"Snark" by David Denby

Last year, I reviewed the book "Snark" by David Denby. In the book, Denby analyzes what he considers the emerging art of snark, or negative, nonconstructive and unusable comments. Although the book does not limit itself to discussing snark online, it does touch on the idea that snark is much easier to say in online, anonymous settings. How does Internet communication enable snarky comments? Another review for the book found on New York Magazine's website can be found here. I've posted the review I wrote below.

"Snark" Review:

What do New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, celebrity blogger Perez Hilton and popular Web site Juicy Campus have in common? According to author of "Great Books" and film critic for The New Yorker David Denby, they all use a particular kind of graceless humor called snark.



Denby recently published an essay about "a strain of nasty, knowing abuse spreading like pinkeye through the national conversation." His 2009 book, "Snark" outlines the history, style and mindset behind the malicious, personal humor that has infiltrated our lives through certain TV personalities, celebrity blogging, humor print columns, social networking Web sites and other media arenas.



In 128 short pages, Denby examines the modern media world. He compares the traditional, fact-checking journalists of yesterday to modern-day bloggers and their anonymous readers who leave snarky comments. Denby not only explains how snark affects reputations using ill-humored wit, but also suggests that snark perpetuates old racist and sexist stereotypes by repackaging them as unfunny jokes.



Denby's book is insightful and conscious. He examines the recent changes in media due to technology shifts and questions the motives and actions of snarks, showing his grief for the witty, thoughtful writing of yesteryear. He writes clearly, concisely, but creatively and makes each paragraph something the reader can relate to and understand.



One of the greatest aspects of Denby's writing is his knack for research. He uses countless examples of snark to illustrate to readers the fine line between snark and true comedy, placing each example in historical context. Each of his ideas is well supported with current and specific examples, especially from the 2008 presidential election.



One of Denby's examples of snark is a headline running during a discussion of Michelle Obama on Fox News and reads, "OUTRAGED LIBERALS: STOP PICKING ON OBAMA’S BABY MAMA!" Less obvious examples include a McCaine campaign ad attacking Barack Obama. "It should be known that in 2008 the world shall be blessed. They will call him…The One," were the opening lines from the ad, which according to Denby, targeted Southern voters who see the phrase as a put-down for an "uppity’ black."



Denby uses many examples from the Web sites and TV stations a majority of us visit everyday and paints them with the scarlet letter of snark. But that doesn't mean Denby is without a sense of humor. He praises Stephen Colbert and John Stewart for their witty sarcasm and snark-free commentary. But for Denby, the fact that these comedians take ownership of their insults and generally avoid making distasteful and gut-wrenching comments without having a more serious, or at least funny, point to make leaves Colbert and Stewart snark-free geniuses.



Denby also praises Jonathan Swift, who he suggests is a "practitioner of snark-free momentous irony." However, Denby considers great poets like Alexander Pope as a lower breed. For Denby the distinction is "between harshly funny satirical writing and trivial kneecapping."



Surprisingly, Denby admits to having been accused of snark himself. Once as a movie critic, he made such sinister comments about the ridiculousness of Ben Stiller’s face that Owen Wilson threatened to "punch me out."



Denby damages his compelling argument by failing to mention his personal political bias that runs rampant throughout most of his book. Although he at one point mentions that liberals are not innocent of snark and gives one example, Denby's examples of political snark are overwhelmingly conservative. However, this may be attributed to the fact that the Obamas ran a miraculously clean campaign and republicans have tended to be more guilty of reinforcing gender and racial stereotypes.



Denby also defends the one source of snark he finds acceptable: the attack of expensive, under-performing restaurants. He praises Eater.com for ripping apart upscale restaurants that aren't up to par—but how is this different from the other types of snark Denby loathes? Scathing, heartless blogging about restaurateurs can easily shut down a restaurant as quickly as an unfair critic's theater review can kill a Broadway production. If Denby had left out this one exception, his argument would have seemed stronger.



