context collapse [English]

Syndetic Relationships

InterPARES Definition

n. ~ The shift in how an individual presents to a large, often unknown audience as the result of the loss of cues based on his or her relationships to an individual or small, known group.

General Notes

Context collapse refers to the loss of cues that are specific to an individual or small group and that facilitate effective communication when addressing a broad audience. Context collapse is generally associated with diverse, broad social media audiences, with whom the speaker may have little or no relationship (context) to guide his or her expression. In particular, the speaker must often make decisions about disclosure of personal information based not on specific, known individuals or groups, but potentially anyone. The notion of context collapse is based on Erving Goffman's notion that individuals' self-presentation varies with audience, and self-presentation is complicated when the nature of the audience (the context) is unknown.

Citations

  • Davis 2013 (†327 ): [The] affordances of networked publics create dynamics to be managed by networked individuals. Invisible audiences refer to the necessarily obscured nature of the viewership for one’s self-presentation and/or content creation. Although users often act as though their audiences are bounded, they are in fact, potentially limitless (Marwick and Boyd 2011). Moreover, these audiences (actual and potential), by default, span multiple arenas of the actor’s social world; collapsing contexts that were previously segmented. Finally, networked publics are characterized by a blurring of private and public, such that personal life is increasingly fare for public interaction, and personal data becomes part of an aggregated database. (†304)
  • Davis 2013 (†327 ): This is not to say that context collapse is absent from face-to-face settings, or only emerged with Web 2.0 technologies. On the contrary, weddings, funerals, and public community gathering spaces have long been sites of merging networks and divergent actor expectations (Marwick and Ellison 2012). Rather, context collapse is exacerbated by the affordances of social media and dynamics of networked publics, such that the relative segmentation of earlier times becomes more salient, as the relative blending of networked others in the present era takes on defaults status. (†305)
  • Fanlore 2016 (†753 s.v. "context collapse"): A concept used by academics writing about the effects of social media. It refers to the infinite audience possible online as opposed to the limited groups a person normally interacts with face to face. In a limited group, a person is constantly adjusting their tone and presentation of self to fit into the social context. In a situation of context collapse, this becomes impossible. In addition, behaviors and materials intended for a limited audience can suddenly clash with parts of the wider audience they actually receive. (†1883)
  • HLWIKI Canadata 2016, s.v. "context collapse" (†748 s.v. "context collapse"): Context collapse is a concept used by academics writing about the effects of social media and the contexts they give rise to. The term refers to the audiences possible online as opposed to limited groups we normally interact with in face-to-face interactions. In those bounded interactions, people adjust their tone and presentation to fit social context. In context collapse, this adjusting becomes impossible (perhaps is even considered irrelevant by some). Behaviours and materials intended for a limited audience can suddenly clash with parts of a wider whole. The notion of context collapse is related to Baudrillard's concept of hyper-reality and the collapse of the real and unreal; the collapse of the distinction at least of what is imaginary and what seems "real". (†1855)
  • HLWIKI Canadata 2016, s.v. "context collapse" (†748 s.v. "context collapse"): As social beings, we have become adept at sussing out and performing micro-calculations in the micro-second gaps of conversation in order to move through those situations. When engaged in social interactions, we evaluate situations and people as well as ourselves and how we fit into them. These are necessary to engage in conversation and to be social. In Goffman's terms, we develop a “line” and present versions of ourselves. What we portray in this self-presentation (our “face”) is negotiated, a process that Goffman calls “face-work”. ¶ In social media, face work does not have the same currency or value because we don't see the expressions of those with whom we are communicating. Further, there is context collapse, or homogenization of context, because all of the micro-calculations we used to make by evaluating a situation are gone, removed and collapsed in social media. (†1856)
  • Marwick and Boyd 2011 (†635 p.122): Like many social network sites, Twitter flattens multiple audiences into one – a phenomenon known as ‘context collapse’. The requirement to present a verifiable, singular identity makes it impossible to differ self-presentation strategies, creating tension as diverse groups of people flock to social network sites (Boyd, 2008). Privacy settings alone do not address this; even with private accounts that only certain people can read, participants must contend with groups of people they do not normally bring together, such as acquaintances, friends, co-workers, and family. To navigate these tensions, social network site users adopt a variety of tactics, such as using multiple accounts, pseudonyms, and nicknames, and creating ‘fakesters’ to obscure their real identities (Marwick, 2005). The large audiences for sites like Facebook or MySpace may create a lowest-common denominator effect, as individuals only post things they believe their broadest group of acquaintances will find non-offensive. (†1435)
