Networks and their Narratives

By Rhys Ferguson

Image Source: http://i.imgur.com/rYxfT3x.jpg

This blog will attempt to look at the concept of ‘Narratives’, within that of social networks. So, firstly I’ll start with ‘what’ a narrative is. A Narrative (by its definition/s, as stated in www.Dictionary.com, 2017) is “a story that connects and explains a carefully selected set of supposedly true events, experiences, or the like, intended to support a particular viewpoint or thesis.”

Our ‘personas’ that we portray to others when we make use of the social networks that we are all fond of (whichever one/s that we may have a personal preference for), are often, a little or sometimes quite different from the ‘selves’ that we display out in the open, out in the real world. When looking at how people act and associate with others, within the social network of my choice (that being Crunchyroll), I noticed that the way some people speak can be quite bold or even seemingly quite outrageous in their views, speak patterns and general mannerisms.

McNeill (as cited by Victoria Kuttainen, 2017) says “Some self-narratives are more acceptable than others. Facebook acts as a ‘shadow biographer’ (McNeill), directing users about how selves should be constructed.”
The first part of the aforementioned, could, be interpreted as a need to (potentially) have multiple self-narratives or portrayals of oneself (if you will), throughout the various contexts of different social networks. The reason being is that, (Victoria Kuttainen, 2017) “Certain narratives that don’t match the norm are ‘silenced.’

There’s a concept that somewhat relates to the previously talked about self-narratives that I’d like to touch upon. The concept of “The cyborg self”, (Laurie McNeill, 2012) “The cyborg self of social networks has tremendous potential for rethinking the human, but also as Facebook’s templates and mandates suggest, the capacity to reproduce its traditional limits. It creates opportunities for new ways of thinking and creating selves and stories, but also reinscribes conventional categories and values of human experience.”

I think it’s an intriguing and interesting concept, that should definitely be given some thought.

On a bit of a tangent, I found an interesting YouTube video (see link here) about Personal Identity and “The Narrative Self”. It brings up some interesting points about identity and in particular how we choose to identify ourselves to the world.

References

Narrative Definition:

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/narrative

Victoria Kuttainen;

BA1002 Week 6 Lecture PowerPoint, page 10. https://learnjcu.jcu.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_84764_1&content_id=_2759369_1

**Kuttainen’s McNeill reference

McNeill;

**BA1002 Week 6 Lecture PowerPoint, page 10. https://learnjcu.jcu.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_84764_1&content_id=_2759369_1

There is no “I” in Network: Social Networking Sites and Posthuman Auto/Biography

https://masterfile.jcu.edu.au/masterfile6/jsp/viewfile.jsp?as_session_id=3224552C19E3F78DB27EE739B539961EA3C9720&as_id_nr=65005&as_page_nr=1&file_type=.pdf&as_acknowledge=Y

Pictures:

Link used to display: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/lcIqoN9oRgo/maxresdefault.jpg
Source: *The video below