Microblogging and Identity Performance Pilot - Facebook Status Updates

8/8/2019 Microblogging and Identity Performance Pilot - Facebook Status Updates

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Microblogs and Identity Construction: A Pilot Investigation of Facebook Status Updates

Abstract: This analysis examines microblog 'status updates' short, discreet messages sharedelectronically via the social networking website Facebook and their role in identity creation by usersof microblogs. Through a content analysis of a sample of 'status updates', the study analyzes the kindsof messages that users send and the ways in which they employ microblogs to express or present

themselves to their social networks. Informed by social network theory as well as existing studies of other microblogging platforms such as the standalone service Twitter and instant messaging softwareaway messages, this study is a pilot analysis for a dissertation topic centered on microblogging andidentity construction.

I. Introduction and Research QuestionFrom the conversation to the phone call to the sound bite, the unit of communication, as aided

by developments in information and communication technology, has been shrinking ever smaller. Now,

an emergent form of communication known by the cumbersome name of micro-blogging 1, reduces the

length of a message to a limit of some 200 characters (be they letters, numbers, symbols or spaces).

That limit, sometimes reduced to 140 characters as a result of Short Message Service (SMS) limitations

on mobile phone text message lengths, provides a cap on the length of messages that can be sent, and

thus to some degree the kind of messages that are sent.

Microblogs exist with some amount of variation in terms of format and limitations. A popular

microblogging service called Twitter limits the length of messages to 140 characters so that they can be

distributed via SMS to the network of subscribers (Diaz 2007). Popular social networking websites like

MySpace and Facebook allow users to write their own 'status updates' which are syndicated and shared

with users who view their profiles or are linked with them as 'friends' (Slee 2007). Earlier precursors to

microblogs, such as instant messaging 'away message '2 - somewhat analogous to a voice mail message

- provide an automated response to users who attempt to contact another who has their away message

activated (typically, the message would inform the user that the person they were attempting to contact

was not available to chat). In email and USENET, a signature that is automatically added to messages

posted or sent by a user could be seen as a kind of proto-microblog because it provided the user a

1 Wikipedia defines microblogging as a form of blogging that allows users to write brief text updates (usually less than200 characters) and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group. (Wikipedia 2008)

2 See http://www.aim.com/help_faq/using/win/away.adp#how


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discrete space to express themselves to their peers.

As you can see, the notion of using various kinds of short-form messages to convey relevant

information or an element of identity to others is not a new phenomenon, even in networked computing

applications (Nastri et al 2006). What has changed is that while earlier manifestations of microbloggingwere normally simply a feature of an application, microblogs have become applications unto

themselves. Services like Twitter (and others such as Jaiku and Pownce) have millions of registered

users (Arrington 2008) who use the site solely for microblogging, while social networking websites

like Facebook and MySpace have turned microblog status updates into a prominently featured function

of their popular services used by tens of millions of registered users.

The question then becomes just how people are using these microblogs, and what kind of

messages they are sending with them. While modern microblogs often contain a prompting question

that asks 'What are you doing?', users have been shown to actively repurpose the technology to their

own ends, using them to broadcast messages to their friends, share links with their community and

express themselves to their network in a variety of ways (Mischaud 2007). It is this last kind of

message that is most relevant to my study. How do users employ microblogging to express aspects of

their identity to their community of peers, and what kinds of messages are they sending? I intend to

explore this question through an analysis of status updates from the Facebook social network.

II. The Method

i. Selection of Method

I chose to conduct a content analysis on a sample of Facebook status updates for this study.

Given the nature of the unit of observation - discrete messages with a maximum length of 160

characters (approximately 25-30 words) content analysis seemed to be a suitable method for

analyzing the sample, as it is particularly suited for codifying the contents of a text and identifying

patterns or trends within it (Gunter 2000: 60). While other forms of analysis such as critical discourse


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analysis or interviewing might have yielded interesting results about the motivations or state of mind of

users of microblogs, the goal of this study was to provide a quantifiable data regarding the types of

messages that users did produce, rather than the reasons why they produced them. Given that the study

of microblogs as a distinct form of communication remains relatively sparsely researched, and as thegoals of this study are relatively modest, it seemed reasonable to settle on content analysis as a means

of producing quantifiable data that could be used in the future to inform more far-reaching studies.

