University of Amsterdam Department of Media Studies
New Media & Digital Culture MA Thesis 2015 -2016 24 June 2016
Social Engagement in Times of Mourning
A Platform Analysis of the Social Activity in the Aftermath of the Paris and Brussels AttacksBy Jennifer Swagers | 5947030
ABSTRACT
This thesis outlines how social engagement has been facilitated on Facebook in times of mourning as a result of crisis events. It states that there has been a shift towards a new kind of engagement that is partly dependent on Facebook’s grammars of action. To perform this study, this research made use of four cases and their data, namely the Pray For Paris Community Page, the Pray For Paris 13/11/2015 Group, the Pray For Brussels Community Page, and the Pray for brussels Group. The four cases were created in the aftermath of the Paris and Brussels terror attacks, which took place the 13th of November, 2015, and the 22nd of March, 2016. Through the Digital Methods tool Netvizz, this research extracted the data of the first two weeks of each of the four pages, after the related crisis event took place. This research is placed in a critical discursive analysis about engagement in relation to platform studies, by using theories about engagement, mourning, grammars of action, and affordances. The analysis indicates that the Like-endorsement is a new form of intentional memorialising in times of mourning as a result of crisis events, which leads to a contribution in the field of platform, mourning, and engagement studies.
KEYWORDS
TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION -3
1. THEORETIC FRAMEWORK: SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT ON PLATFORMS - 5
1.1. USER ENGAGEMENT AS INVOLVEMENT-ENGAGEMENT - 6
1.2. ENGAGEMENT FACILITATED BY THE TECHNICITY OF PLATFORMS
- 12
2. METHODOLOGY: ANALYSING DATA OF FACEBOOK PAGES - 19
2.1. PLATFORM STUDIES - 22
2.2. DIGITAL METHODS - 23
2.2.1. NETVIZZ - 23
3. ANALYSIS OF FACEBOOK AND THE FOUR PAGES - 26
3.1. GRAMMARS AND ENGAGEMENT IN THE AFTERMATH - 27
3.2. TWO ADDITIONAL FEATURES - 48
3.3. THE LIKE-ENDORSEMENT - 51
4. CONCLUSION - 52
INTRODUCTION
When people are mourning, they used to act on the use of habits that are integrated into cultures and religions, like lighting candles, wearing black, walking silent marches, or praying to honour the deceased. This was, and still is, a way of thinking about someone who passed away, to memorialise a tragedy, or to show solidarity to the relatives of the victims. However, as the social life of people has experienced a partial shift towards social network, so did the various ways of mourning and the way in which people experience life and death. The Dutch funeral insurance, N.V. Nederlandse Uitvaartverzekering Maatschappij, argued for instance that they noticed a shift from obituaries in newspapers towards social network sites, like Facebook, where people reacted with comments out of sympathy and solidarity (Westerink n. pag.). But also online memorialising became a more regular thing with registers for condolences on specialised websites for victims of wars and crisis events, for famous people, but also for ordinary people who passed away (Walter et al. 282-283). On Facebook, profiles of deceased persons did turn into online memorialising pages. Also the digital RIP statuses of users on social network sites became a frequent phenomenon (Walter et al. 285).
However, recently a new way of online mourning took place after the world was shaken up, again, with terror attacks by the Islamic State (IS) in Western Europe. On the 7th of January 2015, terrorists attacked the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris. 17 people were killed by terrorists of the IS (NOS, 2015 n.pag.). A period of national mourning followed in France. It was all over the news, there were marches in and outside of France to show solidarity, powerful political figures publicly decried the attacks, people were laying down flowers and were lighting candles on the place of the attack. But, beside that, it was the social engagement on social media that was overwhelming in this time of mourning. People changed their profile picture into an image with the sentence “Je suis Charlie” (I am Charlie), the hashtag #jesuischarlie was often shared, and many groups and community pages were created on Facebook with the name Je suis Charlie.
This kind of social engagement was expanded in the aftermath of the Paris terror attacks, which took place on the 13th of November, 2015. An attack that became one of the most severe terrorist attacks since 9/11, whereby 130 people were killed by terrorists on multiple locations through self-bombing and shootings around the centre of Paris (NOS, 2015 n. pag.). The IS claimed the attacks (RTL Nieuws n. pag.). In the aftermath of the Paris terror attacks people around the world showed their support to all Parisians. On social media platforms, numerous users started sharing their engagement with the Parisians in different
ways. Especially the hashtag #prayforparis and the related image became popular among the users. After the London artist Jean Julien twittered a self made Eiffel Tower peace sign with the text “Peace for Paris”, it quickly became a symbol for the brutal attacks. This was also visible in the many new Facebook pages with the page name Pray for Paris that were created the day after the attacks to show their support to the Parisians. It was remarkable to notice how many people were actively socially engaged with the attacks on Facebook, in a time that was officially called as national mourning by President Hollande (Brummelman n.pag). Furthermore, Facebook launched for the first time features as support and solidarity towards the Parisians.
On the 22nd of March, 2016, the world was shaken up by another unexpected crisis event. Brussels was startled with terror attacks at the airport Zaventem and their subway station. 32 people died as a result of the attacks (NOS, 2016 n. pag.). Also the days after the Brussels attacks were officially called a time of national mourning by the government of Belgium (NU.nl n. pag.). The attacks were memorialised on social network sites in a similar way as the previous attacks. People all over the world showed again their engagement on social network sites, this time with the hashtag #prayforbrussels.
Although terrorist attacks are not new, neither is showing solidarity in times of mourning, but it was striking that people were so involved with these events, with the victims, and the survivors who they most likely did not know personally, but still felt the need to show solidarity in these times of mourning in the form of social engagement on social network sites like Facebook.
The research question taken by this thesis is: How is the social engagement facilitated on Facebook in times of mourning as a result of crisis events? The way this research is being done is through researching 4 case studies, related to the Paris and Brussels attacks, namely: the Pray For Paris Community Page, the Pray For Paris 13/11/2015 Group, the Pray For Brussels Community Page, and the Pray for brussels Group. The Paris attacks are chosen, for the reason that they reached a new social engagement level on Facebook, that was facilitated by the users and by the platform as well. The Brussels attacks are chosen since they form the most recent crisis event in Western Europe at the moment of this research, and on the basis of these attacks this research is able to research if this new social engagement remained.