Denby's book is certainly worthwhile, but ends weakly without a call to arms. He leaves readers without suggestions of how to not participate in snarky media and where to go to find genuine wit in an age where speed and shock value outweigh integrity.



"Scratch a writer of snark, and you find a media-age conformist and an aesthetic nonentity. Recognizing no standard but celebrity, indifferent to originality or to quality, snark may be out-of-date or fading almost as soon as it’s filed (or posted)." "Snark" examines the harsh reality of the modern ruthless media we fail to question. Denby delivers a thoughtful media critique everyone can relate to, but doesn’t offer the glimmer of hope that's needed to address this serious issue.

Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace

Earlier this quarter, Elyse made a blog post about an article on Cause Global: Social Media For Social Change's blog regarding a Net researcher's findings on "white flight" from MySpace to Facebook. That Net researcher was ethnographer, danah boyd.

Danah boyd's initial research can be found here. Although she admits that her post, "Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace," is not meant to be an academic article, she illustrates many interesting points regarding how class divisions play out among teens on social networking sites.

Comments on YouTube

For my individual project I collected data from YouTube videos, concentrating on the relationships between the following variables: # of views, # of comments, length of video, and comment/view ratio. While I rejected my hypotheses, I found a positive correlation between # of comments and comment/view ratio. It may seem obvious that videos with more comments should have a higher comment/view ratio, but I think it reveals a trend among internet usage: The average internet user is more likely to participate in a conversation if one is already going. Thus, viewers will be more likely to comment on videos that have a lot of comments already, because a dialogue has already been started. While my small sample size prevented me from being able to assert a statistically significant relationship, I think that continuation of this research with a larger "n" and slight methodological changes could reveal such a relationship.

Fashionista Comments

My project was a coding of comments in response to the "best dressed" threads on the website fashionista.com. I coded 100 comments in regards to 11 weeks of posts. My goal was to figure out how the posters on a fashion website interact and if they cultivate any patterns or form any sort of community. I coded for a variety of factors, some of which did not yield significant results when put in a graph. The factors that were significant were positive/negative comment, and the user the comment was directed at. The above graph shows direction of comments, with green representing both positive and negative sentiments, red as positive, and blue as negative.

I concluded that users with the first or second post in response to a thread had more interaction with other posters, as they received more direct responses. The topic of conversation was very specific and stayed consistent. There is a small community of fairly consistent users on this site, but no noticeable hierarchy or relational ties amongst users. The comments were mostly positive, with only 2/11 weeks having more negative responses. Also, negative comments were usually made in conjunction with a positive comment. There was less discussion of specific designers; the focus was more on the idea of "style."

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Google Wave: Trying to do Too Much?

There's been a good deal of tech buzz revolving around the release of the real-time group coordination tool Google Wave on September 30th. Though many hail the benefits of this multifaceted communication platform, others question whether Google has forgone consideration of maintaining low transaction costs in favor of luring users with a multiplicity of tools. Previous literature on collective action highlights the need for organizations to make participation an easy, low risk activity for users, but having to learn new "terminology" (wavelets, blips, robots, etc: http://mashable.com/2009/05/28/google-wave-guide/)

What does everyone else think? Has Google released the "wave" of the future or does it still need to work out some kinks in its seemingly convoluted system?

Music Variability Among Groups

Question: Is there really a higher musical variability among members in groups that stand for accepting a wide range of artists when compared to members of a group centralizing around one specific type of music?

Sites used:

http://www.last.fm
Last.fm is a website which records the songs that users listen to, and then compile the logged tracks into different statistics, such as top artists or top tracks.

http://anthony.liekens.net/pub/scripts/last.fm/eclectic.php
This is the “How Eclectic is Your Music Style?” tool for Last.fm, which measures how much variety can be found in a user's music library. Members type in their username, and then their top artists along with artists similar to those artists are analyzed, and a score from 0 to 100 is given, signifying a lack of variety or a great variety in music, respectively.

