Ethnography Study of Facebook

Today it seems that everyone has a Facebook account. For many people, Facebook is just as an important communication tool as email or a cell phone. For others, Facebook is nothing more than a useless novelty. Because of this seemingly huge differences in Facebook’s importance for certain people, I wanted to look at how people use Facebook and how the amount that they use it affects the kinds of content they put on it. To do this, I decided to study two of my friends’ uses of Facebook. I picked one friend that uses Facebook a lot and checked it frequently, and picked another friend that barely used Facebook at all.

From studying each of their profiles, I found out how often each friend updated parts of their profile such as their status and profile picture, how often people wrote on their wall, and what types of content they posted on their own profile. Here’s what I found about each friend:

Sarah (Uses Facebook frequently):

                On the day that I did this study, Sarah had just updated her profile picture. She has over 60 profile pictures in her “Profile Pictures” album and seems to rotate them quite often. In most of the pictures she is either alone or with one other person. The majority of the pictures are just her smiling at the camera or laughing, nothing too crazy or wild. She doesn’t list any interests or likes in her “Info” section, but instead lists current employers and her college and high school. She also lists her religious views, hometown, current city, and her birthday as well as her relationship status. She seems to use her Facebook to communicate with people that she has not seen in a long time as most of her wall posts say something to the effect of “hey I haven’t seen you in forever” or “how are you?”. 

                In her interview with me, Sarah said that she uses Facebook at least once a day for a half hour or more. She doesn’t use it as a main form of communication, but instead only uses it if she has something to say to someone really quickly. She is completely opposed to doing anything professional or business –related on Facebook, but instead sees it only as a social tool. For more important things, such as making plans with someone she would use a phone or text. She said that she noticed that some of her friends use Facebook for more personal communication such as telling their boy/girlfriend that they miss him/her, which, according to her, is weird to see, but entertaining at the same time; it’s like spying but on a public forum.  

Sarah also said that in order to create her identity on Facebook, she lists her jobs, hometown, and pictures from her study abroad experience. She doesn’t list her interests or activities because she doesn’t want people to know that much about her. Also, she makes sure that no applications or quiz results get posted on her wall because she doesn’t want people to know how much time she actually spends on Facebook and sees these things as evidence as a lot of time spent playing around on the site. Overall, she said that she tries to make herself look professional as she just graduated from college and is trying to find a job. Finally, she said that she doesn’t really pay too much attention to what people post on her wall, possibly because she doesn’t think of it as that serious form of communication that it would need a response.

Ryan (Rarely uses Facebook):

             

   Ryan had less than 20 pictures in his “Profile Picture” album and seemed to change them infrequently. Most of his pictures were of him with at least one other person, sometimes 4 or 5 other people. In his “Info” section, he listed his hometown, current city, political views, family, and birthday. He also listed his current and previous employers as well as a few likes and interests. His wall consisted mostly of videos or pictures that other people had posted or friends asking him “how are you”-type questions. He very very rarely updates his status or posts anything on his own wall for others to see.

When asked, Ryan said he uses Facebook for about 10 minutes every week just to check the news feed and see what other people are up to. Sometimes when he’s bored, he’ll spend a little more time looking at other people’s videos or photos. He said that he does almost none of his communication through Facebook and only communicates with others on it if they communicate with him first. He feels that people who choose to post a lot on Facebook or do a lot of communicating through Facebook are only trying to draw attention to themselves and portray themselves in a certain way. He sometimes judges them for it and can’t understand why people would want to live their lives so publicly. Ryan said that he puts up pictures and job information and filled out his about me to create an identity. But he said that he doesn’t really use it enough to create much of an identity. Ryan also said that when he got a job a few months ago, he went through his Facebook and deleted a few pictures that he wouldn’t want his co-workers to see. He also put certain friends or family members on a “limited profile” so that they wouldn’t be able to see certain content.

