Language and Facebook
By Tasman Murch
“Places are created by language, oral and
written” (Tuan, 1991). This is evident in a place and virtual network such as
Facebook. After this week’s readings and lecture I can now understand how
language is used and depicted over Facebook creating space and place.
Tuan (1991), states that ‘the quality of
human communication, including the kinds of words used, seems to infect the material
environment’. Language in this sense can be seen on Facebook, in a both
negative and positive way. When I log onto Facebook and see someone’s statues
saying, “Just got accepted into JCU”, with comments under it saying well done
and encouraging words, I automatically feel happy that people you know are
saying nice things. However, when I log into Facebook and see fights with rude
language you feel disgusted and it puts me in a bad mood for the day. This is what Tuan is saying, that the
language that people use, infects the environment on Facebook.
“Warm conversation between friends can make
the place itself seem warm, by contrast, malicious speech has the power to
destroy a place’s reputation and hereby its visibility (Tuan, 1991). After
analysing this social network, I have noticed how Facebook is getting a bad
reputation by the amount of fights and explicit photos and language that is
seen every day on Facebook. By this kind of language being on Facebook a ‘warm’
environment is not being created therefore ruining this network.
As Dr. Van Luyn, (2013), said in Mondays
lecture, “A sense of place is created through humans perceiving the location”. Therefore,
by us Facebook users’ perceiving both a negative (due to ‘porn’ and rude
language) and a positive environment (Due to friends encouraging and posting
happy things), Facebook can be seen to be heavily reliant on the language of
users.
References:
Tuan, Y. (1991). Language and the making of place: a narrative-descriptive approach. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 81(4), 689-696
Van Luyn, A. (2013). BA1002: Networks, narratives and the making of place, week 5 lecture. Retrieved from http://learnjcu.edu.au
Image credits:
Facebook: Good or evil, [Image]. (2012). Retrieved from: http://myweb.fsu.edu/aat09d/project_communication.html
i agree with you 100% that it is by our perception on what is written on Facebook as to what environment we are in. An excellent example of this is the exercise that Ariella Vanluyan (2013) got us to do with the picture of the cliff and then she told us the history and our views of what the place is changed.
ReplyDeletereferences
Van Luyn, A. (2013). BA1002: Networks, narratives and the making of place, week 5 lecture. Retrieved from http://learnjcu.edu.au
Great blog Tasman! I spoke about some fairly similar aspects within my blog as well. But I just wanted to expand on one thing.
ReplyDeleteDue to our contributions to the online world of Facebook, it has without a doubt become a 'place' rather than just a 'space'. Every Facebook user has some kind of personal or emotional attachment to the network and the way they use it. However, just as you said, the contributions by humans to this online 'space' can be both positive and negative, and it is this that determines the kind of 'place' that is being created. "Space becomes places through humans imposing meaning on it." (Van Luyn, 2013).