What do you expect to receive when you post to Youtube? Reciprocity & exchange web2.0 style…

12Feb08

As a sociology student, I was intrigued by the circles of reciprocity… what type of exchanges exist within the home life when compared to your outer (village) circles? And how do web2.0 technologies impact how we view and understand ‘exchange’.

The reciprocity diagram (above) works for existing social interaction within society, but shifts when you apply it to social media. What we are willing to exchange with our ‘home’ is the same/similar to what we are willing to exchange with our ‘village’ and even the ‘inter-tribal’ sector.

So, how would the circles of reciprocity be redrawn for social media? Would it look something like this….

In traditional village societies, it was easier to decipher… there was generalised, balanced and negative reciprocity.

Generalised = sharing/giving when nothing is expected in return (reciprication here is an emotion – how you feel when you share or do a good deed), maximum trust and minimum social distance (typically within general societies, usually reserved for close friends and family), eg. Making chicken soup for a sick friend.

Negative = barter, where goods of equal value are traded, with minimum trust and maximum social distance, eg. I’ll swap you my cow for 3 sheep.

Balanced = someone gives something to someone else but expects they will be ‘compensated’ at a future date, with moderate trust and moderate social distance, eg. you give your neighbour a cup of sugar but you expect that you can then borrow their lawnmower.

The problem here is that this type of reciprocity does not fit with social networking (online). Think of youtube for instance. What do you expect to receive when you post a video? Is it solely satisfaction or an expectation that you will be ‘repaid’ in future with something of equal value? Reciprocity on all levels can be played out across all social circles, which changes the value of what we exchange.

To use family portraits as an example… in the 1800′s well to do families would have their portrait painted, and they would share it with anyone who entered their home. With the arrival of photography and the printing press, images could be ‘snapped’ rather quickly and distributed to those in your community. Enter digital cameras and online social networks and your family snaps are available to everyone, everywhere. The perceived value of your images may (or may not) be of more value to your inner circle than your outer circle… but the exchange occurs simultaneously with your friends, family, your home, community…. and with the global community (should you decide to post your images on a public network).

So, what exactly does reciprocity mean for netizen?

Balanced and Generalised forms of reciprocity are compressed and altered. The exchange offers maximum trust (ie. that unkown users aren’t going to use the information/material in an untoward way), but also allows for maximum social distance through the global network. Youtube is a good example of this. Some users post videos expecting nothing in return, they do it because they know the community will appreciate it. Others share their videos, but expect that one day they will be ‘compensated’ ie. someone will post an equally valuable video at some stage in the future.

Negative is reserved primarily for ecommerce sites, be it Amazon or Ebay, and is largely unchanged.

In sum, web2.0 technologies not only change the way we view exchanges within our community, but change the frequency, type and access to different forms of reciprocity. Through social networking, we can exchange information with those in our outer circles, and in doing so, expand ourselves as we transgress the divisive social circles through online exchange.

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Tags: reciprocity, social media, sociology