Small talk in the Digital Age: Making Sense of Phatic Posts

Radovanovic, Danica and Ragnedda, Massimo (2012) Small talk in the Digital Age: Making Sense of Phatic Posts. In: Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Making Sense of Microposts (#MSM2012) : Big things come in small packages. MSM2012, pp. 10-13.

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Abstract

This paper presents some practical implications of a theoretical web desktop analysis and addresses microposts in the Social Web contextual sense and their role contributing diverse information to the Web as part of informal and semi-formal communication and social activities on Social Networking Sites (SNS). We reflect
upon and present the most pervasive and relevant sociocommunication function of an online presence on microposts and social networks: the phatic communication function. Although some theorists such as Malinowski say these microposts have no practical information value, we argue that they have semantic and social value for the interlocutors, determined by sociotechnological
and cultural factors such as online presence and
social awareness. We investigate and offer new implications for emerging social and communication dynamics formed around microposts, what we call here “phatic posts”. We suggest that apparently trivial uses and features of SNS actually play an important role in setting the social and informational context of
the rest of the conversation - a “phatic” function - and thus that these phatic posts are key to the success of SNS.

Item Type:	Book Section
Subjects:	P300 Media studies
Department:	Faculties > Arts, Design and Social Sciences > Design
Depositing User:	Ay Okpokam
Date Deposited:	22 Mar 2017 11:28
Last Modified:	12 Oct 2019 19:41
URI:	http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/30164

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