Previous researches studied how engagement is formed, and how mourning experienced a shift towards social network sites. Previous researches also performed software studies to untangle technology that has been integrated and facilitated by platforms. Though
much has been written about online engagement on social network sites, how social media platforms are integrated in users’ daily lives, even so far as mourning on social network sites, no academic research has been conducted into, what this research argues, a new kind of social engagement on Facebook in times of mourning as a result of crisis events in Western Europe. A research that is important, since terror attacks in Western Europe are a current social problem, which has already led to a lot of victims with a huge extent and continuity of a threat for more terror attacks in Western European countries (National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism n. pag.). Furthermore, social network sites became a reflection of their users’ social lives and activities. Facebook alone has “1.09 billion daily active users on average for March 2016” (Facebook – Company Info). This contributes to the reason for measuring social engagement and topics of broad and current interest, in the field of digital media, and specifically on social network sites.
The thesis is carried out from a digital cultural perspective, while doing a descriptive and methodological analysis. It will discuss in detail how user engagement is achieved in relation to technology, and particularly in times of mourning in the aftermath of the Paris and Brussels attacks. It will furthermore untangle how user engagement is facilitated by Facebook in relation to the four cases. This thesis suggests that there is a need for a new concept that can define this new kind of social engagement on Facebook.
1. THEORETIC FRAMEWORK: SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT ON PLATFORMS This research is placed in the critical dialogue about how social engagement is facilitated on Facebook in particular. It focuses partly on how engagement, in relation to times of mourning, is facilitated by the motivation of users, and partly how platforms, like Facebook, are able to structure engagement. Engagement is a concept that is focusing on connections, like relationships, alliances, or something similar between subjects, or subjects and objects on multiple levels. But, as Phil Turner already argued, engagement is a concept that appears in different disciplines, from pedagogic to its relation to art (34). It is, however, the engagement in the form of involvement, discussed as involvement-engagement, in the relation with technology that this research is interested in (Turner 34). In the field of human-computer interaction, engagement has been used to untangle the relationship between humans and the technology humans use to enable (social) interactivity. However, there are still, in the form of involvement-engagement, multiple perspectives about how to approach and define it. Ksiazek et al. claim that the way users are involved with media “is often expressed as interactivity”
(3). While, in contrast, Turner claims that interaction is a consequence of involvement-engagement (41). While using Ksiazek et al.’s position, “the fervour of discussion about engagement suggests that engaging interactions are sought after by both users and developers of computer systems and applications” (O’Brien & Toms 939). From this position, this research sketches on the one hand how user engagement in the form of involvement-engagement is established to define in what forms involvement-engagement can be facilitated, with a view to how social engagement is facilitated in times of solidarity and mourning after crisis events. And on the other hand, this research sketches how engagement is facilitated by platforms, Facebook in this case, with the help of grammars of action and affordances. To start with, user engagement as involvement-engagement.
1.1 USER ENGAGEMENT AS INVOLVEMENT-ENGAGEMENT
User engagement is shaped through different motivations that eventually can lead to solidarity and mourning. A common thread in the approach of engagement, in the human-computer studies, is that the concept has been connected “to peoples’ experiences with technology” (O’Brien & Toms 938). Turner explains this connection as “a dyadic relationship with technology” in which “engagement then becomes a property of the technology to which we (as users) respond by becoming involved with it” (34). He argues furthermore that the availability of technology can be seen as an important requirement before any degree of involvement can occur (35). Ksiazek et al. claim furthermore that “engagement is a broad phenomenon that describes all sorts of user attention and involvement with media (3).
The involvement that occurs is often compared with interactivity, as Ksiazek et al. argued, although Turner sees it as a consequence of involvement-engagement. Turner points out that people first have to make a connection with technology “in-order-to” check something, which is defined as interaction (41). According to Ksiazek et al. the interactivity between the user and the technology arises at the moment of three primary motivations as empirical research has sorted out (3). Information seeking, socialisation or social interaction, and entertainment are the primary motivations for interaction in this case (Ksiazek et al. 3).
Information seeking is associated with the “multi-directional flow of information” (Ksiazek et al. 3). Flow is used by Raymond Williams to describe the continuous stream of images on television, that results in retaining people’s attention. Csikszentmihalyi describes flow as a condition “in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the
sheer sake of doing it” (Csikszentmihalyi in O’Brien & Toms 939). And Webster has described flow “as a multidimensional construct, encompassing perceptions of user control, attention focus, arousal of curiosity, and intrinsic interest in a computer interaction” (Webster in Webster & Ahuja 664-665). This similar kind of attention also occurs with involvement-engagement in combination with online media where information appears in a continuous flow. Think of online news websites, and social network sites where content is supplemented with great regularity. However, O’Brien & Toms argue that there is a difference between flow and engagement. “Flow requires sustained, long-term focus and loss of awareness of the outside world; engagement should still occur in the midst of today’s multitasking and dynamic computer environment” (O’Brien & Toms 939). This is consistent with the statement of Turner. Turner argues that technology is becoming familiar to use, it becomes ready-to-hand, which means “that we encounter/experience technology as being proximal or handy and as being available for immediate use or action” (37). Which means that people need less attention to perform an act with technology. The multi-directional is located in “the interactive nature of online media enables the audience to not only receive information but also disseminate and remark it” (Ksiazek et al. 3). This is especially something where social media platforms, like YouTube, Google+, and Facebook, contribute to, since users can upload their own (produced) content, the so called user-generated content (Van Dijck 8). It is furthermore the social network sites, like Facebook, that meet also the other two primary motivations of interaction, namely socialisation or social interaction, and entertainment. Social network sites “primarily promote interpersonal contact, whether between individuals or groups; they forge personal, professional, or geographical connections and encourage weak ties” (Van Dijck 8). And watching different content, like videos and images, of other persons can be understood as entertaining, for instance.
These three motivations, information seeking, socialisation or social interaction, and entertainment, are further distinguished between two sorts of interactivity: user-content
interactivity and user-user interactivity. User-content interactivity is mainly focusing on the
need for information since it “involves a user interacting with content and producers such as posting an initial comment to a video thread” (Ksiazek et al. 3-4). User-user interactivity finds its motives in “the need for social interactions” which involves two or more users (Ksiazek et al. 3-4). “Both forms of interactivity signal a highly engaged user, where the individual is not just exposed to content, but demonstrates evidence of cognitive processing” (Ksiazek et al. 4). It is, subsequently, both forms of interactivity that can be seen as
involvement-engagement and which are visibly present on social network sites in the comments. However, each engagement will not last forever.
