Periodic Reporting for period 3 - DigitalValues (The Construction of Values in Digital Spheres)
Période du rapport: 2022-08-01 au 2024-01-31
Every morning, billions of people worldwide check their social media accounts before they brush their teeth. They tweet political commentary and read products reviews, smile at cute kittens and post happy birthday wishes. Through each of these mundane acts, they participate in the construction of values. Broadly defined, values are core beliefs about the desirable which direct evaluations and behaviors. By posting, liking, and commenting, internet users reflect and shape notions concerning good and bad, desirable and condemnable, right and wrong. Thus, the deluge of messages on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram creates a value ecology central to the twenty-first century. In this environment, social media platforms are not neutral; they are agents with their own values. Moreover, because many of these platforms are transnational, they can diffuse values across vast regions, creating a new web of local and global value orientations.
However, we currently know very little about this new sphere of value creation. Addressing this void, DigitalValues constitutes the first large-scale effort to explore the articulation of values in digital spheres. We address the following overarching questions: How are values constructed through social media? Which values are emphasized in these spheres? To what extent are social media platforms associated with the globalization of values?
Translated into research trajectories, we comparatively study social media content on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Youtube, in five languages: English, Italian, German, Japanese and Korean. We explore three facets of value construction:
(a) The meanings that social media users ascribe to the term “values” and its social functions in digital spheres.
(b) The explicit and implicit construction of values in popular genres of user-generated content. While the flow of digital content may seem chaotic, many online expressions follow typified forms of communication, or genres (for example, beauty tutorials or charity challenges). Thus, we aim to identify popular genres of user-generated content across the five languages and study the articulation of values therein.
(c) Users’ interpretation and evaluation of the values embedded in user-generated genres. We will examine both private meaning-making processes through interviews with users and public social practices of evaluation such as commenting, sharing, and liking.
The combined insight generated from these facets will be geared to fulfill three main objectives at the theoretical, methodological, and empirical levels. Our first objective is to develop and implement a novel conceptual framework that will enable a comprehensive understanding of how values are articulated on social media platforms. While most major studies so far have focused on perceptions of values, we focus on how they are expressed in everyday digital communication. Our second objective is to develop methods for detecting and measuring the expression of values in verbal, visual, and audio-visual social media texts. In particular, we aim to develop a compressive codebook that builds on our conceptual and empirical findings and allows for the cross-cultural examination of values. Finally, we will utilize these methods to capture the complex intersections between “local” and “global” values in digital spheres. Thus, on the one hand, we will trace value expressions that are common to divergent linguistic settings and a range of platforms, and, on the other hand, identify culturally unique ones.
However, we currently know very little about this new sphere of value creation. Addressing this void, DigitalValues constitutes the first large-scale effort to explore the articulation of values in digital spheres. We address the following overarching questions: How are values constructed through social media? Which values are emphasized in these spheres? To what extent are social media platforms associated with the globalization of values?
Translated into research trajectories, we comparatively study social media content on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Youtube, in five languages: English, Italian, German, Japanese and Korean. We explore three facets of value construction:
(a) The meanings that social media users ascribe to the term “values” and its social functions in digital spheres.
(b) The explicit and implicit construction of values in popular genres of user-generated content. While the flow of digital content may seem chaotic, many online expressions follow typified forms of communication, or genres (for example, beauty tutorials or charity challenges). Thus, we aim to identify popular genres of user-generated content across the five languages and study the articulation of values therein.
(c) Users’ interpretation and evaluation of the values embedded in user-generated genres. We will examine both private meaning-making processes through interviews with users and public social practices of evaluation such as commenting, sharing, and liking.
The combined insight generated from these facets will be geared to fulfill three main objectives at the theoretical, methodological, and empirical levels. Our first objective is to develop and implement a novel conceptual framework that will enable a comprehensive understanding of how values are articulated on social media platforms. While most major studies so far have focused on perceptions of values, we focus on how they are expressed in everyday digital communication. Our second objective is to develop methods for detecting and measuring the expression of values in verbal, visual, and audio-visual social media texts. In particular, we aim to develop a compressive codebook that builds on our conceptual and empirical findings and allows for the cross-cultural examination of values. Finally, we will utilize these methods to capture the complex intersections between “local” and “global” values in digital spheres. Thus, on the one hand, we will trace value expressions that are common to divergent linguistic settings and a range of platforms, and, on the other hand, identify culturally unique ones.
In October 2019, an international team of doctoral and postdoctoral fellows from Asia, Europe, and America convened at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to embark on a unique scientific venture. Together, we aimed to unpack how values are constructed on social media. Since we address a set of big questions, we needed to tackle them through divergent methods and perspectives. Our research activities included the following:
A. We traced popular user-generated genres in five languages. We used two main methods to identify genres: first, systematic ethnographies of the five platforms core to this project and second, an open survey with around 5000 residents of the project’s core countries.
B. Much of our effort was dedicated to developing and evaluating strategies to identify values in complex verbal, visual, and audio-visual user-generated texts. Since this task involves an array of conceptual and methodological considerations, we tackled it through a series of case studies focused on distinct genres: New Year’s resolutions, far-right commemoration memes, good morning memes, review videos, and mom-vlogs.
C. We collected millions of Tweets with the word “values” in five languages and conducted an initial analysis of them through manual coding and automated methods that allow us to detect recurrent expressions and associated words. We also collected and analysed a smaller set of Instagram posts containing the term #values.
D. In addition to the broad term “values,” we explored how specific hashtags such as #freedom or #strength are visualized on Instagram.