Data Collection: I first selected two groups on Last.fm, the first was Extensive Musical Taste and the second Female Metal Vocalists. Then I chose random recently active members in these groups and sent them all messages, linking them to the "How Eclectic is Your Music Style?" tool and requesting that they send me back their scores. Based on the responses I got, I took an average and found these averages:

Extensive Musical Taste: 89.24

Female Metal Vocalists: 72.25

Connections: The main connection with this analysis I made with the class was that of group identity and roles. I feel as though the reason the numbers came out as expected was because members join groups which have an identity they wish to portray, or at least that they would want to portray. Members may also feel that once they are a part of a group, it is their role to listen to the types of music the group promotes. Status comes into play here; members who's music libraries exemplify the music tastes of the group may gain more recognition or respect. People may come to them for music advice, or value their opinion more. Thus, members may strive to fill that role to gain the respect.

Conclusion: The data gathered found that the music group which promoted variability did have a higher variability than one which promoted one specific type of music. Group identity plays a key role here, as the reasons members join groups is to become a part of a certain identity, or to have a group which represents an identity they wish to portray.

Future: I'd like to look into whether people listen to certain types of music because they like them, or just because they wish to fill an identity, and if being a part of a group helps them feel as though they are accomplishing embodying that identity.

Affordances for Activism

The question posed by this study is as follows: How can online social movement organizations use online affordances to effectively mobilize activists?

The Benefits of Online Mobilization:
According to Postmes and Bruinsting (2002), online environments are “fit for our native desires and talent for group effort” and facilitate a convenient “collapse of transaction costs.” Despite their inherent challenges, they have the potential to unite geographically widespread but ideologically similar in a common space for democratic discussion and event campaign coordination.

Complications of Online Mobilization:
High levels of social uncertainty render it difficult for organizations to develop cohesive communities online. Additionally, there is a high risk of sabotage due to difficulties in regulation, as well as the potential for “massification,” or the obscuration of individual voices due to the volume of input (DiMaggio et al 2001).

Sites analyzed:
Change for America (www.barackobama.com), Amnesty USA (www.amenstyusa.org), Democracy for America (www.democracyforamerica.com), MoveOn (www.moveon.org)


Data and theory
This study is based on analysis of literature following two primary thematic strains: collective action and identity development. Within the former, it emphasizes organizational framing and issues related to cooperation and coordination. Within the latter, it differentiates between individual and networked identity development and the adoption of social roles. All of these elements are strongly interrelated and either facilitated or strengthened by user-to-user interaction, which reduces social ambiguity and increases interpersonal trust. By placing this analysis alongside observation of existing social networks, this study offers a picture of what tools and affordances organizations must use in order to mobilize latent readers into networks of mobilized activists (Preece and Schniederman 2009).

Data collected for this project is largely observational. In terms of quantifying data, site efficacy is divided into five categories: organizational framing, individual identity development, networked identity development, promoting communication, and developing community. Within each, affordances that help fulfill this requirement are listed and numeric values are assigned to indicate whether the site does or does not features these tools. This provides a numeric analysis the strengths and weaknesses of each.

Organizational Framing
Organizational framing refers to the way in which an organization presents itself to its constituents. Frame alignment for SMOs may tap into participants’ identity or emphasize salience in current events and overall importance. Placing strong emphasis on framing is generally characteristic of top-down organizational structures.

As evidenced by the chart, all sites analyzed exhibit excellent framing strategies. The main difference lies in the fact that some sites place more emphasis on top-down control over users’ perception of the organization rather than encouraging user contributions. All sites provide live news feeds, information about previous and current campaigns, and a history of the organization. MoveOn in particular carries this one step further by providing a section titled “success stories,” which promotes the image that if users will likely enjoy some form of payoff for costs incurred through participation. Measuring rhetoric involved searching for the prevalence of key words and phrases that emphasize the importance of the individual (“you,” “action,” “together,” or “can”) and strong language that emphasizes importance and/or immediacy (“lies,” “extremism,” “urgent”). Though its ratings are equivalent to that of the other sites, Change also distinguishes itself in regards to how it emphasized the importance of the individual to the organization.