ii. Sampling

For the purposes of this pilot study, I made use of a convenience sample. Although such a

decision will considerably limit the representativeness of the results, given that this is a pilot study it

provided an easy method to collect a sample of microblogs to apply the coding schedule to. According

to Riffe et al (2005: 99), convenience samples can be justified under certain circumstances: if the

subject of analysis is difficult to randomly sample, if such a random sample would be costly to generate

or if the subject of analysis is situated in an underresearched but important area. In the context of this

pilot study, both the first and third conditions apply: the nature of the social networking site that is the

source of the microblog samples is such that ordinary users are barred from seeing the status updates of

those users that they are not 'friends' with. As a result, the universe of available status updates for study

is limited by the size of a users network. Additionally, as mentioned previously, there is currently little

research in the area of microblogging, and as such the use of convenience sampling can provide a

starting point for future scholarship (ibid: 100).

Efforts have been made to reduce, to some degree, the bias in my sampling. Using the tools

provided to all users on Facebook, I identified 135 users within my network who had used the

microblogging function between the period of 1 January, 2008 and 12 April, 2008. Using systematic

sampling, I selected every third user on the list and collected their status updates using an RSS

subscription function available on Facebook. This provided me with a sample of 45 users, with a

combined total of 438 status updates.


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iii. Construction of Coding Frame

In the construction of my coding frame, my goal was to provide descriptive data to categorize

status updates as different kinds of messages. In order to provide additional context to the messages,

and to provide a bit more groundwork for future research, I also coded some elements of the biographical information of users in the sample. These biographical data points were taken from the

users profile pages, which were available to the researcher as we were connected as 'friends' on the

network. They included regional information that is, where the user was from as well as gender

identity. Additionally, each user was categorized according to whether they were a light, medium or

heavy user of the microblog functionality of the social network. It was thought that this data could

provide some interesting comparisons during the analysis.

The more significant descriptive inputs, however, had to do with the nature of the status update

messages themselves. The length of messages was coded, and most significantly each message was

coded into a category to characterize the contents of the message. An informal review of a section of

the sample provided insight on the creation of eleven categories that would encompass the range of

types of messages that users posted, with one additional category created to collect any messages that

failed to fit the other categories. This task completed, the sample data was coded according to the

schedule.

III. Analysis and Findings

After the coding was completed, an analysis was conducting using statistical software and the

results were reviewed. The sample, which contained 45 users, was 65% female, which is perhaps a

consequence of the convenience sample it could be that there are more women in my network than

men. The convenience sample's bias came up as well in the geography of users just over 75% of users

were from North America (where I am from), with the next largest group being Asia, with 12.4%.

People who had used the microblogging functionality of Facebook were found to be quite active in


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their use, with nearly one half (47%) categorized as heavy users (posting more than 10 status updates in

the sample period). When heavy and medium users were combined, they accounted for 70.5% of the

sample, meaning that seven out of ten users posted five or more status updates in the period. This level

of activity is interesting, and further analysis of the most active microbloggers found that men weremore likely to be heavy users of microblogging than women, with 53% of male users in the sample

having more than 10 status updates compared with 41% of female users. When it came to the length of

posts, however, users tended to be very similar across gender lines. Both male and female posters had

surprisingly close agreement on message length, with 73% of both populations using between one and

ten words. Only 2% of male status updates and 1.4% of female status updates contained more than 25

words, with the remainder being between 11 and 24 words long.

The most important data for the study, however, had to do with the types of messages that users

were posting as status updates. As with Mischaud (2007), the analysis showed that users were less

interested in answering the prompting question (What are you doing right now?) than in adopting the

medium for their own use. However, whereas Mischaud's study of Twitter found that roughly one third

of users were answering the prompting question, in my analysis I found that only about one in ten

(11.7%) of the status updates were in response to the prompting question making it only the fifth

most popular type of status update. Men were more likely to answer the prompting question than

women (14.76% of men's status updates did so, as compared with 10.1% for women), and light users

were most likely to do so, with 15% of status updates from light users answering the prompting

question compared to just 9% of medium and 11% of heavy users.

If users were not particularly interested in answering the prompting question, then what were

they interested in microblogging about? Among all users in the sample, the most popular category of

status update was sharing information about personal life. This category included users references to

future plans (Joel is planning on going to grad school, Michael is looking forwards to the weekend)

and their state of mind (Haoyi is falling in love with covert garden all over again... , Ellen is kick,


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push, kick, push, coast...), and was, perhaps, a bit elastic. Nevertheless, this category comprised 18.8%

of all status updates in the sample, as well as 20.8% of male user's messages (17.68% of women) and

20% of medium frequency user's posts (18% for both light and heavy users).