There are four stages of user engagement, which form the process of engagement according to O’Brien & Toms. The four stages are: point of engagement; period of
engagement; disengagement; and reengagement. The first stage, the point of engagement,
forms the beginning of the process of engagement. It is in this stage that one feels somehow a trigger to participate, to engage with something. O’Brien & Toms explain this as a stage that “was initiated by the resonance of the aesthetic or informational composition of the system interface with users. These elements captured participants’ attention and interest and moved them forward into engagement” (943). After users pass the point of engagement, they enter the stage of period of engagement. In this stage the degree of the user’s attention and the level of interests are important. Both are “achieved by the presentation of feedback and novel information and features on the interface” (O’Brien & Toms 944). Besides that, a user likes to be challenged during the engagement, wants to get feedback on the information that has been communicated, and wants to feel some control on his action of engagement, thus O’Brien & Toms (944). It is also possible for users of engagement to enter the disengagement stage. “Disengagement occurred when participants made an internal decision to stop the activity, or when factors in the participants’ external environment caused them to cease being engaged” (O’Brien & Toms 944). Internal as well as external factors are playing a role in the development of disengagement. An internal factor could simply be that the user has a lack of interest and external factors could be that the novelty of the content is gone or that the technology is not working properly. After disengagement, there is one final stage: reengagement. Reengagement comes up when the disengagement was not the final stage, and the engagement has been put in motion again. The disengaging stage is in this case just a pause in the process of engagement.
Besides the four stages in the process of engagement, it is possible that a user does not feel engaged at all. In that case the user is in a nonengagement stage. O’Brien & Toms define nonengagement as “the inability of the online experience to emulate a real-life encounter, technology issues such as information overload and pop-ups, communication tools that delay feedback, and being required to multitask or manage interruptions” (950).
These four stages of engagement are based on the framework “the four threads of experience” which McCarthy & Wright introduce to describe user experience with technology (42). The four threads of experience, namely a. compositional b. spatiotemporal c. emotional and d. sensual, are intertwined with each other. The first one, compositional,
defines the narrative structure. If there are too many questions about the action itself, then one can assume that the compositional is not explicit enough. The second one, spatiotemporal, “draws attention to the quality and sense of space-time that pervades experience” (McCarthy & Wright 42). The emotional component refers to one’s “value judgments” like fun or sad, and how experience with technology itself has been judged (McCarthy & Wright 42). The last one, sensual, focuses on what “the design and texture and the overall atmosphere” feels like (McCarthy & Wright 42). This has to do with the device one is using and how social space around one is organised at the moment of the experience. These four components are standing in relation to six sense-making processes: anticipating; connecting; interpreting; reflecting; appropriating; and recounting (McCarthy & Wright 42-43). Anticipating refers to the idea that everyone is already prejudiced and has expectations before engaging with technology. Connecting refers to the judgmental characteristic of humans. In a split second one can make up his mind about something. Interpreting defines how someone is working out the narrative structure. Reflecting refers to the way one examines the action that happened. Appropriating is in order when “we work out how a new experience fits with other experiences we have and with our sense of self” (McCarthy & Wright 43). The last one of the six sense-making processes, is recounting. Recounting includes the way one tells about the experience towards others, but also how he plays the stories for himself. All of these processes have their influences on the user’s experience with technology.
Although the above explained how user engagement should be defined, including the different forms, it did not discuss how solidarity and mourning towards unknown others is related to user engagement in the online sphere. To do so, the next section will take a step towards online mourning and cosmopolitan solidarity in combination with the influence of journalism during crisis events. This stands in relation to this research considering the research question is about social engagement in times of mourning as a result of crisis events.
Mourning and cosmopolitan solidarity shaped by journalism
There has been a shift from offline mourning towards online mourning. Walter et al. argue that where mourning used to be completely offline, mourning happens more and more on the Internet as well. It is the Web 2.0 that “has brought the personally known dead and dying onto the computer screens, mobile phones, and iPads which many people now spend more time on than they do watching television” (Walter et al. 285). This is reflected on social network sites, which can be seen as non-grief specific sites where intentional memorialising
and unintentional memorialising take place (Walter 282-283). Intentional memorialising in non-grief-specific sites occurs when people make a special memorial page for a deceased person on sites that are not originally designed for this purpose. And unintentional memorialising in non-grief specific sites refers to sites where “a person’s digital works can hang around in cyberspace indefinitely” (Walter et al. 283).
However, with this shift from offline mourning towards online mourning, the grief has become less private and more public. “Mourning those you have never met has become common practice” (Walter et al. 288). Unknown others are wishing the bereaved the best, or mourning celebrities is shown with RIP statuses. Though Walker et al. focus mainly on mourning personal deceased, it is often the news that makes people aware of the death of famous people, or unexpected victims as a result of crisis events, like the terror attacks, which can lead to cosmopolitan solidarity.
Cosmopolitan solidarity shaped by (convergent) journalism in the aftermath of crisis events, can lead to cosmopolitan mourning unknown others. Solidarity, in the structure of the humanitarian, refers to “the imperative to act towards vulnerable others without the anticipation of reciprocation” (Chouliaraki, ‘Improper distance’ 364). It gives, furthermore, “rise to social cohesion and depends upon an awareness of and identification with a collectivity” (Hunt & Benford 434). Journalism is partly responsible for the extent of solidarity that occurs in the aftermath of crisis events towards unknown people, which can eventually lead to social engagement. How journalism, and mainly convergent journalism, is establishing cosmopolitan solidarity towards distant others after crisis events, is discussed by Lilie Chouliaraki.
Journalism does not only inform the public, but determines also “whether and how we respond to the suffering of others, how we formulate moral criticism, how we articulate political analyses” (Butler 64). This is done through the three speech acts, namely the acts of
informing, deliberating, and witnessing, according to Lilie Chouliaraki. She defines speech
acts as a concept that “refers to those acts of communication that, beyond their referential value to conjure up the external world, simultaneously have pragmatic value in that they enact certain dispositions towards the social world and, thus, attempt to intervene practically in this world” (Re-mediation 270). The first of the three speech acts, informing, refers to the professional task of journalism to inform their public with facts, and to give the facts in the most objective form possible (Chouliaraki, Re-mediation 271). The second one, deliberating, “is less about the assertion of facts and more about the creation of common spaces where people share views on matters of public concern” (Chouliaraki, Re-mediation 271). The last
one, witnessing, is about the task of journalism, “that turns evidence of human suffering into moral discourse so as to invite our judgment and action upon it” (Chouliaraki, Re-mediation 271). It is especially the last two speech acts that have the most influence on public opinions. However, each form of journalism varies in the extent of speech acts. The traditional mass journalism focuses mostly on the act of informing, but still has to decide what is newsworthy and what is not. The convergent journalism on the other hand, which has more forms of journalism like a printed newspaper, videos, and an online news stream on the website, places “more emphasis on the acts of deliberation and witnessing through ordinary voice” (Chouliaraki, Re-mediation 271).