Reflections

Overall, I don’t think that my two friends’ uses of Facebook are all that different, even though they use it in different amounts. They both use it to see what people are up to, communicate in small amounts with others, and to entertain themselves when bored. In addition, they both try to create identities for themselves that portray them as deserving the job they have or want to get. One thing that I found interesting is that both removed content that they thought went against this professional agenda, but did not delete their Faceboook account altogether. They only posted content that was slightly removed from who they really are, such as their jobs and schools, and did not really post more personal things, almost as if they don’t want people to judge them before they get to know them personally. They both also used Facebook for entertainment although they both judged people who put a lot of entertaining content, such as very personal stories, communication, pictures, etc. on Facebook. One thing that could account for these similarities despite the differences in amount of use is that both of my friends are the same age and both have recently graduated from college. It might be interesting to study Facebook users of different ages to see if there is a more profound difference in the types of content posted and their reasons for posting such things.

Reflecting on Facebook

          Facebook for me is both useful and frustrating at the same time. I live almost six hours away from where I grew up which means that it can be difficult to keep in contact with friends and family from back home. However, Facebook helps me keep in touch with them; possibly a little too in touch. There have been times that I know more about what is going on at home than my parents who still live there do. I can know a lot about what is going on in a person’s life without even talking to them, so in a way, Facebook helps me keep in touch with people, but I still lose personal contact with them. In this way, it sets up a sort of false relationship with people. I can know about a person and what they are doing, where they are, etc. without ever talking to them and they don’t even have to know that I know this information about them. I know that I haven’t talked to my best friends from home in a very long time. When I want to know what they’re doing, I just go to their Facebook page or write a short message on their wall. I think that this is part of why Facebook can be so addicting. It gives people the socialization that they need with very little effort. There is no awkward small talk and or uncomfortable pauses. And when people are done “socializing” they simply have to logout with no goodbyes.

             

            What is interesting about using Facebook so much for socialization is that it is constructed socialization with identities that people construct for themselves. You can’t really get to know someone from their Facebook page. If there is something about a person that they don’t want others to know, they simply don’t put it on their page. I know I have not listed some of my interests or beliefs on my Facebook page simply because I don’t want other people to know those things about me. However, even with this construction, Facebook has gotten to the point where it is unusual not to have a Facebook profile. It seems as if you don’t construct a version of yourself for public consumption, you are the unusual one. 

            Despite all of this, I still find Facebook to be incredibly addicting. It is one of the first things I check in the morning when I wake up and it is a huge distraction for me from my homework.  Sometimes I think that getting things done would be so much easier if I deleted my Facebook account, but I still can’t do it. Most of my time in college is documented in some way on Facebook and if I delete it, I would lose it all. Plus, I know that if I wasn’t on Facebook, I would completely lose all contact with a few people, which I would not like to do. So I guess Facebook is something with which I have a true love/hate relationship . . . and I probably love it a little more than I hate it.

           

            I think that Facebook could be used in many ways as an educational tool. Students already know how to use it and enjoy using it. We have talked in a couple classes about how so many educational tools such as Ning or Moodle are trying to use a Facebook format. Why not just use Facebook so students wouldn’t have to learn a new format? I think it would be extremely useful for hosting online discussions or forums or even coordinating class projects and activities. Students could freely discuss different topics in a comfortable setting. However, one downside to using Facebook for educational purposes is that it might be difficult to keep students’ private lives separate from their academic lives. One way around this would be to have students create a Facebook profile specifically for academic use. But overall, I think that using Facebook in the classroom could be an easy way to engage and interest students in classroom discussions and activities.

Teaching about Media Representations of race and class

To teach students about the media representations of class, I would assign students to watch news shows, such as their local evening news, FOX news, CNN, The Today Show, Good Morning America, BBC news, etc. Each student must watch some kind of news for at least ½ hour. While watching, students should keep track or make a list of who the news stories are about and the ethnicity and class of these people: what is the race/class of the people committing crimes, winning an award, making a difference in the community? In class, students will then compare their lists, discuss them, and see if they can find any common themes and any similarities in the ways the people in the news were presented. After this, students will be asked to think about any stereotypes that they are familiar with and compare them to the themes they found in the news. They will be asked to think about and discuss how the stereotypes are supported by the representations of these people in the news and how the news might have been skewed in ways that work to support  or reinforce these stereotypes.

