Why Are We So Urged To Share?

“The concept of sharing is thus pro-social and holds out the promise of a better future, in which people are brought together through the mutual understanding gained by open and honest communication, and in which resources are distributed more justly than is the case today,” John (2015).

In today’s world overrun by the social, there is a huge importance put on the idea of sharing. Facebook asks you, “What’s on your mind?” Twitter wants to know “what’s happening”, and most times, when you publish anything in the online sphere, you are “sharing”.

Throughout history, sharing has been a major cultural aspect that brought society together and created connections that allowed for social integration. (Kennedy, 2012). In the past, this sharing of information, and the mere action of sharing, itself, benefited the shared culture itself, be it communities in certain places, or even on larger scales. Today, however, as our culture of sharing moves online, the action of sharing has more depths than previously, as the medium of sharing matters just as much.

Kennedy mentions that, “these platforms operate as cultural intermediaries and, as such, are power structures able to construct digital subjects where being a good neoliberal subject means sharing through socialization, network- ing, and navigating. Good subjects post, update, like, tweet, retweet, and most importantly, share.” (2012).

Social capital is thus a clear outcome of this process of sharing, both in the past and present. However, with the online social process of sharing, there exists a third party that benefits off of this capital. Our information is no longer just that, it is data being monetised for the benefit of these new media owners. Looking at the case of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, Hoffman, Proferes, and Zimmer argue that, “Zuckerberg’s use of the term “sharing” works to depoliticize a complex field of social and capital relations, using the language of sharing and connection to more efficiently construct, police, and commodify users…” (2016). We no longer benefit from sharing alone to create a sense of community and collaboration, but we are rather being sold the idea of sharing, buying into it with our privacy. Our entire online existence is a product constructed and sold by social media owners, we are data. When our existence in society relies on our online presence, though, what does that mean? When you are considered anti-social or curious for not participating in this new sphere of existence, who protects your information?

We cannot challenge the fact that these mediums are invaluable in our lives. Social media has become so integral in our day and age that even the need to get a job relies on it in most cases. Even if one isn’t asked for her social media in interviews, these media play a huge role in networking, in reaching that stage to begin with. “Social network sites, it seems, are less about the already articulated networks, as Boyd and Ellison originally suggested. Rather, social media (or shall we say social networking sites) are fundamentally about net- working inasmuch as the term indeed emphasizes relationship initiation.” (Bucher, 2015).

We have brought this unto ourselves, though. We live in a global society that wants access without paying for it, one that values free media over having to pay for participating in it. Clearly, this is not a good business model for media owners, especially when the alternative of relying on selling data creates a huge financial gain.

What rights do we, the user, hold then? To gain control over our information, we must be willing to change the way that we think about social media. There are many policies that have been suggested for the purpose of, “strengthening the public sphere and driving back the power of the digital giants,” (Fuchs, 2018).

One possible policy is the creation of an online advertising tax, allowing for the creation of an alternative source of information. This is based on the idea of demonopilising the internet through creating a “Public Service Internet” (Fuchs, 2018). This would create alternative sources of information and social interaction than present tycoons that benefit off of these functions and control two thirds of the online sphere, through creating public service media, public libraries, and other public sources of knowledge and media of socialising that are open and advertising-free.

Though this seems like a positive first step to break up Google and Facebook’s monopoly over the internet, there remains the issue of varying legislative powers from nation to nation. As these companies are both based in the United States, what happens across the American borders? Do these taxes apply on a world-wide scale, or do they remain benefiting only those in the United States, lagging other nations further behind on an online scale as well as the pre-existing economic one?

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References:

• Bucher, T. (2015). “Networking, or What the Social Means in Social Media”. Social Media + Society, 1-2.
• Hoffman, A.L., Proferes, N., & Zimmer, M. (2016).“Making the World More Open and Connected: Mark Zuckerberg and the Discursive Construction of Facebook and its Users”. New Media & Society, Vol. 20(1) 199–218.
• John, N. (2017). “Sharing – From Ploughshares to File Sharing and Beyond”. High Science Blog.
• Kennedy, J. (2012). “Rhetorics of Sharing: Data, Imagination, and Desire”. Unlike Us Reader.