent. Facebook users, when signing up for Facebook, must agree to terms and conditions of

use. This contract states that all information and content added to user profiles, from profile

information to photos and videos, become the property of Facebook and can be sold or used in

any way Facebook deems appropriate or necessary (“Terms”). Information can be sold whether

the information is stored as public or private on the user’s account. Although Twitter also has

terms of use, they do not currently allow for user information to be sold to third parties. Twitter

users still do not own their information because it can and is made public, but they do have the

authority to know where information is being shared – only on the site itself. In this way, Twitter

users have more authority than Facebook users.

Facebook creates the same exclusive community that Twitter creates. Facebook users

must first have access to Internet and email. Then, users must friend each other in order to view

each other’s profiles. However, Facebook is even more exclusive than Twitter because within

Facebook, users can create exclusive groups that users must be invited to join. This, too, gives

Facebook users authority.

Where Twitter’s biggest appeals are to time and place, which in turn indirectly and

tangentially relate to identity and the physical body, Facebook’s biggest appeals are made

directly to body and identity. Much more emphasis is placed on popularity on Facebook.

Facebook users keep track, on their profile pages, of how many friends they have, how many

groups they are members of, and how many networks they belong to. The visualization of these

numbers often breeds competition between users (Yadav). This competition certainly speaks to

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Killingsworth’s analysis of appeals to place and community, and thus to body and identity as

well. Figure 17: Facebook friend count, shows how prominently quantitative information about

user friends is displayed on user profiles.

Figure 17: Facebook friend count

Facebook appeals to the body in many ways. This is not only appropriate for Facebook,

but Killingsworth would likely argue, essential to its survival: “appeals to the body are not

merely a useful approach but an essential element in any effective communication”

(Killingsworth 69). Facebook, similarly to Twitter, appeals directly to the physical body of the

user in many ways. For one, the title of the site is ‘Facebook.’ The title ‘Facebook’ privileges a

physical part of the human body over other parts of the body or other aspects of communication:

the face. This is reinforced because users’ icons are profile pictures, which are more often than

not actual photos of users. These photos appear anywhere users create content or activity on the

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site. If a user posts a comment on another user’s wall, his or her photo appears with the post and

status update feeds include thumbnail photos of users.

Facebook also links text-based communication with verbal communication, as

Killingsworth notes is both common and necessary (Killingsworth 80). This connection is made

through the icons that denote communication. For example, Facebook message notifications are

tiny speech and thought bubbles, as seen in Figure 16: Facebook notifications.

Although Facebook does not use the same link between animal and human that Twitter

relies on to appeal to the physical body of the user, the site still recreates a physical body on each

user profile. As already stated, profiles are identified by profile pictures, which are almost

always real photographs of users. Profiles also include other information that links the user to his

or her body, such as name, age, sex, location, and likes and dislikes. Through all of this, users are

encouraged to recreate themselves on Facebook profiles. This recreation of identity is linked to

the ways in which Facebook appeals to personal identity.

By far, appeals to identity, broken up by Killingsworth into the categories of gender and

race, are the strongest appeals Facebook employs. To begin, Facebook constantly appeals to

gender. Facebook users are asked to label themselves based on sex. The only options Facebook

gives are male and female. Although users can opt out of including this information as visible on

their profiles, they still enter the information when they set up their profile, and that information

is still sold to third parties. This information is then used, as can be seen from the advertisements

that occur on user profiles, to appeal to the user based on gender.

Killingsworth is quick to point out that environments that are considered “modern” (such

as the Internet) still rely heavily on gender division. He argues that although cultures that

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consider themselves ‘modern’ often discount cultural practices of less ‘modern’ groups that

divide based on gender, these ‘modern’ cultures still perform the same act of division:

People living in modern democracies tend to feel superior when they regard the

practices of cultures that closely monitor the division of the sexes and the control

of the body. Tribal customs such as female circumcision and social rules

involving women’s clothing (veiling and long dresses that cover the legs) are

judged on a scale ranging from unconscionably cruel to merely unfair. It is hard to

see them otherwise once the values of liberty and equality come into play. The old

patriarchal cultures, in which the power to make decisions and control the key

processes of life belong exclusively to older men, are treated with contempt by

most educated people in modern Western societies. Such social hierarchies appear

as premodern and outmoded… a fundamental patriarchy still exists in modern

cultures beneath the mask of social tolerance and individual liberty… no matter

how modern the culture, practically everything in the social landscape remains

heavily gendered. (Killingsworth 86)

Although Facebook seemingly allows for the leaving out of sex identifiers, in reality, it is still

relying on these divisions to create and operate its site.

An underlying pattern of patriarchy can also be seen with the default settings of

Facebook. If a user chooses to not upload a profile picture, a default image is used in its place.

This default image is a decidedly traditionally masculine picture. Figure 18: Default Facebook

photo, shows what this image looks like.

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Figure 18: Default Facebook photo

As can be seen with the above Figure 18: Default Facebook photo, the image users have

attached to their profiles when they do not choose to upload their own image is a masculine one.