  • Marwick and Boyd 2011 (†635 p.125-126): Participants maintain a public-facing persona to manage impressions with potential readers. Context collapse creates an audience that is often imagined as its most sensitive members: parents, partners, and bosses. This ‘nightmare reader’ is the opposite of the ideal reader, and may limit personal discourse on Twitter, since the lowest-common-denominator philosophy of sharing limits users to topics that are safe for all possible readers. While people do talk about controversial subjects on Twitter, our respondents show that some are more likely to avoid personal topics that imply true intimacy and connection between followers. Instead, they may frame Twitter as a place where the strictest standards apply. (†1436)
  • Marwick and Ellison 2012 (†627 p.379): The wide and varied audiences common to social media also give rise to the phenomenon known as ‘‘context collapse’’ (Marwick & Boyd 2011; Vitak, Lampe, Ellison, & Gray 2012), in which individuals representing multiple social contexts (e.g., work, family, high school acquaintances, close friends) are ‘‘collapsed’’ into the flat category of ‘‘friends’’ or ‘‘contacts’’ on social media sites, creating what others have referred to as the multiple audience problem (Leary, 1995). While in face-to-face situations people vary their self-presentation based on context and audience (Banaji & Prentice, 1994; Leary & Kowalski, 1990), this process of impression management is compromised in online contexts where friends and acquaintances from different social settings, classes, and cultures can consume and comment upon one’s online content, unintentionally or intentionally sharing conflicting portrayals or understandings of the person. (†1424)
  • Marwick and Ellison 2012 (†627 p.381): ‘‘Context collapse’’ has thus engendered a variety of audience management techniques, both technical and social, from the creation of multiple profiles, to coded language, to sharing only banal information (boyd & Marwick, 2011; Hogan, 2010). Such strategies and performances have been observed in many different digital spaces, including social network sites (Livingstone, 2005), blogs (Hodkinson & Lincoln, 2008), online personal sites (Ellison, Heino, & Gibbs, 2006), and personal homepages (Papacharissi, 2002). (†1425)
  • Vitak 2012 (†626 p.451): Many of these discussions explicitly or implicitly center on the concept of context collapse: the flattening out of multiple distinct audiences in one's social network, such that people from different contexts become part of a singular group of message recipients. Because of context collapse, users can quickly diffuse information across their entire network and facilitate interaction across diverse groups of individuals who would otherwise be unlikely to communicate. While context collapse provides many opportunities for engagement, it may also create tensions when considering how individuals self-present across audiences. (†1423)
  • Vitak 2012 (†749 p. 451): The present study presents a model including network composition, disclosures, privacy-based strategies,and social capital. Results indicate that (1) audience size and diversity impacts disclosures and use of advanced privacy settings, (2) privacy concerns and privacy settings impact disclosures in varying ways; and (3) audience and disclosure characteristics predict bridging social capital. (†1857)
  • Vitak 2012 (†749 p. 451): Social network sites (SNSs) are an increasingly ubiquitous part of Americans’ daily lives; recent data show 65% of Internet-using U.S. adults maintain a profile on an SNS (Madden & Zickhur, 2011). Consequently, a number of questions have been raised regarding privacy, disclosures, and outcomes of use. Many of these discussions explicitly or implicitly center on the concept of context collapse: the flattening out of multiple distinct audiences in one’s social network, suchthat people from different contexts become part of a singular group of message recipients.Because of context collapse, users can quickly diffuse information across their entire network and facilitate interaction across diverse groups of individuals who would otherwise be unlikely to communicate (†1858)
  • Wesch 2008 (†747 ): In face-to-face communication events we carefully assess the context of the interaction in order to decide how we will act, what we will say, and how we might try to construct and present ourselves. As Erving Goffman has demonstrated, we continuously and often unconsciously take note of the physical surroundings, the people present, and the overall tone and temper of the scene among many other things (1959). . . . ¶ Now look carefully at a webcam. That’s there. That’s somewhere else. That’s everybody. On the other side of that little glass lens is almost everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you have ever heard of, and even those you have never heard of. In more specific terms, it is everyone who has or will have access to the internet – billions of potential viewers, and your future self among them. . . . ¶ The problem is not lack of context. It is context collapse: an infinite number of contexts collapsing upon one another into that single moment of recording. (†1854)