Small Talk with Facebook: Phatic Communication in Social Media

Ari-Heikki Sarjanoja; Minna Isomursu; Jonna Häkkilä

doi:10.1145/2523429.2523449

Small Talk with Facebook: Phatic Communication in Social Media

Ari-Heikki Sarjanoja, Minna Isomursu, Jonna Häkkilä

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland

University of Oulu

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference article in proceedings › Scientific › peer-review

9 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In this paper, we analyzed a data set of 484 unique communication events taking place in Facebook. The key contribution of this paper is the content based analysis showing that people mostly share events from their everyday lives, even if the information is repetitious or does not have any informational meaning, this practice prevailing even though most such updates were regarded as uninteresting ones. Moreover, a considerable amount of status updates was seen to fall into category of 'small talk'. The results show that the communication through Facebook has strong element of phatic communion, i.e. it serves the purpose of maintaining and defining social relationships and enacts social cohesiveness. Our results reveal an interesting contradiction between uninteresting content and (obviously) interesting service; and suggest that small talk type entries can be seen as a tool for increasing one's social capital by being active

Original language	English
Title of host publication	AcademicMindTrek '13
Subtitle of host publication	Proceedings of International Conference on Making Sense of Converging Media
Editors	Artur Lugmayr, Heljä Franssila, Janne Paavilainen, Hannu Kärkkäinen
Place of Publication	New York
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery ACM
Pages	118-121
ISBN (Print)	978-1-4503-1992-8
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/2523429.2523449
Publication status	Published - 2013
MoE publication type	A4 Article in a conference publication
Event	AcademicMindTrek '13: International Conference on Making Sense of Converging Media - Tampere, Finland Duration: 1 Oct 2013 → 4 Oct 2013

Conference

Conference	AcademicMindTrek '13
Country/Territory	Finland
City	Tampere
Period	1/10/13 → 4/10/13

Access to Document

10.1145/2523429.2523449

Cite this

Sarjanoja, A-H., Isomursu, M., & Häkkilä, J. (2013). Small Talk with Facebook: Phatic Communication in Social Media. In A. Lugmayr, H. Franssila, J. Paavilainen, & H. Kärkkäinen (Eds.), AcademicMindTrek '13 : Proceedings of International Conference on Making Sense of Converging Media (pp. 118-121). Association for Computing Machinery ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/2523429.2523449

Sarjanoja, Ari-Heikki ; Isomursu, Minna ; Häkkilä, Jonna. / Small Talk with Facebook : Phatic Communication in Social Media. AcademicMindTrek '13 : Proceedings of International Conference on Making Sense of Converging Media. editor / Artur Lugmayr ; Heljä Franssila ; Janne Paavilainen ; Hannu Kärkkäinen. New York : Association for Computing Machinery ACM, 2013. pp. 118-121

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title = "Small Talk with Facebook: Phatic Communication in Social Media",

abstract = "In this paper, we analyzed a data set of 484 unique communication events taking place in Facebook. The key contribution of this paper is the content based analysis showing that people mostly share events from their everyday lives, even if the information is repetitious or does not have any informational meaning, this practice prevailing even though most such updates were regarded as uninteresting ones. Moreover, a considerable amount of status updates was seen to fall into category of 'small talk'. The results show that the communication through Facebook has strong element of phatic communion, i.e. it serves the purpose of maintaining and defining social relationships and enacts social cohesiveness. Our results reveal an interesting contradiction between uninteresting content and (obviously) interesting service; and suggest that small talk type entries can be seen as a tool for increasing one's social capital by being active",

author = "Ari-Heikki Sarjanoja and Minna Isomursu and Jonna H{\"a}kkil{\"a}",

note = "Project code: 79050; AcademicMindTrek '13 : International Conference on Making Sense of Converging Media ; Conference date: 01-10-2013 Through 04-10-2013",

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language = "English",

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pages = "118--121",

editor = "Artur Lugmayr and Helj{\"a} Franssila and Janne Paavilainen and Hannu K{\"a}rkk{\"a}inen",

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publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery ACM",

address = "United States",

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Sarjanoja, A-H, Isomursu, M & Häkkilä, J 2013, Small Talk with Facebook: Phatic Communication in Social Media. in A Lugmayr, H Franssila, J Paavilainen & H Kärkkäinen (eds), AcademicMindTrek '13 : Proceedings of International Conference on Making Sense of Converging Media. Association for Computing Machinery ACM, New York, pp. 118-121, AcademicMindTrek '13, Tampere, Finland, 1/10/13. https://doi.org/10.1145/2523429.2523449

Small Talk with Facebook: Phatic Communication in Social Media. / Sarjanoja, Ari-Heikki; Isomursu, Minna; Häkkilä, Jonna.
AcademicMindTrek '13 : Proceedings of International Conference on Making Sense of Converging Media. ed. / Artur Lugmayr; Heljä Franssila; Janne Paavilainen; Hannu Kärkkäinen. New York: Association for Computing Machinery ACM, 2013. p. 118-121.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference article in proceedings › Scientific › peer-review

TY - GEN

T1 - Small Talk with Facebook

T2 - AcademicMindTrek '13

AU - Sarjanoja, Ari-Heikki

AU - Isomursu, Minna

AU - Häkkilä, Jonna

N1 - Project code: 79050

PY - 2013

Y1 - 2013

N2 - In this paper, we analyzed a data set of 484 unique communication events taking place in Facebook. The key contribution of this paper is the content based analysis showing that people mostly share events from their everyday lives, even if the information is repetitious or does not have any informational meaning, this practice prevailing even though most such updates were regarded as uninteresting ones. Moreover, a considerable amount of status updates was seen to fall into category of 'small talk'. The results show that the communication through Facebook has strong element of phatic communion, i.e. it serves the purpose of maintaining and defining social relationships and enacts social cohesiveness. Our results reveal an interesting contradiction between uninteresting content and (obviously) interesting service; and suggest that small talk type entries can be seen as a tool for increasing one's social capital by being active

AB - In this paper, we analyzed a data set of 484 unique communication events taking place in Facebook. The key contribution of this paper is the content based analysis showing that people mostly share events from their everyday lives, even if the information is repetitious or does not have any informational meaning, this practice prevailing even though most such updates were regarded as uninteresting ones. Moreover, a considerable amount of status updates was seen to fall into category of 'small talk'. The results show that the communication through Facebook has strong element of phatic communion, i.e. it serves the purpose of maintaining and defining social relationships and enacts social cohesiveness. Our results reveal an interesting contradiction between uninteresting content and (obviously) interesting service; and suggest that small talk type entries can be seen as a tool for increasing one's social capital by being active

U2 - 10.1145/2523429.2523449

DO - 10.1145/2523429.2523449

M3 - Conference article in proceedings

SN - 978-1-4503-1992-8

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EP - 121

BT - AcademicMindTrek '13

A2 - Lugmayr, Artur

A2 - Franssila, Heljä

A2 - Paavilainen, Janne

A2 - Kärkkäinen, Hannu

PB - Association for Computing Machinery ACM

CY - New York

Y2 - 1 October 2013 through 4 October 2013

ER -

Small Talk with Facebook: Phatic Communication in Social Media

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