The above image appears to have what would be considered a traditionally masculine haircut,

shoulder-width, and collared shirt. This is just one example of how Facebook undermines its own

attempts to remain identity-neutral on its site.

Because of this undermining, although Facebook does not ask its users to identify

themselves based on race, either publically or privately, Killingsworth’s discussion of appeals to

race can be applied to the other identity constructs that Facebook does appeal to. In a lecture to a

small group of students, Killingsworth stated that he chose to write about appeals to race in

Appeals in Modern Rhetoric: An Ordinary-Language Approach because it could so easily be

used as an example or model for other appeals (”Buckner Scholars Lecture”). Facebook asks

users to identify themselves based on several characteristics of identity. These include age,

region or location, level of education, job, hometown, and relatives. Each of these pieces of

information link to lists of other users who share these characteristics. This information is also,

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again, sold to outside parties and then used to appeal via advertisements to the users.

Killingsworth argues that appealing to these aspects of identity, which are outside of the control

of users, happens constantly in everyday situations and is powerful because of its unavoidability.

Facebook’s use of identity structures to classify users both publically and privately is powerful as

well, because it reinforces traditional means of division and classification. As is true of many

aspects of society as a whole, Facebook categorizes based on sex, age, location, and other factors

of identification, despite its assertions to the contrary. Facebook, like Twitter, appeals to time,

place, community, and authority. Facebook also appeals to the physical body of the user and the

identity of the user in more complex ways than Twitter. Time, place, identity, community,

authority, and the body make up a large part of one’s ideological background. Facebook and

Twitter create communities that are based upon these appeals.

After analyzing Twitter and Facebook using M. Jimmie Killingsworth’s model of

rhetorical analysis, it is evident that Twitter and Facebook make some similar and some slightly

different rhetorical appeals. It is also evident that the differences between the appeals used by

Facebook and Twitter lie in the fact that Twitter is inherently less complex than Facebook. A

difference in complexity manifests instantly using Killingsworth’s model of analysis. From the

very beginning of each analysis, Twitter is less complex than Facebook. For Twitter,

Killingsworth’s foundations of analysis, the three positions and the medium of exchange, are

simple. Facebook, because it is a more interactive, complex site, has more complex positions and

mediums of exchange. However, as Killingsworth argues will always happen with successful

texts, for both Twitter and Facebook, the three positions work well together using the medium of

exchange. Both sites rely heavily, despite their own descriptions of themselves, on traditional

means of classification to sell advertisement space and to relate to users.

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Although both sites make many appeals, each appeal relates back to the issues of the

body. Although the two sites differ in many ways, as shown by the rhetorical analysis of each,

they are also intimately connected. This is not only because Twitter grew out of Facebook, but

also because users often merge the two sites in yet another attempt to be time efficient. Many

Facebook and Twitter users now rely on third-party programs such as TweetDeck and programs

designed for Blackberries and iPhones that allow users to simultaneously post content to Twitter

and Facebook. These programs also allow users to filter the content from both sites into one

social networking stream that gives them information from both sites to view in one convenient

page. Because these two sites are so closely connected, they work together in the ways in which

they impact user identity. This suggests that social networks, on the whole, still rely heavily on

traditional identity structures to appeal to current and potential audiences.

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CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS

Through the analysis of both Facebook and Twitter, it is clear that identity is constructed

in many ways via these sites. Whether the identities created on Facebook and Twitter are positive

or negative is secondary to the fact that identity structures still exist on both sites. These sites

often present themselves, as has been shown, as identity-neutral, or at least less impacted by

identity structures such as age, race, gender, and class. An analysis of these sites shows that that

assertion is at least partially untrue. Not only are identity structures present on both sites, they are

persistent. The profiles on both sites rely heavily on creating personal identity based on

traditional means of classification such as gender, age, race, and class.

This does not mean that social networking sites are independently creating identity

structures. Identification based on gender, age, race, etc. is not a new or original practice. Social

networking sites are simply a part of a larger society that classifies based on these means. It is,

therefore, problematic to look at social networking sites in any other way. It is dangerous to fail

to acknowledge that identity structures exist in the digital world for the very reason that

Killingsworth articulates when he discusses appeals to gender. Other researchers who have

completed studies of social networking sites have expressed similar sentiments to

Killingsworth’s. Pagnucci and Mauriello agree that, “clearly cyberspace is not immune to the

patterns of stereotyped female imagery that have so pervaded the rest of society” (144). Pagnucci

and Mauriello point to a possible reason for why many may disagree with this assertion:

hopefulness. It is certainly difficult to go into any such study not hoping to find that problematic

identity structures such as gender disparities still exist. In fact, they found themselves hoping that

exact thing, “students in cyberspace still carried the baggage we had hoped they could leave

behind” (Pagnucci 144). The two acknowledge that it is often the hope of researchers and

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academics that the Internet could become a medium of change and growth; however, this is often

not what is found to be the case. Because of this realization, the two wonder if it is wise to

continue to use Internet tools in the classroom,

The gender inequity exhibited in our study raises serious problems for any

educational endeavor in cyberspace. In fact, at its current stage of development,

the Internet may very well be a step backward in providing educational equality

for women. As Marcia Curtis and Elizabeth Kelm (1992) reminded us, ‘because

our classrooms are embedded in the larger society, they can become a site for

radical change, or, as likely, provide a new setting for the replication of the old

order.’ (146)

Although these ideas are specific to an educational setting, the same concerns arise with all uses

of popular social networking sites. If they do not allow for new ways to articulate and define

identity, which has been shown to be the case through the rhetorical analyses this study

performs, then are they too problematic to advocate the use of?

