Information pollution as social harm by Anita Lavorgna

Author:Anita Lavorgna [Lavorgna, Anita]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Criminology, Technology Studies, Conspiracy Theories, Popular Culture
ISBN: 9781800715233
Google: eioqEAAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
Published: 2021-04-30T00:00:00+00:00

4

BUILDING IDENTITIES AND NETWORKS THROUGH CONVERGING FRAMES

4.1. INTRODUCTION

Despite the heterogeneity of the participants observed, there are some major underlying themes and narrative frames that can be identified (Kaptchuk and Eisenberg, 1998). As we will see, these themes and frames independently push diverse (but converging and compatible) discourses, facilitating socialization with what are perceived as like-minded people by structuring intragroup attitudes and beliefs, but also facilitating their engagement with a larger audience.

As already noted in the previous chapter, the online presentation of providers (but also of many supporters) is carefully constructed, showing how they desire to appear (Donath, 1996), which in itself can be very revealing (Goffman, 1959). The first part of this chapter presents some of the main narrative frames that inform the “narratives of the self” (Gergen and Gergen, 1983) as emerging through this study. We will see that identities are built through interplay of tensions and dichotomies, crafting social imaginaries and imaginaries of the self that can be very diverse if taken singularly, but that are nonetheless connected by some major converging themes. As such, even if we cannot distinguish a specific or clearly defined subculture, in line with social identity theory, we can notice how behavior is linked to the group’s social identity, being more than a collection of individuals behaving en masse; individuals are influenced by group identity, for instance, by being motivated to protect and enhance the positivity of their group to establish positive ingroup status or ingroup distinctiveness in order to protect and enhance their own self-esteem (Hogg, 2016; Martiny and Rubin, 2016).

The frames informing these “narratives of the self” pivot around the image of themselves (such as “experts,” “belonging,” and “free/libertarian”) that the participants observed want to project to others and which are at the basis of their online socialization. There are other narrative frames, however, that are commonly found but that respond to in a subtler way to participants’ use of the social media groups to find not only support and reassurance among like-minded people, but also a sense of agency, of control over their lives. Online interactions, in a way, become an important tool allowing the agential self to further practices of freedom, ethics of self-care, and a self-oriented morality (Foucault, 1988). This latter aspect, which will be explored in the second part of this chapter, cannot be overlooked if we want to understand why certain misinformation is popular and successful: the narratives offered in our networks of interest are not only persuasive, but they are restorative to some, enabling some participants to find a renewed sense of the self and purpose (Kaptchuk and Eisenberg, 1998; Lavorgna and Myles, 2021).

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