http://www.marinos.com.

gr

Message 34
The social construction of reality and the role of
online communities

In Lawrence Lessig’s “Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace” we learn that life in
online communities is bounded by four constrains: 1) laws, 2) social norms, 3)
the market & 4) the architecture of the online community. The four constraints
are distinct, yet they are plainly interdependent. The presentation of reality about
the world, in which we live in, is bounded by those four constraints of life in
online communities.

Laws regulate behavior in online communities. For instance, defamation or

copyright laws continue to threaten ex post sanctions for violation of protected
legal rights. Norms regulate behavior in online communities. For instance, nethics
and netiquette threaten sanctions against members of the online community who
misbehave systematically. The market, also, regulates behavior in online
communities. For instance, pricing structures may constrain participation in online
fora. Finally, architectural schemes of the online communities may frame
participation in online communities. For example, a member might have to enter
a user-id and a password before gaining access to an online forum, or the nature
of the online session may require communication in a certain language.

Laws, norms, the market and the community’s architecture interact to build the
online environment wherein netizens—citizens of the Internet—interact and
communicate their perceptions upon the presentation of reality about the world in
which they live in.

For government, one possible way to regulate citizens’ online life is through Laws.
For example, pursuant to the Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament, the
government has enacted Law 2472/9.4.1997 to protect individuals from the
unwanted processing of personal data. But framing online behavior through laws
is not the only way to regulate online communities and affect the presentation of
reality about the world in which we live in. Moreover, when sometime the law
plays a role that is not always a positive one—e.g. the recent regulation
addressing online gaming before the enactment of Law 3037/30.7.2002.
Regulation of online communities through laws is just another tool of state

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regulation. In most cases, regulation of online communities can be achieved

without suffering the political consequences stemming from laws with negative
impact on netizens.

Either stemming from a public or private authority, regulation of life in online

communities should consider a set of tools—including laws—that enhance
communication and interaction of citizens in the Internet. Modules of regulation of
life in online communities should always be visible to the participants in online
sessions, otherwise participants in online communities run the risk of being
trapped in an online regime that makes it hard to resist bad and invisible
regulation. Regulatory bodies—either public or private—should not resist in
setting up the regime within which to aggregate citizens online in participative
Democracy. On the contrary, the need is urgent for the deployment of
mechanisms that enable online participation in the expression of public opinion
through the Internet, i.e. a medium for the masses that differs significantly from
the mass media.

History indicates that new technologies reveal their value when they are applied.
In most cases of succesful applications of technology, the idea that “Invention is
the mother of necessity rather than vice versa” has proved to be true. Constrains
that regulate online communities are directly bounded to the principles that
regulate technology’s progress. Regulatory bodies with the power to set up
regimes within which to aggregate citizens online in participative Democracy
should consider first these principles that regulate technology’s progress rather
than consider regulation that constrains innovation.

To a great extent, technology’s progress can be anticipated because of laws such

as Moore’s Law, Metcalfe’s Law, and Gilder’s Law.

Almost forty years after Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel, observed that the
number of transistors on a chip doubles every eighteen to twenty-four months,
we can think of online communities wherein we can add audio and video features
to products and services directly related to the online communities, add
intelligence and embedded help services to products and services, and
interconnect smart devices.

Bob Metcalfe, the co-founder of 3Com, observed that the value of the network
increases by the square of the number of its users. Today, and because of

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Metcalfe’s law we can think of online communities wherein citizens and services
are interconnected. Connecting people builds value, whether it is social, political,
technological, or economical.

The economist George Gilder observed that the bandwidth of communications is

growing faster than computing power by doubling every year, and it will continue
to do so for the next twenty-five years. For the online community member
bandwidth means the capability for immediate access to information or dynamic
content measured in bits per second. With more bandwidth, devices can deliver
greater emotional and intellectual communication.

How do these laws and principles that regulate technology’s progress affect
citizens in online communities? They affect directly the four constrains upon
which life in online communities depends, i.e. 1) laws, 2) social norms, 3) the
market & 4) the architecture of the online community. They affect the process of
learning about the world in which online communities members live.

The process of learning about the physical and social realities of the world in
which one lives is a social one, resulting from practicing in communication with
others. This idea was originally addressed by Plato, many centuries ago. In more
modern times, psychologists and other social scientists have added a
considerable body of insights and knowledge to Plato’s original ideas. Plato in his
“Republic” set forth his well-known “Allegory of the Cave” in which he described a
sort of psychological experiment.

The point of Plato’s description in the “Allegory of the Cave” is that people today
come to develop social constructions of reality from the circumstances and
processes of communication in which they participate. It is from those processes
of communication which are available to them that people can construct personal
understandings, beliefs, and evaluations of events, other people, and everything
else encountered in the social and physical environment.

The THEORY OF THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY derives directly from Plato, and
provides a beginning point for understanding where people get their ideas about
reality. According to the theory of the social construction of reality as it is seen
through the prism of online communities:
1. People require understandings of the world in which they live and to which
they must adapt in order to survive on a daily basis.