Bronwyn Williams would say no. Williams found, with a similar study, that although

social networking sites propagate traditional structures of identity, they also have positive

functions such as community building,

while acknowledging that popular culture reflects and reproduces dominant

cultural ideologies, individuals in the audience who interpret such texts in the

contexts of their own experiences do not accept them without question, adapting

them to ideas that may or may not conform to dominant cultural values… As

people have read and adopted popular culture texts to their social contexts popular

culture has long served functions of both identity construction and community

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building … The performance of identity is obviously always a social

phenomenon. Thus, popular culture has not only been an element of identity

construction, but also has been a central part of creating community in

contemporary society. (25-26)

But what does all of this mean? It seems clear from the above rhetorical analyses that Facebook

and Twitter do help propagate the ideological structures of identity that other media before have

also facilitated. Facebook and Twitter prompt users to define themselves based on gender, age,

class, race, and sexual orientation in direct and indirect ways. Because Facebook and Twitter

appeal heavily to issues of time, space/place, and physical body, they become important to users.

Indeed, it can be accurately argued that Facebook and Twitter users, as with users of other forms

of technology, begin to feel irrevocably connected to the sites. Through appeals to time, space,

place, and the body, the users begin to feel that the sites are extensions of their own physical

bodies. However, this is complicated by the ways in which the sites define themselves and the

ways in which other media use, talk about, and define the sites. Because the sites are so often

seen as either community building spaces that allow for users to transcend issues of identity such

as racism, sexism, ageism, and homophobia, or as dangerous spaces where privacy is destroyed,

the ways users see themselves in congress with the sites may feel to the users to be different from

previous identities. If users feel as though social networking sites are extensions of their own

physical bodies, and thus reflections of or examples of their already existent personal identities,

and they feel as though social networking tools allow for a breaking down, or at least a

dismissal, of issues such as racism, sexism, ageism, and homophobia, then users may feel as

though social networking tools do indeed influence and even change personal identity.

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However, this is a problematic way to view social networking tools. Because social

networking tools are newer than many other technologies, and because they still operate on a

somewhat large scale of inclusion and exclusion –meaning there are still many in the world who

cannot or do not access to the sites – it may feel as though the things they make us recognize and

call into question, such as issues of identity, are new and thus resultant of the sites. This is not

necessarily the case. Instead, it should be argued that social networking tools such as Facebook

and Twitter simply reinforce structures that are already in place and only seem different because

we are aware of them because we are aware of the technology. Cynthia Selfe warns of the danger

of attributing identity creation to Internet tools in her discussion of technology-phobias in the

article “Technology and Literacy: A Story about the Perils of Not Paying Attention”

There are other things that don’t occur to us, as well. When we use the more

familiar technology of books, for instance, it is mostly within a familiar

ideological system that allows us to ignore, except for those occasional twinges of

conscience, the persistence of print and our role in this persistence. It allows us to

ignore the understanding that print literacy functions as a cultural system – as

Lester Faigley noted two years ago – not only to carry and distribute enlightened

ideas, but also as a seamless whole to support a pattern of continuing literacy in

this country. (413)

Although Selfe is talking about literacy here, her point can and should be easily applied to

identity and social networking tools. Although social networking tools may make users feel as

though they dismiss issues of identity, or allow users to reconstruct identity, they really only

reinforce traditional structures of identity.

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Although it is clear through the rhetorical analyses completed for this study that

traditional identity structures persist in social networking sites despite the sites’ assertions that

this is not the case, it is also clear that community is built through these sites. Like all other

popular media, social networking sites are not a way out of dominant structures, but simply

another opportunity to examine and evaluate such structures. Social networking sites, then,

should not be written off because they do not fulfill their lofty goal of deconstructing

problematic identity structures. Instead, they can and should be used as a way to make us aware

of said structures and being to examine them.

Whether it be to participate in revolutionary newsgathering or to discuss relationships

with John Mayer, social networking tools offer society myriad means of communication. Just as

the pencil, the hammer, and the television before them, social networking tools become a part of

their users and thus a part of how we define ourselves as individuals and as a society. Although

the same danger of identity exists that always does, the danger of stereotyping and hierarchy-

building, the sites also offer a unique means of community building that should not be dismissed

or overlooked.

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