Facing "The Book" : investigating the discursive construction of Facebook through multiple modalities and the consequent construction of ideology.
Date
2010-11-11
Authors
Nortje, Daniela
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Abstract
This research sought to present Facebook from an alternative perspective, one not
typically engaged with. Just as architecture, design and other modes have been
identified as contributors to meaning, so too does their realisation in a virtual setting.
The impact or importance of these modes is perhaps even more pronounced in
virtual settings as they not only seek to communicate meaning but seek to establish a
degree of rapport between reality and virtual domains. The principle aims of the
research were to critically analyse the architecture of Facebook, paying specific
attention to the discursive mechanisms and devices employed in maintaining its
existing usership and communication of a central ideology; to assess the extent to which
this particular ideology is reflected in the ‘physical’ or structural components of the site
as well as to compare alternative modes of discourse such as the Facebook architecture
and sections of text in order to establish the degree to which these are convergent or
divergent from each other. Using a combination of Fairclough (2001) critical discourse
analysis and an adaption of the multimodal discourse analysis Kress and van Leeuwen
(2001) set out in their seminal work on the interdiscursivity of Discourse, Design,
Production and Distribution. These methodologies were used to perform a multimodal
discourse analysis of the Facebook architecture, ‘home’ page, ‘profile’ page and other
key elements of the site. In addition to this, critical discourse analysis was used to
analyse the ‘Facebook Principles’ and integrate them into a holistic and multimodal
analysis of the contributions these modes had to the emergence of ideology. Drawing on
the work of Baudrillard, on the key critics of consumer culture and technology, the
research identified that Facebook provided a comprehensive representation of the
various ways technology has impacted on forms of communication as a well as the way
social relationships are mediated and constructed.