S/R1 Baym's "New Forms of Personal Connection"

Baym, Nancy K. "New Forms of Personal Connection." Personal Connections in the 

          Digital Age, 2nd edition, Polity, 2015, https://books.google.com/books?

          hl=en&lr=&id=4_1RCgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT6&dq=identity+in+the+ 

          digital+age&ots=PTuQ9s0YJp&sig=7nWuITisFusYnUZsAswtDptBzm0#v=     

          onepage&q&f=true. Digital Media and Society Series, 16 July 2018.

Summary

Nancy Baym’s “New Forms of Connection” seeks to delineate a metric with which to evaluate the effects of digital media on the establishment and preservation of relationships and discusses the possibility of a “true self” in the digital age. Within its eighteen pages, the article addresses the social concerns surrounding digital media: that communication via technology is growing increasingly shallow, that removal of the digital mediation causes “body to body” relationships and interactions to suffer, that the ubiquity of technology has removed the awareness of its presence from the collective consciousness. It attempts to balance those concerns with the perceived positives associated with technology as well: diversification of cultural experiences, extended relationships transcendent of time and space, reorganization of societal standards and expectations via reflection. And, it begins to grapple with the philosophical implications created by the collapsing of time and space within the digital world; it creates a space in which to ruminate on what Harraway called the “Cyborg Manifesto” and struggle through the idea of a true self existing in neither a physical reality, nor in some realm of a digital one, but in one’s perceived version of outside perception.

Ultimately, however, Baym’s main intention is to establish a framework as a tool for unraveling the nuance of digital identity as it pertains to the way relationships affect and effect. With this in mind, Baym introduces the Seven Concepts of Media. They are as follows:

1. Interactivity ~ This concepts deals with both social (with one or many) and technological (engagement with a text) understandings of interaction. As I understand it, this concept places a value on interaction that ranges from one extreme positive of nurturing long-distance relationships with loved one to the extreme negative of creating a dangerous environment.
2. Temporal Structure ~ Baym dichotomizes media into Synchronous and Asynchronous interaction when media is concerned. The latter is akin to what progenitors of the digital age would have relegated emails and snail mail to, while the former is represented in the article by instant messaging and social media. The intent behind the distinction is establish a more nuanced understanding for the effect timeliness play in meaning when communication is concerned (an implication I will discuss in my response).
3.  Social Cues ~ Once again Baym opposes two types of media within this concept: Rich and Lean media. The richest media type attempts to mimic to within near body to body interaction physical context, simultaneous environmental experience, influence, and distraction. Leanest media is stripped of all contextual influence and depends strictly on literal iterations of symbols of a given alphabet.
4. Storage and
5. Replicability ~ These two concepts are nearly inextricable from one another so I have chosen to explain them together. Whereas the Storage concept is concerned with how long an original message/interaction endures, the concept of Replicability focuses rather on the amount of times said message/interaction is viewed, replicated, or transformed to fit the needs a new given actor. Thus, the former is a pre-requisite for the latter.
6. Reach ~ The concept of reach becomes one of necessity for understanding the rhetorical nature, and thus, “truth” of a given message or interaction within a digital space. Perspective—that is to say tone, mode, angle, and thrust—is determined by the size of an audience accessible through a given medium. Whether one is aware of one’s own audience analysis or whether it occurs subliminally does not impact the rhetorical shift that takes place and undermines the truthfulness of one’s message’s intended perception.
7. Mobility ~ This concept share table room with the concept of Social Cues and forces an evaluation of digital identity to consider the expanded dynamic of interactions now possible from actors in a digital space. In becoming mobile, an actor is affected by changing environments in constancy, so interactions take on an evolutionary quality based on choices begotten by previous choices. It is important to note, however, that this concept also forces consideration of the automaton hypothesis because mobile technology subverts autonomy in that it sustains all forms of accountability.

Response

Overview

Most interesting to me is the concept of the temporal structure and its suspension/manipulation within digital media (Concept 2). As interaction progresses through synchronous and asynchronous exchange alike, a confusion occurs between the virtual and the real regardless of which avenue initially engaged with. I say initially because as Baym points out, there are instances where a traditionally asynchronous medium such as email becomes synchronous when the exchanging parties share a similar physical and emotional context. Conversely, a synchronous medium such as facebook or twitter becomes asynchronous when the engaged parties do not share the same contexts. What is created is the opportunity for manipulation of the interaction both for and against the defining of a perceived “true” self. And, manipulated interaction through mediated, non-body-to-body methods allows for the presentation of that chosen “true” self; one becomes the impulse signal capable of source selection and complete attenuation control. Essentially, the cyborg manifesto is realized. Actors choosing to manipulate the digital interaction do so by opting in and out of existence within the digital space (starting and stopping time), thereby by diminishing the value body-to-body exchanges when grappling with their own perceptions.

As I understand Baym, what the digital space provides is the opportunity to create, free of the limitations of solar cycles, a bedroom culture, implicit of privacy yet accessible to many, wanted or unwanted, by placing the bedroom in the center of highway intended for mass use, as well as the opportunity to criticize those without the common decency to look the other way when the bedroom becomes too intimate. Involvement in this intimate interaction muddies the distinction between intent and outcome for perceived identity because “at the heart of this boundary flux is deep confusion about what is […] mere simulation and what is real” (1) and robs the real mind through preoccupation with intellectual property left in the digital real. So, exiting the digital space entails more than simply logging out. One’s intellectual property is now forever embroiled in the electronic pulses of the digital space and Harraway’s concerns over present absence—physically present yet mentally distracted—contribute to idea that body-to-body exchanges suffer at the expense of the traces of preoccupation one leaves in the digital space.

 Temporal Manipulation

Manipulating the timeliness of one’s response to interaction as a ploy or out of circumstance within the digital sphere does little to ameliorate the rhetorical connotation as it is understood today. While both types (synchronous and asynchronous) of media attempt to collapse time and space in the hopes of fostering diverse relationships, manipulation of either effectively reverses that intention. Consider the medium intended for synchronous exchange. Ideally, the interaction between two actors is reactive and revealing towards the true nature of a given actor because rapid-fire exchange draws on pre-inhibition instinct rather than processed strategy. Asynchronous interaction, then, seeks to elicit the opposite types of responses—calculated, weighed, Machiavellian even.  Both distinctions are opposite poles that belie the notion of the “true” self.

For this reason, my mind takes on a Hegelian perspective whereby my interest centers on the void left between calculation and instantaneous reaction and is bordered by the factors leading to an actor’s choice to occupy that pole. Why would actors choose to create representations of their “true” selves through virtual media? One answer takes us back to the confusion that occurs when occupying different spaces. Other answers exist, I’m sure. However, my research has just begun.