#lecture6

(12 February 2019)

Social capital on Facebook: Differentiating uses and users by Moira Burke, Robert Kraut & Cameron Marlow (2011)

The article speaks largely about Facebook usage and two types of social capital- bridging and bonding.

There were few points raised which I felt were debatable:

Firstly, It posits that Facebook likely does not strengthen already-strong relationships, but could do so for relationships in their early stages. I do not deny Facebook’s effectiveness in strengthening new, budding relationships. However, it is difficult to agree entirely that it does not help in strengthening already-strong relationships. I feel that its effectiveness is highly subjective as it depends on the user’s way of utilising Facebook. If one makes use of Facebook Messenger, akin to text messaging, to communicate with a close friend on a regular basis, I would think the constant stream of updates and interaction would help to reinforce the relationship. This applies especially to people communicating with their loved ones from abroad, such as a couple in a long-distance relationship (LDR). The paper assumes “media multiplexity” in the exchanges between people in close/intimate relationships where several channels, including face-to-face communication, are employed. It disregards the complexity of relationships that rely on computer-mediated communication because of the geographical proximity/physical constraints of the parties involved. In such a scenario (in the case of an LDR), my conjecture would be if Facebook is one of the main media for communication, it will likely increase bonding social capital between people with strong relationships.

Design Research 1

Week 6

6.4.2016

Drivers of design: Novelty and consumerism

Prologue

- The spectacular

- First tethered balloon flight by the Montgolfier 1783, thousands of people came to watch

- John Francis Rigaud 1785 meant that people became celebrities if they managed to fly, much like today's pop stars

- Thomas Rowlandson 1799 shows the latest fashion of the umbrella, a new invention struggling to get understood

- 2 images of design, both the intricacy of the ern and the ‘common’ pots etc.

- John Flaxman 1776

ACT 1: How to make consumption commonplace; The 18th Century

The Philosopher Kraemer c.1710

The Industrialist Josiah Wedgwood & Sons Late 18th Century

The Romantic Georg Melchior Krauss 1778

The Middle Classes Henry Raeburn 1784

The Prodestant Hendrick Van Streek c.1690

The Politician Sir Joshua

Novelty/originality

- Joseph Addison; Three aesthetic categories- the ‘Great’ the ‘Good’ and the ‘Novel’

- Edward Young 1759 Conjectures on Original Composition

Competition/Supply

- The industrial revolution, more was being brought in

- Division of labour

- Capitalism, Probably comes out of ship ventures, kit it out and pay for the crew, find things in the world and it was Risk vs. Gain whether it came back laden with riches or if it sunk

- Stock markets, a major feature of the economics of this period

- Fashion, Crazes, and Manias, people just want to be cool and pay money for things

The Romantic

The visual

Creative

Imagination

Colin Campbell ‘The Romantic Ethic and the spirit of modern consumerism’

1. Seeing some new thing creates dissatisfaction with the present

2. One imagines a better future with the desired object

3. Once purchased, the new item is normalised

4. The present is no better than before…

5. One starts longing for something new

The Protestant

- Unworldliness, houses sparsely

- Bar on education, not allowed to go to uni

- Status / Morality, how to show wealth without houses being flashy (against their religion)

- Worldly goods ok if they show moral quality

The Middle classes

- Do-it--yourself, let people know that you could raise your classes

- Privacy, Middles classes wanted to claim a space of their own, business also went off this idea

- Home and family became very important to  the middle-class family

- Gender roles, men/women both had leisure. The men worked and the women had ‘conspicuous leisure’ where women had to make their houses nice (very important to show this)

- Important for the middle class to make someone such as a lawyer for middle class as dirty/clean hands separated

The Politician

- Commerce should be free (Adam Smith), people should be free

-The government is a form of trust, aimed at allowing people to attain freedom

ACT 2: Making consumption commonplace 19 century

- Shops became larger c.1400 to c. 1876 industrial revolution created this change

- New print techniques created advertising and exposure

- Print created the ability for experiences to be consumed

- 1885 shows that houses became a display of taste and showing off what you owned

- Empire, British, Transport, communication, industrialism

Venues

The shop

The market

Print

The home

The Company

- Piracy had become a big thing

- ‘Pears soap’ great branding as they created the soap as an artwork

- Corporatism, had to lobby as an individual against the government, now companies could lobby against the government, and fight regulations and defend themselves

- Coca Cola 1923 advice to signwriters on painting the coke trademark

- Fordism; 1908 ford set out to improve the product, still a luxury product but people had to be able to afford them

- Charles Kettering “organised creation of dissatisfaction”

- Companies started wanting people to be dissatisfied with what they have Libby’s Juice Advert

"We must shift America from a needs to a desires culture. People must be trained to desire, to want new things, even before the old have been entirely consumed. [...] Man's desires must overshadow his needs”

- Trained desires

I found the blatant prediction of the America from not so long ago chilling, how had we let ourselves as consumers be controlled so much when the fact that we were in fact, a part of a marketing scheme had been spelled out so clearly?!

Le Bon March was the earliest purpose-built department store Aristide Bouciault around 1850, consumption previously been restricted as there were no bathrooms- men could just find a tree, however, women couldn’t

- Started adding in entertainment

- The big shopkeepers became celebs in themselves

- Norman Rockwell 1927 figured out that catalogues meant others could participate in consumerism

- The Piggly Wiggly self-service grocery store founded 1916, this meant that branding and packaging became very important as people were now picking products for themselves

- 1950 was the development of the shopping mall- different management

- Barbara Kruger 1987 ‘I shop therefore I am’

Epilogue

- Desire for instant fame, wealth and celebs

- Shopping equated to identity

- Weekend trading

- Emphasis  on ‘choice’

- Marginalisation of words like ‘thrift’

- Attack on society

- Belief in progress- always going to be better

- Sentimentalising of issues like ‘sustainability’

Is design part of the problem or the solution?