Identities Gone Rogue

It’s time to reel in the political hostility on social media

Social media platforms have played a vital and strategic role in the past three presidential elections. With each coming election season we see an increased amount of posting on the subject of politics, and the identification of specific partisanship views. What became more prevalent in this election than was in the past two, was the polarization of online identities and the resulting decimation of millions of online relationships.

Social media platforms became a much more hostile place in the months preceding this past election. Citizens are becoming much more outspoken, and believe that it is their right to say whatever they have the audacity to say. We have clearly run into conflicting media ideologies: a personal set of operating beliefs about how to communicate through a particular medium, and how others will perceive our communication.

In the coming years we must find a common set of operating beliefs through which we all feel comfortable communicating.

A disembodied identity is an identity that only exists in actions and words, often online. Most people act in accordance with their embodied identity, but sometimes people take the opportunity to create a new or different identity while hiding behind the safety of their computer screen. This was very prevalent in the social media landscape of the 2016 presidential election.

Many people felt that it was acceptable to post more often and more aggressively about their political views on social media. They felt more comfortable saying whatever they wanted to, because it was amid the frame of a detached online identity that was not connected to their real lives.

A disembodied identity is often coupled with a disembodied audience. Posting on a platform to a perceived disembodied audience causes the posted message to be framed differently, and written with a different intent of message.

Scholar Nancy Baym describes Alice Marwick’s concept that, “communicating online to unknown and disembodied audiences is a way to build a public identity, often in service of ‘self-branding.’”

Working through a disembodied identity allows the user to essentially create, or self-brand, whatever “self” they wish to be. With regard to the election, many users allowed their partisan beliefs to become a part of their online identity. The divisive nature of this election caused the identities on social media to become extremely polarized. This polarization, naturally, led to the destruction of many online relationships.

Given that many social media users permitted their partisanship to be a part of their online identity, they lashed out against other users with differing beliefs. Darren Samuelsohn describes many personal experiences of relational destruction on Facebook. Families not only allowed political arguments to take over the Thanksgiving dinner table conversation, but took these arguments to public social media platforms. Political views became so strongly polarized, that the majority of Facebook users no longer wanted to deal with any views or opinions that were different from their own. This want also arises in part due to the affordance of being able to personally filter what you can see on your newsfeed. Facebook allows us to choose our friends, as well as who amongst those friends we want to follow on our feed.

It became a trend for users to either unfriend their online friends with different political beliefs on Facebook, or publicly ask them to unfriend themselves through posting a strongly worded Facebook post.

Samuelsohn mentions the opinion of Vincent Harris, a Republican digital strategist.

“After all, isn’t it easier to just de-friend people than actually have to engage with facts to back up our beliefs?”

It is interesting that so many people turned their frustrations into an attack on these “friend” relationships. The relationship of the “friend” on Facebook means very different things depending on the status of the relationship offline. Users can often clearly identify which of their “friends” they consider to be close relationships offline, and which they have little to no offline relationship with. However, it is the in between relationships that are often very ambiguous. This ambiguity leads to conflict due to differing media ideologies. Media ideologies can act as a set of self-imposed standards or guidelines for online communication. The guidelines for some may strictly prohibit mentioning anything regarding to politics at all, because they do not feel that it is an appropriate topic for online conversation. Others think that it is entirely appropriate to post whatever they want, because it is their right to do so. Others still, believe that some politics are appropriate, but should be posted in an polite and mature manner.

Users with different media ideologies, who also do not have a defined idea of the nature of their relationship with certain “friends,” are more likely to post such outlandish statements.

This particular user above is clearly in support of Hillary Clinton, and does not wish to be friends with anyone who voted for Donald Trump. The user is publicly asking any of their current friends to unfriend them if they voted accordingly. They are making this request in a broad, sweeping manner that would include all of their “friends” regardless of the nature of their offline relationship. The user is currently amid their disembodied identity which identifies with Hillary Clinton, and no other candidate. Should they be face-to-face with any of these online “friends” who voted for Donald Trump, I doubt their embodied identity would have the audacity to ask that person to end their friendship right then and there.

The user above has also made the request for their current friends to “unfriend” them due to differing beliefs. In this instance, however, the user is frustrated by people who did not vote at all and is choosing to blame those individuals for the outcome, which they are clearly not happy about.

This final user below is clearly very frustrated and dismayed by the reactions and behaviors of other users that they are “friends” with. This user is not asking for their “friendship” to end, but rather narcissistically stating that they wanted those particular users to stay and endure the ridicule that they will soon face.

The commonality between each of these three examples is the harshly negative and demeaning way in which they communicated to their Facebook friends. Although Facebook recognized these particular users to be “friends,” the users did not act very friendly towards each other. None of these users would likely say any of these things to any of their “friends” if they were offline, and face-to-face.

The polarization of this election catalyzed the creation and furthering of disembodied identities on social media.

All people have thoughts of disagreement on a daily basis, but do not express all of these thoughts because it is a social norm of practice to be polite in our face-to-face interactions. However, behind the disembodied identity that is so easily created through online social media, it is much easier to express these negative feelings. Their audience is also disembodied, so there are no foreseeable repercussions for their actions.

Baym speaks of underlying reasons for these disembodied identities to act the way they do, and what they seek to gain.

“Practicing skills such as assertiveness can help people to work through issues involving control and mastery, gain competence, and find a comfort which they can then transfer to their embodied encounters. This is especially so when they receive positive feedback for their online expressions of identity.”

By expressing that their political beliefs are the only correct way to view the political landscape, these users are asserting their dominance over the rest of their “friends.” This is not very far from bullying, and thus is not surprising that this type of behavior led to the dismemberment of many relationships.

In future elections, we need to find a way to express our political views in a civil and objective manner. Once that becomes a normalized media ideology, users who continue to exhibit hostile behavior will be socially shamed for their actions. We can push social media environments in a progressively positive direction by starting with our own behavior. All it takes is one positive online exchange to start a chain reaction, which will eventually change the entire landscape of political interactions on social media.