It is, eventually, the convergent journalism that Chouliaraki pays attention to in relation to ecstatic news, which she defines as “news so extraordinary that it warrants live coverage beyond the normal news bulletin, bringing global audiences together around a 24/7 mode of reporting” (Chouliaraki, Re-mediation 272). The ecstatic news is subjected, by Chouliaraki, to three structures of mediation: re-mediation, inter-mediation, and
trans-mediation. The first one, re-mediation, is about how the news is “structured in the global
news flow” (Chouliaraki, Re-mediation 273). Live-blogs, from news broadcasts for instance, contribute to a form of solidarity by the public. The live-blogs can consist of new information, but also of new footage that was recorded by ordinary people. This can lead to “an emotional public realm, where ordinary and expert voices coexist without hierarchies in a trans-national space of solidarity for distant sufferers” (Chouliaraki, Re-mediation 273) . The second one, inter-mediation, is about how media structures are connected to each other. Convergent journalism can also use social media channels to spread the news, to communicate with others, “with a view to facilitating the informational management of the disaster” (Chouliaraki, Re-mediation 274). The last one, inter-mediation shows if the news leads to any form of physical action. An often physical action by ordinary people is for instance donating money, or donating blood to help the victims. By all of these three mediations, the voices of journalists are alternated with the voices of ordinary people which leads to “the disposition of “I have a voice”” for the ordinary people, a celebrated disposition according to Chouliaraki (Chouliaraki, Re-mediation 275). With the advent of the disposition of “I have a voice”, new ways of recognition and solidarity towards the vulnerable others arise. It also contributes to the way people can engage with content and make a contribution to social discussion topics, like crisis events.
The voice of journalism and the voice of ordinary people can furthermore determine how other people think and feel emotionally engaged to a certain topic. Which is important in
relation to involvement-engagement since “emotions effectively guide our actions and decision-making (consciously and unconsciously)” (Turner 38). Martin argued that “negotiating solidarity is a complex process that may involve feelings of different kinds and thus communities with different membership (e.g. affect inviting sympathy on the one hand, versus judgment prescribing disapproval on the other hand)” (327). Martin further claims that by using typical words in the used language, like angry, tragedy, mourning, terrible, and terrorism, assumptions can be made about how to feel towards others, who the bad guys are, and who the victims are. The voice of journalism and the voice of ordinary people are, in the contemporary landscape of social media, often shared in the original or modified form on social network sites, which can lead to online mourning unknown others. How platforms, like social network sites, offer a stage for user engagement is discussed in the next subchapter.
1.2 ENGAGEMENT FACILITATED BY THE TECHNICITY OF PLATFORMS Platforms facilitate engagement through the technicity of grammars of action and affordances. “Each platform implements an intricate scheme of coding and branding strategies to shape specific niches of online sociality” (Van Dijck 41). Since certain platforms, like social media sites, can only work properly with user-generated content, it is necessary that the possibilities are there to encourage user activity and engagement. Developers of the platforms focus on this aspect as Gerlitz & Helmond argued. “Developers can create apps and buttons that allow users to perform any custom action on any web object. The expansion is driven by the desire to enable more social web engagement” (Gerlitz & Helmond 2). Platforms, like Facebook, have next to the purpose of making the platform social, also a commercial purpose. Both purposes are explained on the basis of the concepts grammars of action and affordances.
Grammars of action: the captivity and structuring of activities
Grammars of action enables platforms to use the input for measuring and structuring user activity. This process could lead to certain behaviours and activities on platforms, like showing solidarity in moments of mourning. Philip Agre has discussed the concept of grammars of action in his text Surveillance and Capture: Two Models of Privacy (1994). With this definition, this part will provide a better understanding of how certain user engagement is structured by the platform, due to its character of a tethered appliance.
A tethered appliance possesses power due to its built-in technicity which cannot be changed by unauthorised people. This can be explained on the basis of appliancisation.
Appliancisation is a concept that Jonathan Zittrain introduced in his book The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It (2008). Traditional media devices used to be a simple working
device with the technology integrated. It had all its functionality in it and users were able to improve and generate it by tinkering with it. Over the years this has changed into a device with network technology in it. The technology can be changed or upgraded from a distance through the network by only the manufacturer of the technology. The consequence is that the user cannot tinker with the technology anymore. “Updates come from only one source, with a model of product development limited to non-user innovation” (Zittrain 106). Zittrain refers to this kind of device as tethered appliances (106). According to Zittrain, “tethered appliances belong to a new class of technology” (106). He defines it as follows: “They are appliances in that they are easy to use, while not easy to tinker with. They are tethered because it is easy for their vendors to change them from afar, long after the devices have left the warehouses and showrooms” (Zittrain 106). The iPhone is such an example of a tethered appliance since they “receive remote updates from the manufacturer, but they generally are not configured to allow anyone else to tinker with them” (Zittrain 106). A tethered appliance appears not only in the physical form of a device, but users can also find it in applications and websites nowadays. Van Dijck refers to Zittrain’s denomination of “appliancisation” when discussing the shift of websites, because although before they “were generally operated as conduits for social activity, the new platforms increasingly turn these conduits into applied services, rendering the Internet easier to use but more difficult to tinker with” (Van Dijck 6). Van Dijck refers furthermore explicitly to social media platforms as being part of this development. “Social media platforms, as they are now commonly called, epitomise the larger conversion from all-purpose devices to linear applied services” thus Van Dijck (6). There are, naturally, some changes that come with this development. The tethered appliances are becoming easier to use, and because of their updates they are constantly improving, but at the same time they “are much more powerful than traditional appliances” (Zittrain 107). Furthermore, an appliance will only work properly as long as the maker allows it to. The consequence, according to Zittrain, is that “appliances become contingent: rented instead of owned, even if one pays up front for them, since they are subject to instantaneous revision” (Zittrain 107). Although Zittrain explained it comprehensively, not much has been written about the concept of appliancisation and it can be enlarged in the field of social network sites. One of the options that tethered appliances have to structure activities and maintain a certain power, is through adding and changing the grammars of action to their functions on the platform.
