A presentation given at the University of Leicester on the Facebook 'Like' button as emotional architecture

1. THE EMOTIONAL
ARCHITECTURE OF SOCIAL
MEDIA: THE CASE OF THE
FACEBOOK "LIKE" BUTTON
KARIN WAHL -JORGENSEN
(@KARI N WAHLJ )
CARDIFF UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER
FEBRUARY 26, 2014

2. BACKGROUND
• Work in progress
• Chapter in Wahl-Jorgensen, K (forthcoming)
Emotions, Media and Politics. Polity Press.
• How emotion circulates through media and shapes
public discourse

3. EMOTIONS, MEDIA
AND POLITICS
• Exploring disjuncture between liberal democratic
theory and lived practices of citizenship
• Work in media studies needs to take affective
elements of communication into consideration.
• Rise of emotional culture
• „Therapy talk‟
• „Emotional intelligence‟
• The “affective turn” across humanities and social
sciences recognising the mobilising role of emotion
• The “emotional deficit in political communication”
(Richards, 2004)
• Social media and emotion

5. THE EMOTIONAL ARCHITECTURE OF
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
• Formal contributions
• Language of rationality; formal
contributions (Wahl-Jorgensen, 2007)
• Identification of contributors; prohibition
on anonymity (Reader, 2005)
• Accountability for statements
• Limits on “volleyball matches” (WahlJorgensen, 2007)
• Letters which do not conform to norms
are designated “insane” (WahlJorgensen, 2004)
• Resonating with normative ideals of
liberal democratic press

6. THE EMOTIONAL ARCHITECTURE OF
SOCIAL MEDIA
• Emotion management: Avoiding negative
behaviour, e.g. cyberbullying and trolling
• Online world as “bad neighbourhood” of public
participation

7. THE EMOTIONAL ARCHITECTURE OF
SOCIAL MEDIA
• “Labour of liking”/”Like economy”/”Like farming”
• Emotional architecture of Facebook: Designed to
ensure the expression of positive emotion.
• Space for conflict, contestation, and argument are
structurally limited.
• Commodification of emotional labour.

8. THE EMOTIONAL ARCHITECTURE OF
SOCIAL MEDIA
• Facebook: “[E]merged as the architectural equivalent
of a glass house, with a publicly open structure which
may be manipulated (relatively, at this point) from within
to create more or less private spaces. Looseness of
behavioral norms obliges users to construct their
own, but the network provides tools with which
individuals may construct and leave behavioral cues for
each other. (Papacharissi 2009: 215, emphasis added)
• BUT: Facebook seeks to steer the prevailing norms of
emotional expression in the direction of bland positivity
(Pariser 2011).

10. THE LIKE BUTTON AND POSITIVITY
• Ayelet Noff (2011), CEO of social media PR
company Blonde 2.0:
• “Facebook is a social community and in order to
survive there needs to be positivity in the air.
Negative energy can only lead to negative content
which in turn would harm such a network.”

11. THE LIKE BUTTON AND THE
“FRIENDLY WORLD SYNDROME”
The fact that “Facebook chose Like instead of, say Important is a
small design decision with far-reaching consequences: The stories
that get the most attention on Facebook are the stories that get
the most Likes, and the stories that get the most Likes
are, well, more likable.” (Pariser 2011: 149):

12. THE LIKE BUTTON
“Like” is an easy and low-stress way to
“Like” is an easy and low-stress way to express
express interest, approval, or connection
interest, approval, or connection with a post. From the
with a post. From the perspective of
perspective of this “liker,” I don't have to thinkof this
anything profoundhave to I think of to press "like."
“liker,” I don't or clever. just have anything
And it doesn't require as much energy or emotional
profound or clever. I just have to press
commitment to "love." But if you wanna be a hater, FB
"like." you to doesn't require like that.
requiresAnd itcome out and say it. Ias much
energy or emotional commitment to
"love." But if you wanna be a hater, FB
requires you to come out and say it. I like
that.

13. THE "LIKE" BUTTON
I often find myself using this
button for good news or
funny stories from people I
don't know well. It seems
presumptuous and can
overstep the bounds of an
acquaintanceship to
comment at times, so the like
button can be a bit like the
background
applause, rather than the
personal touch of flowers
and a letter of appreciation
:-)
What hits my
heart, makes me
laugh and what I
really empathise
with.
Something that's funny, an
argument I agree with on a
moral or political level, the
sharing of meaningful family
moments

15. FACEBOOK DEPRESSION

16. • Three million people have signed petition to add
Dislike button
• “We need a Dislike button! But sadly this won't happen as the big
corporations like Wal-Mart and Best Buy don't want us to be able to
Dislike their products. It has nothing to do with what we want, sadly it
is all about what the money wants.”
• “I used to think that facebook should have a dislike button. But then, I
realized that what makes facebook so addictive and entertaining is
that it encourages people to compliment each other. What would
happen if there was a dislike button? Instead of people using it to
make each other feel good, a lot of people would use it to be jerks.
Can you imagine how unhappy you'd be if people clicked dislike on
your statuses? Most people want to have a dislike button to click
when something bad happens to someone. But, if there really was a
dislike button, a lot of people would use it in hurtful ways and
facebook would be a lot less fun (and more drama filled). By refusing
us a dislike button, facebook is only trying to make us happy.”

17. CONCLUSION
• Emotional architecture of virtual world: Shaped by
confluence of commercial and practical
considerations
• Affect control structure/emotion management:
Enforcing positivity to avoid negative affective
behaviour
• Varied purposes of the emotional labour of liking
are not all benign
• Social media, though generating new forms of
participation, cannot straightforwardly be viewed
as a utopian and untainted site for political and
social engagement