Social media reflect existing social hierarchies
Involvement in church activities, close family ties and sports activities will give you prestige in social media channels in Kristiansand, according to a recent study. Researchers from the University of Agder (UiA) have explored how social media recreate social relations in different cities in Europe.
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“Usually people avoid posting controversial topics on social media. They tend to post pictures of attractive bodies, beautiful landscapes or pictures of themselves in surroundings associated with prestige in networks of like-minded people.,” claims UiA researcher Stefan Fisher-Høyrem.
He is one of six researchers involved in the project “Cultural Conflict 2.0: The Dynamics of Religion, Media and Locality in North European Cities” (CC2-project). The project leader is UiA professor David Herbert. During a three-year period CC2 investigated how and to what extent social media are reshaping social relations in culturally diverse large and small cities in Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands. They have combined big data with traditional research methods.
“This combination of methods has been one of the most exciting parts of the project,” says Fisher-Høyrem..
Inclusion and exclusion
Fisher-Høyrem is responsible for the part of the project based in Kristiansand, Norway. In this city the researchers identified so-called “local clusters” on Instagram. Their aim was to use these clusters to explore how prestige is achieved on social media.
“What is celebrated on social media in the upper middle class in Kristiansand is a life based on church activities, physical activities in beautiful natural surroundings and family,” claims Fisher-Høyrem.
He did not want to single out specific neighbourhoods, but added that there was a correlation between figures in the municipality’s personal income statistics and the places where the strongest clusters were located.
“Social media tend to reflect and amplify existing social hierarchies. In other words the symbols of prestige circulating in a given city are found in postings on social media in the same city. With this in mind, we were interested in identifying outgroups ,” says Fischer-Høyrem..
CC2 had a hypothesis that Muslim youth would form one such group and that young adults who formerly belonged to a religious community, non-religious young adults, as well as individuals with non-traditional family structures would also be excluded from the existing social hierarchies. The projects states that these groups are aware of the fact that they live in a city where existing norms make it difficult for them to be included. They tend to “survive” by establishing closed groups and smaller networks on social media channels.
“This can help us understand why newcomers in smaller cities like Kristiansand can find it hard to be included in established networks,” says Fisher-Høyrem.
Negotiation of status
Fisher-Høyrem finds the conformity in social media striking:
“I don’t think it’s possible to challenge the established form of social media, since it consists of such tight structures. Social media are designed to create uniform clusters.”
The CC2-project reveals that even though users in a variety of clusters speak freely, their postings fall into specific genre categories due to the algorithms used in social media. Users are dependent on receiving “likes” and comments to their content.
“Without likes and comments you are invisible. And you cannot be visible without conformity,” claims Fisher-Høyrem.
He stated that the main rule in social media is a mutual negotiation of status. Conflict is a part of this negotiation. However, it is a more subtle and mundane conflict than the ones found in media outlets and political discussions.
New life to old hierarchies
The CC2-project was presented at a conference in Oslo in December 2017. Participants from twelve countries discussed the project, and one of the main claims was that social media have contributed to reviving “old” hierarchies based on class, gender and race.
“If this technology makes us dependent on our audience, we must ask ourselves: whether we could live our lives without an audience. Wouldn’t that be better for us? We wouldn’t have to perform all the time. On the other side, I understand the risk of being left out if you stop using social media. Social media’s core aspects are inclusion, exclusion and conformity,” he says.
The other members of the CC2-team are Irene Trysnes, University of Agder, Janna Egholm Hansen VIA University College, John D. Boy, University of Amsterdam and Justus Uitermark, University of Amsterdam. The project is funded by the Research Council of Norway. The project was concluded November 2018.
Find out more about the project here.
Text and photo: Kamilla Rudberg