Grammars of action is a certain software system that is based on specific algorithms that translate or ‘grammatise’ the input into a meaningful output that organise human activity. Philip Agre argues that “each employs formal “languages” for representing human activities. Human activities is thus effectively treated as a kind of language itself, for which a good representation scheme provides an accurate grammar. This grammar specifies a unitary action” (106-107). Agre continues saying that “what matters in each case is not the sequences of “inputs” to or “outputs” from a given machine, but rather the ways in which human activities have been structured” (107). But, as Agre argued, if (new) human activities are not able to be grammatised by the system, then these activities need to be structured into an activity that can be grammatised (108). In this way human activities are being structured into new forms of activities by platforms due to grammars of action, which could lead to new or other kinds of user engagement on platforms.
To perform grammars of action, the human activities need to be captured, in order to serve as the input. For this reason grammars of action are associated with privacy related topics. Agre connects the concept grammars of action to two models of privacy, namely the
surveillance model and the capture model. The first one, the surveillance model is a model
that is about being watched, visibly and invisibly. Agre defined this model as “currently dominant in the public discourse of at least the English-speaking world, is build upon visual metaphors and derives from historical experiences of secret police surveillance” (101). Agre also compares this model with Orwell’s “Big Brother is watching you” (104). The second one, the capture model, is the other model of privacy that Agre discussed in his text. Agre describes ‘capture’ as a term with two uses. “The first and most frequent refers to a computer system’s (figurative) act of acquiring certain data as input, whether from a human operator or from an electronic or electromechanical device” (Agre 105). Agre continues with “the second use of “capture,” which is more common in artificial intelligence research, refers to a representation scheme’s ability to fully, accurately, or “cleanly” express particular semantic notions or distinctions, without reference to the actual taking-in of data” (105). To define the grammar of action for platforms, and Facebook in particular, this research is mainly interested in the captivity of human activity.
The captivity of grammatised activity has for Facebook a social value, but also a commercial value. “Facebook has shaped sociality at the same time and by the same means as it has been shaped by technological advances, legal codes, and market forces” as Van Dijck argued (65). This claim is explained on the basis of the Like button as a feature which is integrated with grammars of action. The Like button on Facebook is described by Van Dijck
as “a feature that lets users express their instant approval of a specific idea or item and share it” (Van Dijck 49). It was introduced by Facebook in 2009, after they noticed that reactions in the form of comments were hard to rate, hard to grammatise (Facebook - “I like this”). This new form of saying ‘I like this’, contributes by changing previous behaviours of saying ‘Awesome’, but also ‘So sad’ into ‘Like’ with a click on the Like button, which changed the way how people can show engagement in a changing architecture of the platform. However, as Facebook noticed, not everything is likeable; sometimes users wish to dislike the content in times of mourning for example. Subsequently, Facebook expanded on the 24th of February, 2016, the Like button under comments with multiple Reaction features. With this, “Mark Zuckerberg had finally conceded that the platform needed a more nuanced way for users to interact with posts, for the obvious reason that not every post in likeable” (Stinson). Now a like can be a simple ‘Like’, but also a ‘Love’, ‘Haha’, ‘Wow’, ‘Sad’, or ‘Angry’ Reaction, by clicking on the fitted emoji button. “Facebook decided to focus on the sentiments its users expressed most often” (Stinson). A ‘Like’ can now be categorised into these six options, when doing research into the social engagement of users on Facebook. But moreover, the human activity of clicking on the Like button is now even better to grammatise than before, by Facebook, with the multiple Reaction features. However, it is overall still the total number of clicks on the Like button, as before, that shows the “social activity that can be performed on most shared objects within Facebook, such as status updates, photos, links or comments” (Gerlitz & Helmond 5).
The Like button, in its original form, is not only present in the surroundings of Facebook, but it is also present on external websites as a link to Facebook. The Like button and other social buttons are becoming important when the social activity needs to be measured. Ksiazek et al. already mentioned, in relation to user engagement, that “as digital platforms afford us greater ability to track behaviour in more subtle ways, we can disentangle popularity and interactivity, examine the relationship between them, and better understand these alternative measures of engagement” (Ksiazek et al. 5). Gerlitz & Helmond argue that “hits and links function as central measurements for user engagement” (2). They claim “that what is in the making, is not only a social web, but also a recentralised, data-intensive infrastructure which we conceptualise as a ‘Like economy’” (Gerlitz & Helmond 2). In the Like economy it is Facebook that is “seen as the emerging agent of the social web” (Helmond). Helmond explained this further with the idea that “the company’s recent effort to make the entire web experience more social marks the advent of a different type of economy which is based on social indexing of the web”. Social indexing is established through liking,
commenting, sharing, and by using other social buttons. With a simple click a user can share his ‘like’ with his friends on Facebook who can do the same in turn. Each like and each hit has economic value to Facebook, but also the third parties who buy this captivity of grammatised activities (Van Dijck 47). Furthermore with this data, Facebook is able to improve certain connectedness on their platform, which can “empower and enriching social experiences” (Van Dijck 47). One way of doing so, is by “engineering and manipulating connections” as an automated system (Van Dijck 12). “In order to be able to recognise what people want and like, Facebook and other platforms track desires by coding relationships between people, things, and ideas into algorithms” (Van Dijck 12). This eventually leads to the development of “tools to create and steer specific needs” (Van Dijck 12).
Tools such as the Like button contribute furthermore to the socialisation on Facebook and the connectedness of humans, something that Van Dijck calls human connectedness (11-12). Each ‘like’ is being seen “as a shortcut to commenting in order to replace short affective statements” (Gerlitz & Helmond 5). The Like button is in this respect a button that contributes to social connectivity, but also to the commercial part of Facebook which can be found in the grammars of the button. With the provision of the Like button, the platform structured user engagement into a simple act that contributes to social activities of users, and to the commercial part of Facebook. However, there are more ways to structure activities. “Underlying these features are proprietary algorithms” like Facebook’s News Feed Algorithm (Van Dijck 49).
To support personal activities, and thereby the grammars, platforms like Facebook are making use of ranking systems, specially created for their own service. These ranking systems consist of algorithms to structure human activity by giving a personalised updating flow of, among others, posts of friends, groups the user joined, Pages the user liked or friends are liking, to make suggestions and to support users to make use of their grammars integrated in their platform. The News Feed Algorithm ensures that each user sees a personalised News Feed and “it determines which of your connections is the most important to you and thus appears most frequently, and which kinds of content should appear higher than others” (Newman n. pag.). The News Feed Algorithm, in the case of Facebook, forms the underlying structure of features like the Like button. For this reason platforms cannot be seen as only facilitating platforms, since they contribute to the process of making certain choices in their environment. Van Dijck argues that “it is a common fallacy, though, to think of platforms as merely facilitating networking activities; instead, the construction of platforms and social practices is mutually constitutive” (6). Van Dijck sees platforms furthermore as “the
providers of software, (sometimes) hardware, and services that help code social activities into computational architecture” (29). This can be done since the platforms “process (meta) data through algorithms and formatted protocols before presenting their interpreted logic in the form of user-friendly interfaces with default settings that reflect the platform owner’s strategic choices” (Van Dijck 29). Through the personalised News Feed users are encouraged more to like things, and to use the features with integrated grammars, like the Like button for instance, more often. Another way platforms structure certain activities is by using multiple affordances, which are structuring and encouraging the users to use the grammars of the platform, as well as structuring the normative claim of the platform.
