3. What makes them different, though?
• In this presentation, we’ll argue that:
– Popular social technologies have compelled influencers and users to
change—and sometimes upend—their language norms, patterns, and
preferences.
– Becoming an influencer is dependent on the extent to which one learns
how to advantageously employ these new languages on their behalf.
– To date, social organizing theory has focused on the ways in which
certain users have been powerful agents—how they’ve been largely
responsible for defining the communication norms of a given channel
(e.g., consider the power of Wikipedia’s editors).
– However, it’s also useful to consider another causal explanation—
namely, the cases in which effective design has incentivized and
convinced content-makers to communicate in completely new and
different ways. This session will explore such cases in further depth.