The next most popular category was self-conscious message about thoughts, concerns,anxieties, etc with 17.6% of all status updates in the sample falling into this category. In this case,

posts tended to be messages of concern or emotion (Liz is jumping off a cliff.. emoitonally and i hope

its the right choice , Katie is hoping she gets it all sorted out), a surprisingly revealing category of

message that perhaps reflects something of the intimacy with which users treat their social networks on

Facebook, as compared with a more public microblogging platform such as Twitter. In this category,

women posted just about twice as many status updates in this category as men (21.29% to 10.79%), and

heavy users posted more of these messages (18%) than did light or medium users (12% and 16%,

respectively).

In the context of identity construction and the nature of Facebook operating within a community

of one's peers, it did not come as a surprise to find that users often referred to specific cultural artifacts

in their status updates (Dana is glad Starburst finally produced a bag full of only the red and pink

jellybeans. Genius, Ashmi is slowly realizing just how cult Foucault is). The use of reference to

brands, celebrities, bands or other cultural artifacts allow users to express their affinity for those objects

or people and thus to signal to others what kind of person they are. 16.7% of all status updates were

categorized in this way, with men more likely than women to post these messages (20.13% to 14.8%)

and light users of microblogging significantly more likely to send status updates in this category (24%)

than medium or heavy users (9% and 17%, respectively).

IV. Discussion

The results seem to suggest one thing above all: microblogs in this sample are a means of

communicating highly personal messages, both about who the authors are, and about how they feel or


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what they do. Far from simply using status updates as a way to tell their friends that they are reading a

book - a common critique of microblogs is their alleged propensity to vapid announcements (Popkin

2007) they are telling their friends which book they are reading, and how it is making them feel. This

was borne out in the data in which fully half (53%) of the microblog messages were concentrated in thethree most personal categories those related to expressing affinity with cultural artifacts, sharing

information about users' personal life, and deeply personal messages regarding thoughts, concerns and

anxieties affecting the authors that they freely share with their social network.

A number of reasons may explain why this study varied so much from Mischaud's (2007)

findings regarding the kinds of messages people sent, as well as the extent to which they responded to

the prompting question. Not the least might be that users as a whole may treat Facebook status updates

differently than Twitter, even if they are both forms of microblogging. The nature of Twitter, which is

by default a public network, and one in which anybody may 'follow' (the rough equivalent of 'friending'

on Facebook) anybody, users might be less apt to share deeply personal information so publicly. Also,

Twitter uses SMS text messages as one of its primary inputs, which may be more useful in reporting

your current activity when you are out and about, as opposed to deeply personal messages. Facebook

users, on the other hand, tend to access the site via a PC, normally in their home, office or school

(although a version of Facebook is accessible via mobile phone). As such, perhaps they microblog

about more personal things because the situation that they find themselves in lends itself more to

reflective or thoughtful messages. A user writing a microblog from their bedroom might feel more

comfortable writing about personal concerns of theirs in that setting than they would in the car or at a

restaurant, for instance. In order to test this, future study could add a codification of the input used to

submit the status update to further examine this hypothesis and see if the use of a mobile phone (or

other method) to update a microblog has any relationship with the kind of messages that are sent.

As for the study as a whole, there are other things that could have been improved. Although

there was a very low rate of uncategorizable microblogs (less than 1%), several of the categories did


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not appear to be terribly useful, and could perhaps be rethought. Similarly, some of the categories that

were in fact quite useful were also sometimes ambiguous. This is not in the spirit of content analysis,

which strives for categories to be exhaustive and distinct. For future study the categories will need to be

revisited to remove some of the ambiguity. An order of priority might also be useful to work out, so asto make more clear how microblogs which appear to fit into two categories (for instance, references to

seeing a certain band in concert in a particular location) can reconcile between two rightfully distinct

categories (in this case, expressions of affinity with cultural artifacts and sharing location information).

Finally, due to the lack of context often provided by microblogs, there is a definitely danger of

miscategorization in the category of expressing affinity with cultural artifacts. If a status update

contains a reference to something that the coder is not familiar with (such as a song lyric or a quote

from a film), then it may be coded incorrectly. I don't see an easy solution to this problem apart from

having more coders look at the data to hopefully reach a greater reliability.