Cooperation Coordination and Resource Management
The social remoteness associated with online environments renders promoting coordination and cooperation among participants a challenging task. This problem stems from two areas. Firstly, how do online spaces foster trust and interpersonal commitment in light of social ambiguity? Secondly, when a cohesive community has been effectively developed, how does the site facilitate communication and enhance coordination among participants? The first step toward satisfying these tasks involves allowing users to develop a strong, identity-based personal commitment to the organization and it’s objectives, both on an individual and networked level.

Individual Identity Development
Hogg et al. (1995) refers to individual identity “self-conceptions, self-referent cognitions, or self-definitions,” that are developed through the internalization of an individual’s “reciprocal relations between self and society.” Though identity is refined and reinforced by reactions from others, this section exclusively analyses the tools that allow users to independently label themselves as “activists” within the organization.

Change – a site that emphasizes self-presentation and interaction - shows itself to be a leader in terms of identity development. As evidenced by the chart, this site provides a number of ways for users to label themselves as activists, thus solidifying self-perceptions of such. Sites that involved little to no user interaction (Amnesty, MoveOn) offer some concessions in this area, although they offer few opportunities to help users strengthen and refine self-imposed identities through reciprocal interaction. The lack of online interaction facilitated by these sites suggests that they rely on activists to transfer their online interest into real life action, though the lack of user-to-user communication weakens identity development, stunts commitment and inhibits coordination.



Networked Identity Development
This section introduces an element of interaction into the concept of identity development. As emphasized by Burke and Reitz (1981) identities are social products, formed and maintained through social process. To fully understand their identity, individuals must view others’ actions, categorize these actions, and locate themselves within these categories. This section delineates affordances for identity development that prompt reactions from others and allow users to view the behavior of their fellow participants and notes their presence within each site.

Sites with embedded social networks distinguish themselves as leaders within this category. Change and DFA clearly provide the most opportunities for individuals to mirror their perceptions of self against those of their fellow users, thus strengthening their identities as “activists” within the organization. They provide pathways of self presentation such as user profiles that allow users to undergo internalized comparisons.

Identity and Role development
Social roles arise when individuals integrate into their existing identities additional expectations and obligations. Because individuals have a tendency toward personal “dissonance reduction,” individuals will likely align their actions with this role (Hogg et al 1995). Additionally, if these roles are then are salient to the individual’s strong social ties or incur a large cost if vacated, the individual is increasingly likely to fulfill the duties associated with them. Based on this, we can conclude that sites which facilitate interactive identity development - such as Change – will help users develop roles - which will in turn transform them from latent readers to motivated activists.


Community Development and Coordination
In addition to assisting with identity development, communication is also vital for developing interpersonal trust between otherwise remote users and, in the case of collective action, allowing them to collaborate and work toward a common goal.

Promoting Communication
This section delineates affordances that allow users to communicate with one another in an effort to reduce social ambiguity, promote trust, reinforce identity/role development and facilitate coordination. Again, those sites that integrate social networking systems into their basic site design (Change, DFA) excel in this category as well. By increasing the number of pathways and ease of communication between participants, these sites help ensure that users will transform their latent readership into activist engagement.

Community Development
This section analyses the coordination efforts of the organizations, both on and offline. It enumerates evidence of group formation and collective action within online environments and in real life. As shown by the chart, both interactive and non-interactive sites provided evidence of past events and used online spaces to advertise future events. This helps legitimize the organization and serves to bolster organizational framing efforts. They also verbally encouraged users to engage in offline recruitment efforts, though non-interactive sites decrease the likelihood that users will carry out this task by failing to fully develop users’ activist identities/roles and not allowing them create strong interpersonal ties on which these identities and roles depend.