Manchester 03 06_2010
- 1. AFFECTIVE FABRICS OF DIGITAL CULTURE: FEELINGS, TECHNOLOGIES, POLITICS University of Manchester – Manchester research Inititute for Cosmopolitan Cultures (RICC) Collective tragedy and digital emotions: the Earthquake in Abruzzi “lived” on Facebook Alessandra Micalizzi IULM University – Communication dept. alessandra.micalizzi@iulm.it
- 2. Framing the research: the Event Something about the Abruzzi earthquake: On 6th April 2009 (3.32 A.M.) there was an hard sequence of earthquake shakes; After few hours the L’Aquila City center was destroyed and about ten little countries experience the same situation; All communication channels are disrupted; After the following two weeks the there were 1600 hurts and 286 deads.
- 3. Framing the research: mediascapes What happened on the Media and above all the Net: The information about the Event arrives above all the next morning (TV and Radio gave the news also in the night but the tragedy happened in the night, so common people aren’t informed about that, a part o f the direct or indirect interested) The movement on the Net started the next day too, but someone, with a key modem could inform relatives about what had happened; The groups in Facebook started in the first hours of the afternoon…
- 4. Framing the research: who are the victims? Cusano (2002) individuates three typologies of victims: The persons that are directly involved The relatives of that persons Experts and help operators that work on the field in case of tragedy. According to me there are an other typology of victm: Audience-surfers : people who “live” the events through the media, but has a great affective and emotional involvement
- 5. Framing the research: a focus on Facebook Definition of the Net: A narrative technology (Walzer, 2001:2002) “where” is defined a new socio-anthropological place, where doing experiences of virtual togetherness (Bakardjieva, 2005) The structure of Facebook: The Facebook page isn’t a collective space where writing about self (like a forum), but is a personal space where you allow other people to access. The group in Facebook are based on: - The joining by invitation or direct contact - A viral fowarding of the group link
- 6. The goals of the research What is the role of the Net in the specific circumstance of a collective tragedy? More specifically, the research wants to understand: the characteristics of the fragmented narratives shared on Facebook; the motivations (of Facebookers) connected with the act of publishing personal feelings in a public space; the expectations about the effects of the posting action; the collective representation of the earthquake (above all on a visual level) on Facebook; the functions of the Net in order to elaborate a collective trauma.
- 7. Methods and sample Narrative qualitative content analisys of 21.000 posts of the first 5 groups about the earthquake; E-mail interviews with authors of the posts (25 on 100 contacts); visual analysis of 500 photos, chosen in order to represent the first 500 groups
- 8. The results In the next slides I show the results about the narrative content analysis and about the e-mail interviews - used as support to the first part of the research – in order to: describe the different typologies of narratives Individuate motivations and expectations Define the functions of the Net
- 9. The schedule for narrative analysis Subject: What is the focus of the narrative? The Event The author of the narration The object: what kind of the theme is proposed on the post? Anecdote: something about the earthquake Experience: something referred to the past Emotion: feelings and sentiment about the event Needs: specific request (foods, help, lost people etc)
- 10. The schedule for narrative analysis The referent: who is the addressee of the post? All the facebookers Specific referents (known persons or the author of the post) The aim: what is the implicit or explicit motivation contained in the message? To express (more personal) To share To describe (more analytic and detouched)
- 11. Typologies of narratives I identified 9 typologies: Typologies Subject Object Referent aims Help request Event-f Needs everyone express Empathetic I-focused Emotions Specific others Share solidarity Pragmatic I-focused Needs Specific others share Solidarity Witness Event-f. Anecdote everyone Express Denunciation Event-f. Anecdote everyone Describe Pray Event-f Emotion Specific others Share Memory I-focused Experience Self Describe Searching I-focused Experience everyone Describe Delayed I-focused Emotions Specific others express mourning
- 12. Motivations and expectations Why they arrive to the group: The respondents declare to be arrived to the group through: • Invitation forwarded by a friend • Personal search on Facebook • By chance In any case, they have a link with the Abruzzi (or the event): Sense of belonging Relatives Previous experience of earthquake Direct experience (especially of help)
- 13. Motivations and expectations Why they wrote on the wall: The reasons expressed in the e-mail interviews confirm my classification with the content analysis: • To share feelings of solidarity, a pray for the victims, memories about previous experience • To express emotions (above all anger, pain and suffer) or the sense of belonging • To promote initiatives • To inform about incorrect actions
- 14. Motivations and expectations More in depth, they underline the importance of writing on the Net in order to: give and to leave a memory (not to forget!) give a sign of their presence (“we are a part of… we are affectively close to…”) At the same time: Some respondents don’t remember to have wrote on the wall (generally people less engaged) Some interviewees – more involved –used the interview to tell again what happened on 6 April 2009 in their life
- 15. Motivations and expectations With which expectations: To move to an action: In a lot of cases, the act of writing on the wall was the first sign of pragmatic participation to the event; They don’t express specific expectations, especially when the message is about emotions and feelings (I wrote only to pour out my feelings) They specify the importance to leave e memory (not to forget) They would express the sense of belonging to Abruzzi (not of being Italians)
- 16. The functions I try to elaborate e synthetic model about the functions of the Net using two axis: The narrative focus: I-focused vs. Event- focused; The aim of the posting: egocentric vs. solidarity one. In this way I identified 4 functions: (proto) Therapeutic f. Socio-affective f. Pragmatic f. Function of memory
- 17. Final model (Proto) therapeutic f. I-focused Socio-affective f. Delay. Mourning Emph. Solidarity memory searching Pragm. solidarity egocentricity solidarity Witness Denunciation Pray Help request Memory f. Pragmatic f. Event-focused