Affordances structure the normative claim of the platform
Affordances structure user activities into the grammars of the platform. These affordances contribute to the field of analysing interfaces as discursive interface with taking “a critical perspective attentive to unequal power between industry and site visitors” (Stanfill 1062). Each site produces a different normative claim which can be revealed through untangling the different affordances that are built in the interface. These affordances eventually structure user engagement in the direction of the grammars of the platforms. To define affordances, this research is based on the theory of Stanfill (2015), Norman (1999), and Hartson (2003).
An affordance is used in software studies to refer to the relationship between the actor, in this case the human, and the computer, also defined as the human-computer interaction (Hartson 315). In 1999 Norman made a distinction between perceived affordances and real affordances to imply that not all affordances are the same (41). Perceived affordances are, according to Norman, “visual feedback that advertise the affordances” (40). A perceived affordance is visible on the screen. It “is about characteristics in the appearance of a device that gives clues for its proper operation” (Hartson 316). Real affordances, on the other hand, “do not always have to have a visible presence (and in some cases, it is best to hide the real affordance)” (Norman 40). A real affordance is furthermore “about physical characteristics of a device or interface that allow its operation” (Hartson 316). Hartson built further on Norman’s idea, but instead of perceived and real affordances she is using cognitive
affordance (instead of perceived) and physical affordance (instead of real) along with two
others, sensory affordance and functional affordance to conceptualise interactive design. Hartson approaches affordances “as an attribute of an interaction design feature is what that feature offers the user, what it provides or furnishes” (316). This approach is used by Stanfill as well, while discussing that interfaces can be seen as a discourse. Although Stanfill is using
affordances to build on his claim, he is eventually using three of the four affordances of Hartson to untangle discursive designed interfaces, namely functional affordance, cognitive affordance, and sensory affordance.
How can the functional affordance be defined? To answer that question, another simple question can be asked: “what functionality does the site have” (Stanfill 1063)? The functional affordance focuses on the functionality and technological structure of a site and seeks to find an answer to “what a site can actually do” (Stanfill 1063). In some cases the user can download content from a site, in some cases content is only readable, or on some sites, the users can copy/paste content. These functions are part of the functional affordances and “produce norms, as allowing this and not that implies that Users ought to do this and not that, demonstrating how power is productive” (Stanfill 1063).
The cognitive affordance focuses on how the interface is part of cognitive sense making by its users. It focuses on “how Users know what a site can do” and it “facilitates processing information, and is therefore closely tied to the social act of meaning-making” (Stanfill 1063). Often the name of a website and how the menu is labelled implies what a user can expect from it. Moreover, cognitive affordance can be facilitated by imperative verbs or by using Louis Althusser’s interpellation theory from 1971 (Stanfill 1063). When using sentences like “Hey, you there”, users could feel addressed and will know what to do (Stanfill 1063).
The last one, sensory affordance, is focusing on the layout of the site. It can be “analysed through visibility, legibility, and audibility” (Stanfill 1064). Some parts of an interface are more visible in size than others, while another part is more visible in terms of colour and sound and would get more attention than other parts. These elements are facilitated in the sensory affordances since it “enables the user in sensing (e.g., seeing, hearing, feeling) something” (Stanfill 1063). The sensory affordance arranges furthermore how important the commercial part of a site is. This can be studied, for instance, through looking on how present the advertisements are on a site. It is in this way that sensory affordance is discursive; it tells the users what is important and where the attention should go to.
This research builds on the ideas of affordances to subject Facebook to a discursive interface analysis. It agrees with Stanfill’s claim that interfaces can be seen as a discourse and with his distinction between the different affordances in an interface. However, this is a relatively new theory and has experienced few academic elaborations so far, at least not publicly. Furthermore, Stanfill is focusing on non-social network sites. This research
contributes to this missing aspect, and claims that affordances on social network sites can be more intertwined with each other than on the sites discussed by Stanfill.
In conclusion, this theoretical framework has discussed how involvement-engagement is facilitated by users and how external factors, like convergent journalism, are playing an important role by creating solidarity and eventually mourning. Furthermore this framework showed how engagement is being structured by platforms which can be seen as tether appliances, while discussing grammars of action and affordances. However, none of the above studies were implicit about user engagement on Facebook in the aftermath of any crisis event. They give, nevertheless, a clear image of how engagement can be defined, but not in particular what kind of engagement is facilitated on social network sites in the aftermath of crisis events. This research will seek to find a concept that includes the characteristics of engagement, but is a typical form of social engagement in the aftermath of crisis events. Before this research will move to the case study, the next chapter will discuss the methodology used in this research.
2. METHODOLOGY: ANALYSING DATA OF FACEBOOK PAGES
For this research, two cases have been studied with the related research question: How is social engagement facilitated on Facebook in times of mourning as a result of crisis events? There are two recent terrorist attacks chosen for this research, namely the Paris attacks on November 13, 2015, and the Brussels attacks on March 22, 2016. These two have been chosen for several reasons. After the Paris attacks a lot of people were talking about it on social network sites. On Twitter the hashtag #porteouverte was used in Paris at the night of the attacks, to let people know they could take shelter in their houses. On Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook the post of Jean Julien of the Eiffel Tower in a peace sign with the text Peace for Paris, as shown in Figure 1, went viral (Gonzalez n. pag.). Soon many users took over and changed the name Peace for Paris into Pray for Paris, but the image remained more or less the same. It was eventually the hashtag #prayforparis that has been shared the most by the users, whether or not in combination with the picture, to show their support (Laurent). On Facebook a lot of groups and community pages were created with the name Pray for Paris. A few months later, on March 22, 2016, something comparable happened for Brussels. The hashtag #prayforbrussels was shared a lot and Facebook groups and communities with the name Pray for Brussels were created. To make a stronger argument, this research focuses on both events
to make a comparison. Although the Paris and Brussels attacks eventually did not have the same size, the attacks are comparable with each other since they were both carried out by the Islamic State while they were pursuing the same aim, they happened within a relatively short period of time from each other, Paris and Brussels are both capitals, it was world news, and in both cases national and international civilians became victims as a result of the attacks.
