GEOG 2200 Lecture : Carleton University - GEOG2200 Geography Global Connections - Lecture 3_ Social Connections-2
Unit 3 - Social Connections
Video 1: Social Identity Building and Connections
Social Identity and global connections
- Each of us is a complex set of identities all bundled up into one person
- The geographies of identity building have changed dramatically
- Whereas when I was growing up, our identities were constructed more locally -
within families and immediate communities
- These were also influenced by the spaces afforded by education and our family’s
connections
- In my case, my family’s connections were global with family friends living in
countries around the world
- So, my identity was formed in a milieu that was quite international
How have new connections made possible by social media platforms affected or changed our
social identities?
- Help us reconnect with our heritage(s)
- Reach across space and time to reconnect (going online and look for videos of
places, road trips, city walking tours = in order to experience distant places)
- And we have certainly seen a continuing growth in different identities
- These connections have been both positive and empowering, and negative and
regressive. It depends upon the connections being made through social media
Our many identities
- People sometimes see themselves (and act) as individuals, and at other times as group
members (interpersonal-intergroup continuum)
- In the latter case, their social identities as members of various groups become
engaged, and these identities have cognitive, evaluative, and affective
consequences for people’s self-concepts
- Remaining in the realms of psychology and philosophy, the individual needs
others to establish himself/herself. Just as another aside, this idea is central to
one school of philosophical thought, existentialism.
- Gunduz ad Pembecioglu (2014) write that the self or identity has a psychological
dimension that they describe as feeling the self as a part of a greater body, sense of
security, belonging to a social, emotional, political body or community with affective
bonds of solidarity. Identities also bring diversity
- Each new identity has its compatibilities and incompatibilities. Individuals might
reflect themselves differently in unexpected conditions and layers of
communication
- Each new layer of communication seems to require a different identity
- Each new grouping will blur or clarify, depending upon the others in the
communication
- Virtual networks create diversity in society, so reflective society creates reflective
identities. The risk of stereotyping also impacts, and there will be many identities
resembling each other in the same community
Social Identity Theory
- In social psychology, social identity theory (SIT) provides the framework for examining
how people form and maintain their social identities
- One uses SIT either to the foundational idea that people may derive their social
identity from the groups they belong to, or to the fact that, if and when they do so,
they will then act in terms of that group membership rather than as an individual,
or
- To make the more general point that intergroup behaviour must be
simultaneously analysed in terms of both social-structural variables and
subjective group affiliations
- In contrast to individualistic accounts that sought to explain people’s intergroup
behaviour in terms of their family upbringing, with scant or no regard to groups’
positions in society or their relationships with one another
- A second reason for the upsurge in interest in SIT over the past 30 years stems from a
broader interdisciplinary engagement with the idea of ‘identity’ that took root in the early
1990s and continues to this day.
- Many popular debates and political activism have had identity issues at their
core. These include the adoption of new identities or the use of new labels for old
identities, and a growth in the popularity of hyphenated identities. In the case of
political geographies, we have witnessed the explosion of hyphenated identities.
- These identities have split over into other disciplines.
- E.g. Global migration has created many bi-cultutal or mixed identity
labels (British-Asian, Turkish-German)
- We have also witnessed the re-discovery or re-assertion of ethnic identities and
rights. In ethnic relations, indigenous peoples in Australia, Canada, and the
United States have agitated for the right to claim ‘first nation’ status for their
communities in recognition of their original occupation of those continents
- The core idea of SIT is that in many intergroup contexts, people take on aspects of their
group memberships as guides for their thinking and behaviour
- In doing so, they start acting as group members rather than as individuals. Once
a relevant social identity is thus engaged, the famous ‘search for positive
distinctiveness’ is instigated
- Our behaviour, whether towards other ingroup members of outgroupers, is usually
constrained by norms, and these too are bound up with our social identities.
- How we should behave is part and parcel of what we believe is prototypical for
that group. But these norms are malleable
- One also sees departures from group norms which help sharpen the differences
between ingroup and outgroup, and hence contribute to a more distinctive group
identity, will be tolerated more readily than those which threaten to blur intergroup
boundaries
The growing importance of social media and networks
- How does social media platforms and networking fit into all of this?
- “The Social Network is gaining more and more importance in today’s world and
has a deeper impact on the society as to the traditional media. Social media
enables identity expression, exploration, and experimentation; something natural
for the human experience.... They enable individuals to present themselves to
others and determine the way they would like to be perceived in addition to
helping them connect and interact with people and participate in the activities
they wish. Communicating online offers many ways to connect with others:
individuals may or may not use their real names, and they can open as many
accounts as they want to.” Uğur Gündüz (2017)
- Social media platforms allow people to interact with others in ways they wish to be seen.
People can construct alternative identities or even avatars - which may or may not be a
good thing
- While media is not only an entertainment tool but also more likely to be an infotainment
tool, social media platforms take these dynamics into a whole new dimension
- For some, it’s a way to escape from reality, to some others, it’s the virtual reality; and for
many people, it is sometimes more important than reality
- Media presents a virtual framework for all individuals within a society to live within and
interact
- It creates an influence area
- Social communication platforms are one of today’s most important issues due to
the fact that users share their opinions, emotions and thoughts without having to
practice any censorship or restraint and within which contents are created by
users
- People fulfil their socialization functions when they perform actions such as
confirming known things, liking or disliking posts, and even making comments
about them and reacting to other comments. The most preferred action is likely
- uploading interesting photos or videos that are not known by others given that
new media viewership has rapidly taken the place of TV and other viewership
- Daniel (2011) claimed that there was an unprecedented rise in the number of internet
communities in the 21st century, through which people strongly socialize, share things,
play games and work together regardless of time, space or the distance between them -
in the flat world
- Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, etc have a growing popularity by enabling and
even simplifying everyday activities
- It is the social systems that shape the conventional ways of studying, and the
integration of the modern technologies into our lives has demonstrated that some
