Social media metrics reduce complex relationships to visible status rankings

Evidence

Web 2.0 is a neoliberal technology of subjectivity that teaches users how to succeed in postmodern American consumer capitalism. Social media not only demonstrates the lessons of white-collar business success by rewarding flexibility, entrepreneurialism, and risk-taking; it also provides a blueprint of how to prosper in a society where status is predicated on the cultural logic of celebrity, according to which the highest value is given to mediation, visibility, and attention. That is, the technical affordances of social media reward with higher social status the use of behaviors and self-presentation strategies that make people look. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 39 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The internet has facilitated the decentralized production of content that can be easily distributed to a networked audience. The possibility of one’s blog, online videos, or digital pictures reaching millions of people worldwide was impossible before the World Wide Web, and its potential today means that attention and visibility are highly valued, because larger audiences translate into more influence and more recognition. One’s audience, too, can be easily quantified due to the metrics built into most social media that measure readers or followers, which provide a way, however clunky, to compare people to each other that does not require an understanding of their subtle personal interactions. Metrics are thus used not only to measure a website’s success, traffic, or profitability, but also as a way of determining personal status. Megan McCarthy explains: “A lot of people around here are engineers, they’re not very good with subtleties and cues and the numbers are easy … Numbers don’t change on you.” — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 245 (#expands, via linked claim)

In 2008 the startup Klout began aggregating data from multiple social sites to see how often individuals are “liked,” re-blogged, @replied, and so forth, claiming that they measure “influence based on your ability to drive action.” If your algorithmically generated “Klout Score” is high enough, you might qualify for perks such as free Essie nail polish or a visit to the set of Dallas. (My Klout score hovers around fifty, making me eligible for nothing.) Klout never uses the term status, but it measures influence in three vectors: the number of people you reach, how likely those people are to act on your content (for example, by commenting on it or re-tweeting it), and how influential your network is. Klout rewards people precisely for achieving the status metrics of Web 2.0. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 252 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Social media metrics convert audience size into a comparable measure of personal status — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 245; Twitter’s blended follower-broadcaster roles formed a rich social context for status assessment. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 231; Blatant self-promotion on social media signals low status — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 516 (+11 more)

Related

• Social media metrics convert audience size into a comparable measure of personal status (similarity 0.92)
• Social media’s design rewards visibility and self-promotion with social status. (similarity 0.89)
• Social media platforms reward visibility and attention as measures of social status (similarity 0.89)
• Klout algorithmically quantified social media influence and status. (similarity 0.89)
• Social media reduces human relationships to quantified status displays that reinforce inequality (similarity 0.89)
• Social media popularity created an attention-based status hierarchy parallel to engineering wealth (similarity 0.86)
• Social media’s broadcastability has transformed status into attention-seeking and visibility. (similarity 0.85)
• Social media broadcasting transforms status by prioritizing attention and visibility (similarity 0.85)
• Web metrics conflating hits, page views, and uniques produce inflated traffic claims (similarity 0.85)
• Social media’s technical features encode and reinforce contradictory status values (similarity 0.84)
• Follower counts conflate popularity with influence, visibility, and personal status (similarity 0.84)
• Twitter’s blended follower-broadcaster roles formed a rich social context for status assessment. (similarity 0.83)
• Academic metrics mirror social media influence metrics (similarity 0.83)
• Metrics become socially interpreted measures of personal self-worth (similarity 0.82)
• Achieved status, not mere visibility, is what earns admiration online. (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Social media metrics convert audience size into a comparable measure of personal status #expands (0.90) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 245
• Social media’s design rewards visibility and self-promotion with social status. #corroborates (0.90) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 39
• Klout algorithmically quantified social media influence and status. #exemplifies (0.85) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 252
• Social media broadcast disciplined lifestyle routines as status-signaling bragging #exemplifies (0.80) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 315
• Twitter’s blended follower-broadcaster roles formed a rich social context for status assessment. #corroborates (0.75) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 231
• Web metrics incentivized traffic and clickbait over prestige and quality #expands (0.75)
• Blatant self-promotion on social media signals low status #expands (0.72) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 516