#goodconflict

Provocation can be defined as the act of provoking; incitement; or something that provokes, arouses or stimulates (Merriam Webster 2019).

‘Trolling’, often wrongly interchanged with the word provocation, can be defined as the “deliberate” act of making random unsolicited or controversial comments on internet forums with the intent to provoke an emotional knee-jerk reaction from unsuspecting readers to engage in a fight or argument” (Drog56, 2014).

As we know, acts of provocation within civic participation and engagement with others, in both online and offline platforms does not come without conflict, and sometimes this can be described as aberrant, harassing, abusing or offensive. 

Media and communications expert, Anthony McCosker (2013), explored the productive role provocation in social media can have, in his research of viewer comments to YouTube visuals of the Christchurch earthquakes and the flash mob performance of haka.  Two events played out in the same country, yet each eliciting a different set of emotions. McCosker (2013, p.215) found that provocation in these contexts lay in the desire to pull together in response, and to push back, often equally aggressively.  

McCosker (2013, p.202) argues that terms such as “flaming”, “hating” and “trolling” become ineffective in sustaining public engagement, and the shift of focus should be on provocation, and its complexities within different contexts (McCosker 2013, p. 202).  This, I feel parallels boyd’s sentiment in her study in online conflict among teens, where she found the term “drama” was used pervasively by teens to describe interpersonal conflict, and where perhaps adults would refer it as bullying (byod 2014, p. 137).  We all know what Shakespeare would say.........

Agnostic pluralism is a political theory conceived by Chantel Mouffe, to describe elements of democratic sociality that are always and (necessarily so), contested.  Mouffe suggests conflict cannot be removed but instead be productively accommodated by social platforms that allow for flows of passion and contested interaction among adversaries. (Mouffe cited in McCosker 2013, p.  202)

Conflict, while difficult can lead to individual change and growth.  This is not to ignore the various ways in which it can manifest into anti-social behaviors such as personal attacks, and repeated bullying with harmful intent.  Therefore, we should be responsible and diligently aware of practices imposed by social media “keepers”, law enforcement agencies, and personal support networks, when theses codes of conduct are breached.

Perhaps the mere fact that we have associated the online term “trolling” with an ugly, fearful, and mischievous mythical creature that comes out to scare us when we least expect, has contributed to the highly negative (and sometimes misguided) connotation of the practice among individuals and society.

Participation includes activism, resistance and conflict as much as the creative deployment of new media literacies and productive cultures of media co-creation encompassed by ideal forms of networked publics – (McKosker, 2013, p. 201-202)

 References

Boyd, D 2014, 'Bullying: Is the Media Amplifying Meanness and Cruelty?', in It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, Yale University Press, New Haven, USA, pp. 128-52.

Drog56, 2014, ‘Top Definition: Trolling’, in Urban Dictionary, viewed 25 January 2019 <https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Trolling>.

McCosker, A 2014, YouTrolling as provocation: Tube's agonistics publics, Convergence, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 201-217.