Figure 1: Peace for Paris sign, made by Jean Julien. (Screenshot of the Peace for Paris sign on Instagram). Source: Instagram, user jean_jullien.
Subsequently, this research pays attention to the groups and community pages with the name Pray for Paris and Pray for Brussels. Why Facebook, and why did this research choose these groups and community pages? Facebook is, besides being one of the biggest social network sites, also a platform with a lot of different engagement possibilities that have been made possible by the architecture of the platform. Furthermore, at the same time it was Facebook that introduced adapted (temporary) features for the first time for France after the Paris attacks in November that were designed for crisis events (Charlton n. pag.). For this reason Facebook forms an interesting platform to measure and analyse the social engagement in the aftermath of the discussed terrorist attacks.
To measure the social engagement, this research focuses on how users facilitate engagement and how engagement is structured by the platform. This is done on Facebook’s community Pages and in groups, which are related to the aftermath of the Paris and Brussels attacks. They are a fitted and interesting way of measuring and analysing social engagement
during crisis events, since they form an environment where people are gathered with others. A Facebook community Page or group tells something about the possibilities Facebook offers in general, its architecture, but also how the possibilities and architecture are being used in specific cases. It is, however, important to note that users can create multiple Pages with different characteristics on Facebook to organise a gathering between users. A Page can be created for a “local business or place; company, organisation or institution; brand or product; artist, band or public figure; entertainment; or cause or community” (Facebook – Create a Page). Since this research focuses on how people react and engage after crisis events, a community Page fits the profile. Beside Pages, users can also create groups. A group differs from Pages in its architecture and how the focus is concentrated on different kinds of content. The purpose of a group is creating a gathering between users as well. Besides a community Page, a group also fits the profile for this research. In the continuation of this research, when referring both to the community Page as to the group, the term ‘pages’ is used.
To narrow this research down, all the available data of two Facebook community Pages and two Facebook groups is collected. One community Page and one group dedicated to the Paris attacks and one community Page and one group to the Brussels attack. These pages are selected out of many other pages that were created in the aftermath of the attacks. The selection criteria for these pages had firstly to do with the name they carry, Pray for Paris and Pray for Brussels, as explained earlier. The popularity of the name is visible in the numbers of the created Facebook pages with the same name and the same purpose. The second criterion is that the pages are a community Page or a group. This criterion is because both kinds of pages differ in the options users have and the architecture of the page. This will discussed in the sequel of this research. The third criterion is that the page is public; everyone should be able to join the community Page or group. Fourth, the amount of users that joined the group or liked the community Page is important. These four pages are the largest in their section. And the last criterion is that all these four pages were created the day of the attacks or the day after. Since the Paris attacks happened in the evening, most pages were created the day after. The Brussels attacks happened in the morning, so most pages were created on the day itself. The two Facebook community Pages and the two Facebook groups that are finally selected are visible in Table 11 below.
Table 1: The four selected Facebook pages, related to the Paris and Brussels attacks. (Displayed with the characteristics of name, date of creation, if it is a group or community, and the amount of members/likes the pages received). Source: Facebook.
To perform this study, this research will make use of the platform studies and the digital methods approach. It will use furthermore the related digital methods tool Netvizz to extract data from Facebook. Excel and Wizard are used to visualise and order the data when analysing. Infogr.am and Snagit will be subsequently used to visualise the findings into graphs, tables, and images. They all form the method of this research and will be discussed first, before going further to the case study. To start with, defining platform studies.
2.1 PLATFORM STUDIES
Platform studies focuses on computational platforms and is defined as “a set of approaches which investigate the underlying computer systems that support creative work” (Bogost and Montfort 1). Platform studies examines the foundation of platforms, how they function and how technological parts stand in relation to social and cultural elements. “The approach recognises that not only the user’s experience, but also interface, form and function, code, and platform, are fully embedded in culture” (Bogost and Montfort 6). From this perspective, this research will examine the ontological status and distinctiveness of Facebook.
This research is interested in how Facebook facilitated user engagement in times of mourning and what the platform specifics were in the aftermath of the crisis events. For this reason, this research will use platform studies to discuss and perform a Facebook discursive interface analysis, which uses the theory of affordances and grammars of action to do so. From this position, this research will use platform studies as a theoretical and methodological approach. This discursive interface analysis “provides a research tool to improve understanding of how norms for technologies and their users are produced and with what implications” (Stanfill 1060). Based on Stanfill’s claim that interfaces can be seen as a
discourse, this discursive interface analysis is “examining the assumptions built into interfaces as the normative or ‘correct’ or path of least resistance - though, like all norms, this is not deterministically guaranteed in the actual encounter with a site visitor” (Stanfill 1060).
2.2 DIGITAL METHODS
The other method that is being used is digital methods. The overall aim of digital methods “is to rework methods for Internet-related research” (Rogers 19). From this approach this method wants “to diagnose cultural change and societal conditions by means of the Internet” (Rogers 21). In the digital methods approach it is the Internet that is used as a source to work with. In this particular case, it is Facebook that will be used as a source to determine the cultural change and societal conditions that are made on the platform in the aftermath of the Paris and Brussels terrorist attacks. By collecting data from Facebook, this research seeks to repurpose the output. By means of digital methods, this research follows the term online groundedness that has been introduced “to conceptualise research that follows the medium, captures its dynamics, and makes grounded claims about cultural and societal change” (Rogers 23). By using digital methods, this research examines, besides ontological distinctiveness, also the epistemology of the platform.
To start, the data needs to be extracted from the four Facebook pages. Something that Wilson et al. defined as data crawling: “gleaning information about users from their profiles without their active participation” (Wilson et al. 215). This research is using the digital methods tool, Netvizz, to extract data from the selected pages and “facilitate this latter approach” (Rieder n pag). Netvizz is a tool “that allows researchers to generate data files in standard formats for different sections of the Facebook social networking service without having to resort to manual collecting or custom programming” (Rieder n. pag). Thanks to the use of Netvizz, the user engagement on Facebook can be examined and mapped.