E. We conducted 100 interviews with demographically diverse social media users from Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, and the United States. We focused on popular social media genres identified in the first phase such as family vacation photos and product reviews. Interviewees were presented with local examples of each genre and asked to identify the values expressed therein, voice their opinions, and disclose how they engage with similar content. We are now examining this rich corpus, looking for patterns in how users interpret and evaluate content.
F. We complemented our investigation of user-generated content with an analysis of the platforms themselves, tracing the values embedded in policy documents and core engagement features such as “like” and “comment.”
G. In parallel to the empirical work, we are continually developing our theoretical framework. In particular, we aim to identify and define an array of values particularly relevant to the analysis of social media content that have not been identified by existing theories. Additionally, we strive to chart the relationship between the explicit and implicit expression of values.
The results of our ongoing work have been published in five papers, which you are invited to access here: https://digitalvalues.huji.ac.il/publications.
A. We traced popular user-generated genres in five languages. We used two main methods to identify genres: first, systematic ethnographies of the five platforms core to this project and second, an open survey with around 5000 residents of the project’s core countries.
B. Much of our effort was dedicated to developing and evaluating strategies to identify values in complex verbal, visual, and audio-visual user-generated texts. Since this task involves an array of conceptual and methodological considerations, we tackled it through a series of case studies focused on distinct genres: New Year’s resolutions, far-right commemoration memes, good morning memes, review videos, and mom-vlogs.
C. We collected millions of Tweets with the word “values” in five languages and conducted an initial analysis of them through manual coding and automated methods that allow us to detect recurrent expressions and associated words. We also collected and analysed a smaller set of Instagram posts containing the term #values.
D. In addition to the broad term “values,” we explored how specific hashtags such as #freedom or #strength are visualized on Instagram.
E. We conducted 100 interviews with demographically diverse social media users from Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, and the United States. We focused on popular social media genres identified in the first phase such as family vacation photos and product reviews. Interviewees were presented with local examples of each genre and asked to identify the values expressed therein, voice their opinions, and disclose how they engage with similar content. We are now examining this rich corpus, looking for patterns in how users interpret and evaluate content.
F. We complemented our investigation of user-generated content with an analysis of the platforms themselves, tracing the values embedded in policy documents and core engagement features such as “like” and “comment.”
G. In parallel to the empirical work, we are continually developing our theoretical framework. In particular, we aim to identify and define an array of values particularly relevant to the analysis of social media content that have not been identified by existing theories. Additionally, we strive to chart the relationship between the explicit and implicit expression of values.
The results of our ongoing work have been published in five papers, which you are invited to access here: https://digitalvalues.huji.ac.il/publications.
So far, our work has generated several insights that significantly expand existing knowledge about the construction of values in digital spheres.
First, we show how global platforms are interacting with, and often shaping, local expression of values. For instance, in our work on New Year’s resolutions, we show that the strong emphasis on the self, and in particular the value of self-acceptance, is now engrained transnationally. In a paper about far-right commemorative memes, we show how the value of personal authenticity, typical of memetic expression on social media, interacts with more traditional, collectivist values of right-wing movements. Finally, we show how the marketing-oriented logic of Instagram shapes the articulation of abstract values such as “freedom.”
Second, our work undermines established dichotomies between “Eastern” and “Western” value orientations, as well as between “individualistic” and “collectivistic” value systems. For instance, our work on New Year’s resolutions showed that the emphasis on the self crosses all cultures, while Germans are more likely to express wishes geared towards collective well-being than users in all other countries of the study, including the “Eastern” ones.
Third, we expose the tensions between various modes and sites of value construction. For instance, we show how users refrain from speaking about material values explicitly in some contexts yet present wealth implicitly through various visual strategies.
We anticipate that by the end of the project, we will be able to make the following significant contributions. First, we will shed light on the meaning and uses of the term “values” across the five languages and on different platforms. Second, we will develop a set of robust codebooks to analyze values in social media and use them to analyze thousands of content units adhering to a wide array of genres. This will allow us to expose both commonalities and differences in the values promoted by prominent social media genres across five divergent linguistic spheres. Third, we will expose patterns in the ways users across the globe evaluate social media content. Finally, we will offer a new value theory that focuses on the expression of values in digital spheres.
First, we show how global platforms are interacting with, and often shaping, local expression of values. For instance, in our work on New Year’s resolutions, we show that the strong emphasis on the self, and in particular the value of self-acceptance, is now engrained transnationally. In a paper about far-right commemorative memes, we show how the value of personal authenticity, typical of memetic expression on social media, interacts with more traditional, collectivist values of right-wing movements. Finally, we show how the marketing-oriented logic of Instagram shapes the articulation of abstract values such as “freedom.”
Second, our work undermines established dichotomies between “Eastern” and “Western” value orientations, as well as between “individualistic” and “collectivistic” value systems. For instance, our work on New Year’s resolutions showed that the emphasis on the self crosses all cultures, while Germans are more likely to express wishes geared towards collective well-being than users in all other countries of the study, including the “Eastern” ones.
Third, we expose the tensions between various modes and sites of value construction. For instance, we show how users refrain from speaking about material values explicitly in some contexts yet present wealth implicitly through various visual strategies.
We anticipate that by the end of the project, we will be able to make the following significant contributions. First, we will shed light on the meaning and uses of the term “values” across the five languages and on different platforms. Second, we will develop a set of robust codebooks to analyze values in social media and use them to analyze thousands of content units adhering to a wide array of genres. This will allow us to expose both commonalities and differences in the values promoted by prominent social media genres across five divergent linguistic spheres. Third, we will expose patterns in the ways users across the globe evaluate social media content. Finally, we will offer a new value theory that focuses on the expression of values in digital spheres.