On the Intimate & Ordinary

#COM520 graduate students use Signal to chat about the 40-year legacy of Joshua Meyrowitz and Irving Goffman

My graduate students grew up with text messaging — it’s a form of communication that they have become very skilled with. And so, I decided that using Signal for an online chat as part of my synchronous class in Media Studies would be a good idea. After all, we were discussing examples of how “scholarly conversation” actually works, across time and space, as scholars advance new knowledge about digital media’s role in society. This week’s readings started with Kate Crawford on the role of the banal (the intimate and the ordinary) in the maintenance of social relationships, and included topics like webstalking, social media platforms, authenticity, context, and charismatic authority. Text messaging for class dialogue could perhaps elucidate the interplay between “play” and “serious discourse.” And indeed, when the topic of context came up, students talked about how comfortable they felt in online chat discussions. Nate then asked, “Would the context feel different if Dr. Hobbs was in the chat?”

Gianni explained that the ability to self-moderate the conversation was a plus and chat also provided time to really think about what you wanted to say, letting some depth emerge. Fabian said, “I don’t even feel like I’m in class right now.” Sarah even wondered whether the warm social relationships would translate to in-person classes and Chelsea noted that having the Signal chat might make her feel more comfortable in a F2F setting.

Of course, at that moment, I was “in” the chat — but as a lurker, standing in line at waiting for a Customs agent welcome me back to the United States from my first foreign travel since the covid pandemic began.

I’ll admit it: The session was productive because I was not moderating it. Although I informed students I would be reviewing their chat, students took the initiative to start the discussion and were free to discuss ideas, comment on each other’s posts. As Nate explained, “The context of the relationships with classmates felt drastically different than in the classroom even though we were still engaging in classwork.” Students had the humility and the willingness to talk out ideas. There was a real intimacy to the dialogue, and people got to know each other more through the online conversation.

Details about the Process. Students were assigned to read 1 scholarly article that built upon the long conversation, launched by Irving Goffman, who first explored communication, identity, and performance. In the Signal chat, they were encouraged to take advantage of the informal and playful format but to share their interpretations of the scholarly articles they read in relation to these questions:

1. Share 1–2 everyday actions and experiences (what Kate Caldwell calls “everyday trivia”) to forge connections between classmates who are physically remote from each other. How will you turn ordinary life into mutual entertainment tonight through talking and listening via Signal?
2. Have you ever webstalked someone? Has someone ever webstalked you? What did it feel like? Why did you/they do it?
3. What makes an individual seem “authentic” on social media platforms? How do people construct identity differently on different platforms?
4. How do you reconcile the context of a peer-to-peer Signal chat with the context of a graduate course in Media Studies at the University of Rhode Island? How do these two contexts shift dynamically over the course of the interaction?
5. Who is the most charismatic online personality you have encountered? What makes them appealing? Have you ever used social media for any kind of narcissistic behavior? Why or why not? Have you ever participated in any form of online social or political activism? Why or why not?

Online Activism and Charismatic Authority. This last topic was most fascinating (and a little troubling) when students themselves revealed their awareness of the paradox of engagement. In discussing individualized charismatic authority (ICA) from “The Populist Allure of Social Media Activism,” Nils Gustafsson and Noomi Weinryb claim that digital engagement and participatory cultures may have detrimental consequences for democracy.

The self-infatuation cultivated by social media platforms may lead individuals “to coalesce around themselves, seduced and blown away by their own engagement” as Evan explained it. Was this group experiencing the blissful indulgence of the intimate and the ordinary? And would the emotional warmth and respect they were demonstrating to each other activate or suppress learning?

How does social media intersect with the dangers of charismatic authority? The authors fear that charismatic authority (read: politicians like Donald Trump) could replace organized democratic decision-making “with trust in the leader doing the right thing.” Could charismatic authority challenge the legitimacy of institutional authority and democratic processes? This topic sets us up nicely for next week’s exploration of so-called “fake news.” Although I am of course the institutional authority in residence, you won’t be surprised to hear that I was thrilled that graduate students maintained a fine balance of play and learning in an online discussion. We’re on our way as a community of learners now. That’s why I feel very lucky to have such a fine group of students this semester!