On Social Scripts

[charmian]

petronia posts about social scripts. Although the "community" talked about in the article is a group of people, I would also argue that even if it isn't restricted to "site" or "software," many of the definitions seem to involve place, in a metaphorical sense.

Anyway, my commentary (cause I am always verbose)


Personally, I think I prefer the bar or the patio as styles of communication. The performance space... Eh, I think I like a certain distance between myself and the performance. I don't want to be "the audience," I want to be the "reader" or the "viewer." I suppose the difference is that the audience is also performing the role of the audience. (Look into the abyss and it looks into you!) The audience is not viewing, they must follow a certain etiquette (no talking in the theater! no eating!) and it would seem churlish of them not to cheer and clap (though in some places, they also have the option of booing and jeering and throwing tomatoes). [Perhaps the internet allows the writer to now become a performer. The so-called 'convergence culture' is about making all creators performers?]

LJ, is in a way, a very flexible site/networking software because it can potentially encompass all three kinds of shapes: a pool is like a community, the general personal journal-journal linkages are a web, and very popular personal LJs often function like hubs. Personally, I think I like Pools and Webs better than Hubs. I'd prefer... to be in control of the experience? Or to relate to someone as an equal, or as a moderator whose status is defined by the group, rather than as a "celeb."

In a way, although community is defined as "group of people" and not site, maybe one can think of LJ-the-site as a community where a whole bunch of people are following pretty much all of the scripts at once, and they all believe that the other people on the site are following the same script; perhaps it is then inevitable that there will be an increased amount of conflict, because the amount of norms that will develop will be extremely diverse, especially as on a site level it's more like a web, where there are lots of six-degrees-of-separation connections, but often a lack of centrality, for better or worse.

I wonder what effect DW's changes to the LJ software will have in terms of the scripts, though.



In other news, I am reading about Sanada Yukimura, after I became embarrassed that he's like, the #1 Sengoku general (by popularity polls) and I know jack about him. In the first thirty pages of a 200 pg book, I have learned mainly that his name wasn't really Yukimura and that scholars disagree about his age.