social media intimacy

The Mourning After: A Case Study of Social Media

in the 3.11 Earthquake Disaster in Japan

Elsa 27.08.2012 Week7

The Mourning After: A Case Study of Social Media in the 3.11 Earthquake Disaster in Japan

• The essay demonstrates that people are increasingly becoming witnesses to various natural disasters with their own specific type of affective cultures dues to the development of social mobile media.

How social media offer new channels for affective cultures?

The Mourning After: A Case Study of Social Media in the 3.11 Earthquake Disaster in Japan

• Capturing, sharing and monumentalizing events• Moving across online and offline worlds into

geosocial terrain• Taking much credit for mobilizing action

e.g. YouTube, Facebook

Hjorth, L & Kim, KY (2011), ‘The Mourning After: A Case Study of Social Media in the 3.11 Earthquake Disaster in Japan’, Television & New Media, vol. 12, no. 6, pp. 552-559

The Mourning After: A Case Study of Social Media in the 3.11 Earthquake Disaster in Japan

In what ways social media had impact on the public?

The Mourning After: A Case Study of Social Media in the 3.11 Earthquake Disaster in Japan

The Mourning After: A Case Study of Social Media in the 3.11 Earthquake Disaster in Japan

In general:• Provide various modes of visual, textual, oral

communication with greater affective personalization

• Provide new spaces for networked, effective civic responses and affective interpersonal responses

• Make the public feel more connected dues to a new sense of collective affective power

In the situation of natural disasters:

• Collecting and disseminate horrific events

• Shaping the affective nature of the event

Hjorth, L & Kim, KY (2011), ‘The Mourning After: A Case Study of Social Media in the 3.11 Earthquake Disaster in Japan’, Television & New Media, vol. 12, no. 6, pp. 552-559

The Mourning After: A Case Study of Social Media in the 3.11 Earthquake Disaster in Japan

The Mourning After: A Case Study of Social Media in the 3.11 Earthquake Disaster in Japan

Social Media Intimacy

Social Media creates Intimacy

http://www.youtube.com/watchv=BVb1RRMHZjs&feature=related

• According to Anthropologist Stefana Broadbent (2009), communications to some extent are strengthening our most important relationships.

• “Mobile phones, instant messaging and social networking actually creates new channels for establishing core relationships.”

Broadbent, S (2009), TED Global 2009, Oxford

Social Media Intimacy

Social Media Intimacy

How these impact on the public in terms of building relationships?

Social Media Intimacy

Twitter

• a cocktail party of social media

• relationships start and are sustained, but not go further

• but your approach is limited with140 characters

Blogs• usually start with

commenting on one’s blog

• seek both interests and similarities

Social Media Intimacy

Emails

• quite intimate in the context of the online world

• offer beyond other types one-to-one conversation without content restriction

Social Media Intimacy

Facebook

• both bloggers and readers seem to be evolving

• very visual glimpse into who you really are as someone

• probably one day that people will not use their email address anymore

Social Media Intimacy

Social Media Intimacy

• The number of “inboxes” we possess is staggering,

e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Google + messages, Blog comments, Skype, Instagram, etc.

Social Media Intimacy

• The common belief in interacting with more people is inherently better than interacting with fewer people, sometimes no longer convinced.

Social Media Intimacy

• A feeling of intimacy and closeness that doesn’t actually exist.

Social Media Intimacy

• Giving each channel an intimacy rating on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 the most intimate, how you rate these forms, including Twitter, Blog, Facebook, Skype/Online Chat.

• And then, discuss where have your deepest connections in the online and mobile world been formed?  

Discussion Activity