2.2.1 NETVIZZ
Netvizz is a digital methods technique that specifically works with the data of Facebook. It extracts data from specific groups, pages, pages network connected through likes, searches, or link stats dependent on the input that fits the research purpose. It is important that the specific data is publicly available for the Facebook user as researcher, since Netvizz can only extract what is public and accessible on Facebook. For this research, the option ‘page data’ is interesting. It “creates networks and tabular files for user activity around posts on pages” (Netvizz n. pag.). In “this way, one can not only detect the most active users, but also identify
the posts that produced the highest amount of engagement” (Rieder n. pag). To compare the data and the social engagement with each other, the timetable of all the pages should be the same. Since the Brussels attacks was later than the one in Paris, the timetable is unequal. To equalise this, only the data that is in the timeframe of the first 14 days after the attacks, is extracted. Although the Paris attacks happened on the evening of November 13th, 2015, and the first news items reported on the attacks on the 13th, the impact became clear in the night of 13 on 14 November. Furthermore the Pages were created on the 14th of November. For this reason the timeframe of Paris is: 14 November 2015 up to and including 27 November 2015. The Brussels attacks happened in the morning of March 22nd, 2016, and the Brussels pages were created on the same day. The timeframe of Brussels is: 22 March 2016 up to and including 4 April 2016. In this way we retrieved four datasets, with 149 posts (Pray For Paris Community Page), 10 posts (Pray For Paris 13/11/2015 Group), 87 posts (Pray For Brussels Community Page), and 15 posts (Pray for brussels Group).
Data Pray For Paris Community Page
On the 6th of April, 2016, the community had 23.322 likes of users and 12 people who were talking about this community.With this number of likes it became the biggest community of this section at the date of study. However at June 23, 2016, the community had 23.103 likes left from out of 45 different countries. The most of them, 20.477, are from France. The second most are with 498 members, from Canada. Belgium follows with 399 members. Since this community was created the day after, the extracted data contains data of 14 days started at the 14th of November. The data of November 14th, 2015, up and till November 27th, 2015, are extracted with Netvizz. In the first two weeks, Netvizz retrieved in total 149 posts. In this time period, the community received data of 71.617 likes on posts by users, and 87.781 comments on posts. Of the 149 post, 70 of them contains a photo, 38 a video, 28 contains a status, and 13 were links. The most of these 149 posts were published by the users, namely 106 posts. The rest, 43 posts, were published by the community itself.
Data Pray For Paris 13/11/2015 Group
By the time this research was performed, the Pray For Paris 13/11/2015 Group counted 169 members. With this number of members, the group became the biggest in this section. However, at June 23, 2016, this group had 166 members left. Netvizz extracted the data from the 14th up and till the 27th of November, 2015. In these 14 days, Netvizz retrieved 10 posts in total. This includes 4 photo posts, 2 video posts, 2 status posts, and 2 link posts.
Data Pray For Brussels Community Page
On the 6th of April, 2016, this community had 24.205 likes and 31 people who were talking about this community. With this number of likes, it is the biggest Page in this section, but also the biggest Page in this research at the date of study. Though, on the June 23, 2016 the community had 23.937 likes left. The users behind the like are originated from 45 different countries. The community received the most likes, 14.315 likes, from out of France. The second most likes are from users out of Belgium. Reunion follows with 305 likes. The attacks took place on the 22nd of March, 2016, at the same day this community was created. The extracted data contains data of 14 days started at the 22nd of March up and till the 4th of April, 2016. In these first two weeks, Netvizz retrieved in total 87 posts. Of the 87 post, 38 of them contains a photo, 13 a video, 26 a status, 9 were links, and 1 an event. The most of these 87 posts were published by the users, namely 59 posts. The rest, 28 posts, were published by the community itself.
Data Pray for brussels Group
The Pray for brussels Group counted 75 members. With this number of members, the group became the biggest in this section. However, at June 23, 2016, this group had 72 members left. Netvizz extracted data from the 22nd of March up and till the 4th of April, 2016. Netvizz received 15 posts in total. This includes 6 photo posts, 1 video post, 7 status posts, and 1 link post. All these posts are sorted under ‘posted by user’. However, the post are manual divided between posts published by the admin and published by other users. 10 posts were made by the admin, the other 5 were published by other users.
These posts will be further categorised and analysed by their content and popularity. A distinction will be made between most ‘liked’ and most ‘commented’ posts to analyse the posts. Thanks to this tool, the qualitative and quantitative aspects of pages can be examined. It is, however, important to note that the Like button changed in between the attacks. At the time of the Paris attacks, the Like button was only a ‘Like’ emotive icon. But at the time of the Brussels attacks, users could choose between more emotive icons, namely ‘Like’, ‘Love’, ‘Haha’, ‘Wow’, ‘Sad’, and ‘Angry’, when clicking on that same button.
The extracted data will be revealed in the next chapter. When reading this research, keep in mind that the data was extracted on the 6th of April, 2016. It is possible that the data has changed since it was first published. Comments or posts could be removed for instance. The extracted data will be visualised with the help of the following tools.
The other tools: Wizard, Excel, Infogr.am, and Snagit
Wizard is software that is able to order .tsv files into a clear and visible overview. Microsoft Excel offers this functionality as well. Both are used to order and visualise the data that is retrieved by Netvizz. Within a few steps, data can be ordered by type and date of publishing for instance. This improves the process of study.
Infogr.am is an online website where users can make infographics and interactive online charts (Infogr.am). The data, that will be extracted with Netvizz, will be made visible in the graphs and charts. This provides a better overview of how the data is connected to the research. The graphs and charts will be filled in on the website before being added to this research.
Snagit is software that enables users to make a screenshot of their desktop, or parts of it, and to edit it afterwards. Furthermore, Snagit enables the user to make images or videos. The software is mainly used in this research to highlight the discussed features of Facebook.
3. ANALYSIS OF FACEBOOK AND THE FOUR PAGES
The terror attacks in Paris and Brussels came as a unpleasant surprise. It soon became ecstatic news. It was on the television channels, the radio, newspapers and online news websites. There were live blogs, which did report 24/7 about the attacks. For instance, Elgot et al. did report on a liveblog for the Guardian about the Paris attacks, and Lawson did report in a liveblog about the Brussels attacks. Footage was repeatedly viewed and re-mediated. Some of the footage was recorded by ordinary people, even by survivors, and other footage was made by journalists. It was however an alternation of different kind of images, and an alternation of ordinary voices and voices of experts that appeared in the news. Soon the liveblogs started to use certain words, like terror, attack, victims, time of mourning, IS, threat, and barbaric. And with these first images and words, the emotional assumptions could be already made, according to Martin (327).
How these emotions were reflected in social engagement on Facebook will be discussed in this chapter, which gives a critical analysis of the four cases: the Pray For Paris Community Page, the Pray For Paris 13/11/2015 Group, the Pray For Brussels Community Page, and the Pray for brussels Group. This chapter will untangle how Facebook is able to structure user engagement on the platform by offering different architectures for different purposes. On the basis of affordances and grammars of action, the focus lies on the norms