V. Conclusion

The study results show that Facebook status updates consist largely of personal messages

intended for the microblogger's peers. As compared with Twitter users in Mischaud (2007)'s study,

they are even less likely to be concerned with answering the prompting question, and more concerned

with presenting themselves, their thoughts, and their favorite items or cultural artifacts to their friends.

In this way, microbloggers send signals to their network identifying themselves through expression and

association. As contrasted to the public microblogging networks like Twitter, Facebook status updates

appear to be directed at a more specific audience of real-world acquaintances, and are less focused on

sharing links to websites or opinions on current events. Facebook status updates are a personal

narrowcasting system for microbloggers to reach out to their friends in an unobtrusive, discrete way.

Further study would be valuable to compare yet more forms of microblogging with each other,

and to determine the extent to which issues of privacy affect the messages sent by users. MySpace, for


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instance, is more public than Facebook, but less public than Twitter in many ways. It could also be

valuable to collect more data about the identities of the microbloggers themselves to see what

conclusions, if any could be drawn about how different kinds of people employ microblogging on

different platforms. What appears clear, at any rate, is that microblogs provide a useful function thatsits neatly between one-to-one private messages, real-time instant messages, and more lengthy and

involved public blog posts. They will no doubt provide rich material for further study in the future.


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Appendix A: Coding Schedule

A. Status Update Number 1-428

B. Date of Microblog

Format: dd/mm/yy range 01/01/08-12/04/08C. Microblog User Number 1-45

D. Type of Poster 1 1-4 updates : 2 5-10 updates : 3 11 or more updates

E. Gender of Poster 1 Male : 2 Female

F. Geographic Location1 North America : 2 Europe : 3 Central and South America : 4 Asia : 5 Australia : 6 Africa

G. Length of Post (in words)1 1-10 words : 2 11-25 words : 3 26+ words

H. Category of Microblog1 Sharing hyperlinks : 2 Referring to current events : 3 Relating to a cultural artifact : 4 Sharinginformation about personal life : 5 Sharing location : 6 Referring to professional/educationachievement : 7 Self-conscious messages about thoughts, anxieties : 8 Answering the promptingquestion : 9 Asking a question : 10 Sharing personal status : 11 Expressing a need or desire : 99 other/not categorizable


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Appendix B: Sample of Texts

Microblog User Number: 2Michael - P. A. R. T. Y? cuz we got to.

Michael is looking forwards to the weekend.

Michael is back on the alkaline - new album out this summer.

Michael is back on the alkaline.

Michael only just beggining to realize what a big pimp Henry the 8th was.Michael - bring it on.... Ding, Dong...

Michael is immensely frustrated.

Michael whishes the week was over.. bring on the 27th.

Michael has the cleaners coming tomorrow.

Microblog User Number: 15Liz ahh.. to be sick again, and again and again.. BUT am going on vacation again in two weeks!!yipeee.

Liz im beyond broke. damnit but i have a bunch of cool new clothes?!!

Liz wow. i miss ny and totally want to go back1 BUT im broke and hungover in sf now so that ainthappening.

Liz i kinda want to die.

Liz MY FEET HURT, BEEN WALKIN ALL OVER NY www.thesutra.com check it out im a catalogemodel.

Liz i LOVE being in NYC makes me wanna move back....Liz IN NEW YORK HOLLER AT ME !!

Liz damnit why does it have to rain on my only vacation to new york?

Liz i love eggs benedict!

Liz is totally hungover.


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Liz is NYC march 25th-29th!!

Liz is TONIGHT FASHION SHOW AT FLUID COME SEE ME !

Microblog User Number: 45Katie is hoping she gets it all sorted out.Katie FUCK KANSAS.

Katie hopes alla yall put carolina over kansas in yr brackets!

Katie can't believe she missed the New Kids in NYC!

Katie is in love with fiesta grill.Katie has a rose on her foot.

Katie heard jesse helms endorsed obama. worst april fools joke ever.

Microblog User Number: 36Dominic is looking forward to being a Nancy boy on Thursday.

Dominic is hobnobbing with architects tonight at storefront.

Dominic is wondering whether Spring Break will involve either Spring or a break.

Dominic is high yella.

Microblog User Number: 20Olmstead is rendering obsolete the vanguard paradigm.

Olmstead is bruisin', bruisin', bruisin' for a gruesin'.

Olmstead 's tired.

Olmstead is g-g-g-gooooing KRAAZEEE!

Olmstead is badap bada badap da.

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Microblogging and Identity Performance Pilot - Facebook Status Updates