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2. To survive on a daily basis, people have been communicating creatures in

small and big online communities.
3. People’s communication process in online communities requires the
standardization of interpretations of phenomena, stabilizing the meanings
attached to all aspects of reality with which people deal.
4. The Internet plays a significant role in the standardization of
interpretations of phenomena through their depictions and representations
or reality in their content.
5. THEREFORE: The meanings of any aspect of reality to which people must
adjust are developed in a process of online communication, which
indicates that reality—in the sense of meanings people attach to the
objects, actions, events, and situations—is socially constructed in the
online environment.

The THEORY OF THE CREEPING CYCLE OF DESENSITIZATION has considerable importance

for understanding the social construction of reality through the intervention of
mass media. This theory places mass media’s representation of reality into the
context of economic, political, and cultural factors. Functioning together, the
theory explains, these factors have made it inevitable that those who have
managed and controlled the mass media have had to make changes in content—
instead of merely presenting reality, they represent reality and present
interpretations of phenomena of reality—in order to earn profit and survive
financially.

According to the theory of the creeping cycle of desensitization, as long as factors

such as economy of scale, new media, leveling the literacy of the mass media-
consumers in a certain economic system and as long as there is no effective
control over content by governmental or other widely recognized and accepted
authorities the trend toward greater transgressions of norms will continue in the
mass media by the pass of time. In a highly competitive capitalistic economic
system in which the approved goal of making a profit is an essential fact of life,
mass media must construct their content in such a way as to be appreciated,
enjoyed, and valued by those who attend to the them so that their numbers can
be maximized and the media can make a profit. In an economic and political
context which boils down to three major factors, i.e. 1) economic capitalism, 2)
almost complete freedom from government restraint regarding content & 3)
public whose norms of taste and sophistication of interests are low and limited

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the trend toward greater transgressions of norms will continue in the mass media
by the pass of time.

According to the theory of the creeping cycle of desensitization, then:

1. The mass media operate within a system of economic capitalism in which
making profit is an essential and approved goal.
2. Making profit in a highly competitive market entails producing content for
the mass media in the minimum cost and delivering the content to people
either in the maximum price or in the maximum number of content-
consumers or in the combination of both price and number of consumers.
3. In a democratic society, the government restrains from framing the
content delivered to people through the mass media. The less the
government intervention regarding the content, the more the democracy
and the ruling of the free-market norms in the certain country.
4. The more the content of the mass media is left to consumers’ tastes and
the cultural norms that define consumers, the more the mass media will
focus on content that attracts the largest number of paying consumers,
i.e. content that emphasizes socially controversial themes.
5. The more the mass media focus on content that emphasizes socially
controversial themes, the more the controversy and the transgression of
social norms caused by the representation of reality in the mass media.
6. THEREFORE: The more the controversy caused by the mass media, the
more the mass media are targeted. When the outcry of the controversy
threatens the industry of the mass media, media temporarily stop. But in
the creeping cycle of desensitization, the mass media will move the cutting
edge of transgressions forward again after consumers are desensitized and
the outcry is muted.

The theory of the creeping cycle of desensitization, then, tells us that mass media
leverage on controversial issues to push the cutting edge of transgressions
forward and recreate reality in a manner that perpetuates media’s profits even if
the cost of it is the desensitization of mass media consumers. If this hypothesis is
true, then I understand the reasons why the deployment of mechanisms that
enable online participation in the expression of public opinion through the
Internet, i.e. a medium for the masses that differs significantly from the mass
media, is an urgent need for resistance in the process of desensitization. Media
consumers aware of the desensitization seem to be far less loyal to anything. As

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Harvard professor of public policy Robert Putnam describes it, we’re experiencing
a lack of belonging that stems from the decline in social capital.

Seen through the glasses of theories on communication, online communities

might also have a third theoretical background that pushes the envelope of their
deployment in the near future. The THEORY OF THE ACCUMULATION OF MINIMAL EFFECTS,
explains why and how in a short-term sense the media may have only selective
and limited influences, but over a long period of time, small changes in a few
people at a time can eventually add up to bring about significant influences in
many more. According to the theory of the accumulation of minimal effects as it
is seen through the prism of online communities:
1. The media focus on specific social issues. Online communities may
continue to focus on certain issues consistently and persistently over an
extended period of time and in corroboration with other mass media.
2. The consumers of media content—online communities and mass media--
increasingly become aware of the social issues that are represented by the
media, and on a person-by-person basis, the growing comprehension
develops around the interpretations of social phenomena as they are
represented by the media.
3. The more the increase of the comprehension of the messages supplied by
the media, the more beliefs and attitudes presented in the media serve as
guides to behavior of the media-consumers regarding social issues.
4. THEREFORE: Minor individual-by-individual changes caused by online
communities in corroboration with the mass media accumulate and new
beliefs and attitudes emerge to provide significant changes in the norms of
society.

Technology and Democracy are interwoven regarding the existence of online

communities. While the continued evolution of Democracy creates the fertile
environment for technological progress capable for supporting the existence of
online communities, technology is more prolific when an open political, economic,
and social environment supports its advances.

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References:

Lawrence Lessig (Stanford Law School), Code and Other Laws of

Cyberspace, Basic Books, 1999.

Melvin L. DeFleur and Mergaret H. DeFleur (Boston University,

College of Communication), The Next Generation’s Image of
Americans—A Preliminary Research Report, 2002.

Regis McKenna (Chairman of the McKenna Group), Total

Access—Giving Customers What They Want in Anytime, Anywhere World, Harvard
Business School Press, 2002.