Voicethread on Men's Cologne Ads

For my voicethread I chose to look at the portrayal of women in cologne ads aimed at men and the way the women are turned into objects associated with the cologne. They then use this association as a way to sell the cologne.

Feminist and Psychoanalytical Analysis of Axe Commercial

For this assignment, I chose to view a commercial for Axe body spray. I feel that Axe commercials are notorious for objectifying women and making men think that all they need to be successful is Axe cologne. Because of this, I have chosen to look at the commercial through a feminist lens and a psycho lens.

Feminist Lens:

In this commercial, women are viewed only as an object for a man to acquire; she exists only to please men and her sole purpose in life is to find a man. She feels the urge to have a man to the extent that she literally will hunt him down. This is seen in the body spray commercial where thousands of women are running across land and sea to get to the one man who is spraying himself with Axe. The commercial depicts the woman as barefoot, bounding over wilderness, and having a crazy look in her eyes. All of this works to liken her to a wild animal in search of her prey, a man. The wild animal analogy is extended even more when more women are seen running in the same direction, all stampeding towards the same man. The commercial ends with thousands of women closing in on the one man, who puts his arms in the air triumphantly and smiles. In this way, the commercial portrays women as an object. Her only desire in life is to have a man – preferably one wearing Axe – just as the only desire of a wild animal is to hunt. Thus, in this commercial, women are viewed only in relation to men. Their only purpose in life is to make men happy. This can be seen even in the way women are dressed in the commercial. All the women are wearing string bikinis, showcasing their narrow waists and full, bouncing chests. This makes the women in the commercial objects for men to look at and desire, especially those men who see the commercial.

Psychoanalytic lens:

This commercial’s main tactic for selling Axe body spray is to play to the desires of the audience: young men. It gets the audience’s attention right away with a shot of a scantily-clad beautiful young woman running through the forest. The dramatic music and rapid camera angles and movements raise the audience’s curiosity. The audience’s desire rises as more and more beautiful and scantily-clad women are shown running in slow motion towards some unknown object, playing to the fantasies of many young men. When the focus of all of the women is finally revealed, a young man dousing himself with Axe, the message of the commercial becomes evident: use Axe and thousands of young, beautiful women will find you attractive and want you. One interesting thing to note about the commercial is that all of the women fit the description of an Americanized “ideal” woman: long flowing hair, large breasts, sculpted, thin body, and tanned skin. However, the young man is simply average looking. All of this works to play into the desires of the audience even more. Young men everywhere can identify with the average-looking man, they can see themselves in him. Thus, the message of the commercial becomes, if the average young men in the audience use Axe, the young women that they fantasize about will want them. 

Teaching Activity

In order to teach students about the feminist and psychoanalytical lens, I would show students the Axe clip I analyzed and also this clip for Yoplait yogurt. 

Then, I would have them answer and discuss the following questions:
1. Who do you think the audience for each commercial is?
2. How are women portrayed in the Axe commercial? How are men portrayed?
3. How are women portrayed in the Yoplait commercial? How are men portrayed?
4. What desires of its audience does the Axe commercial use to sell its product?
5. What desires of its audience does the Yoplait commercial use to sell its product?
6. How are relationships between men and women portrayed in each commercial?

In this activity, my goal is for my students to look at each clip and see how differently men and women are portrayed: in the Axe commercial, women are sexualized objects for men whereas in the Yoplait commercial, the woman is intelligent and in control (and losing weight!) while the man ends up looking stupid. I feel that in many commercials today, these are the two dominant portrayals of men and women. In commercials aimed at men that sell clothes, food, cars, etc., women are highly sexualized. In commercials aimed at women that sell household products, make-up, etc., women are portrayed as in control and extremely intelligent while their husbands are clueless and bumbling in the background. Both of these portrayals play into the desires of the intended audience in order to sell the product. Overall, I want students to see how skewed portrayals of both men and women can be used to sell products to certain audiences.