SOCIAL MEDIA AS A TOOL FOR UPRISINGS IN EGYPT

2011

Introduction

About a week ago in the morning, a bomb, which was placed in a trash, was exploded near a bus stop in Etiler, İstanbul (Sabah, 2011). The bomb squad, police and the ambulances came to the area and I was very close to the scene as I was on my way to the office I work. When the traffic was shut down I could not help myself looking at all that mess in the area where people were curiously looking at the bomb scene and asking each other for what happened. Then I realized soon that everybody would be talking about this bomb on the internet whether they know the exact truths or not. With a sense of public responsibility, I took off my mobile phone, connected to Twitter and tweeted a couple of information about the event I was watching. I had more than 350 Twitter followers at that time but when my tweets about the event were retweeted by tens of people, I realized that the action I took for to enlighten people against false information reached more people than I had guessed. It was the power of social media. But was it all about social media? What about my self-courage to tweet about the event?

With the rise of Web 2.0 and the social networks like Facebook and Twitter, every internet user now has a chance to be an active participant for the events or demonstrations that are happening around them. Web 1.0 evolved into 2.0 and the result was the evolution of the internet consumers to become producers and participants in the digital sphere. All in all producing and participating were parts of communication which has now turned into an enormous shape. The uprising in Egypt early this year can be shown as a great example of using social media but the question is can all that demonstrations and marches be shown as a “social media revolution”? My argument is that social networks like Facebook and Twitter were not the real reasons for the Egypt revolution, but they were the accelerators and the tools for the needed communication to bring protestors together. In this paper, first you will find a brief summary about the rise of Web 2.0 with a support from Jurgen Habermas and its understanding of public sphere in the sense of social media. Then I will summarize a couple of academic essays from Bernard Berelson, Brian McNair and Evgeny Morozov to form a ground for the reader to better understand the social media's role in Egyptian revolutions. And lastly you will find an analysis of a text from an Egyptian blogger in Global Voices which focuses on the role of social media and digital activism.

Evolution of Web 2.0 and The Digital Public Sphere

Before understanding the 2011 Egyptian Revolution and the social media's positioning as a tool for the uprisings, the evolution of the web from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 and its consequences and the digital sphere it is created, which can be a model for the public sphere understanding of Habermas, should be briefly explained. Simply the outcomes of this change to Web 2.0 resulted in a more user participated digital nature which is much more different than the previous digital interactions in the past. The phrase “Web 2.0” was first mentioned in a conference in San Francisco, California in 1994, where the leading figures of online innovation community met each other (Graham, 2005). They had already observed the upcoming changes and challenges in the online world and so they divided the internet history into two: Web 1.0 and Web 2.0.

It should be underlined that the virtual social media community of what we understand today is basically a result of the evolution happened between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. The fundamental difference between the two is the increased participation of the internet users through several different digital platforms and networks. It is the reciprocity which makes the difference now where the users can produce and share the data with the help of social media. This exchange of information, in addition to the ability of easily communicate, created a digital sphere of force for not only fun, but also for journalism, political participation, creating public opinion, establishing awareness and also gathering together for particular motivations. Blogging services like Blogger and Wordpress, micro-blogging services like Twitter and Tumblr and networking sites like Facebook and Foursquare are some examples of today's digital evolution which made significant changes in our lives. In my opinion, all these user-based content production and ability to spread it with the increasing communication ability of individuals, there happened a digital sphere to be carefully observed and understood.

To better understand digital public sphere that is created by the social networks, we should quote the concept of public sphere drawn by Habermas: “a body of private persons assembled to discuss matters of public concern or common interest” (Fraser, p. 58). What Habermas claims all the time can be summarized as the deliberative democracy model in simple terms as he is a democratic theorist who is looking for the members of the society to come together and discuss in deliberation. He aims for the parts of the society to be in communication with each other to reach a consensus where they construct the public sphere. What he importantly claims is the difference of these parts of the society and the necessity for these parts to accept each other in deliberation. The need for the “dialogue” is the key for all these different parts along with the understanding of equality between each member.

In my opinion, the rise of the internet in 21st century can be shown as a concept model for the deliberative public sphere of Habermas. What internet brings to our lives is the chance to broadcast ourselves in blogs and videos and an interactivity between users in return. Forums, urban dictionaries like Ekşi and İnci Sözlük, blogs and social media networks like Facebook or Twitter... There goes a massive number of interactivity among users of the internet with the help of the improving technology which can be shown as a model for public sphere of Habermas. What is catchy here is that the evolution of digital public sphere brings not only deliberative communication, it brings an habit of understanding and knowing each other with the addition of ability to get together for the common purposes with the use of social media as a tool. So we can look at the uprisings in Egypt from this viewpoint but I firmly believe we should not forget that the sphere that is created by social networks is only an accelerator for the uprisings which were already waiting to happen as in the examples of French or Bolshevik revolutions. Although, digital sphere looks like to embrace citizens' lives, it can never replace the deliberative public sphere model of Habermas in reality. Still both spheres have strong links of interaction as the internet users are also real people living in a real society.

Role of Communications and Journalism in Digital Delusion

In this part, I will try to give brief summaries of articles written by Bernard Berelson about the role of communications in the society, by Brian McNair about the history of journalism and by Evgeny Morozov about the digital delusions internet users experience. To start with, Berelson asks the question if communications influence public opinion. He sets five sets of variables which are communications, issues, people, conditions and effects (Berelson, p. 531). The most important two frames to be discussed here, in my opinion, are personal contact of communications and the way the content is diverted. First, he highlights the difference between radio and the newspapers as the former one has an advantage of being more personal and more effective. “The more personal the media, the more effective it is in converting opinions” he writes (Berelson, p. 531). Second, he draws a distinction between reportorial and interpretive content where the latter one has less significant effect on the public opinion (Berelson, p. 534).

What makes Berelson's writings some kind of “nostalgic” is the fast nature of the digital century of ours. Although he has very striking points about the role of communications, in which I will be redefining the two points mentioned above, the digital journalism of Web 2.0 make his opinions to be revisited. The feeling of personal communication with radio compared to the newspapers used to influence the public opinion in the past but now, I am quite sure Berelson would agree with me, it is now much more personal with the social media tools like Twitter and Facebook. It is the digital public itself that is creating and influencing public opinion which is much more personal than radio, TV or newspapers. Second point of Berelson that I find important to mention is the rate of interpretation of the news. He finds direct telling of events more influential and interpretative telling less effective. But in the digital world, they are mixed unlike in any time before in history. In Facebook or Twitter, you can post a news article to your wall with a short comment or you can even write a long blog post or just a tweet of 140 characters. Those are cannot be labeled simply as reportorial or interpretive which is the result of the chaotic flow of Web 2.0 content production. All in all, the role of communications in the aspects of personalization and the type of telling the news are still important in our digital world but from a different perspective.

Brian McNair, whose article is written in 2009, looks at the history of journalism in his article named “Journalism and Democracy”. Apart from his association of journalism and democracy, I will only look at his five types of journalism in historical context which are journalism before democracy, journalism as a source for deliberative democracy, journalism as a watchdog, journalism as a mediator and journalism as a participant. What catches me first is the very obvious similarity of digital Twitter and Facebook journalists of today with these five types of journalism in the history. First, journalism before democracy was seen as useful but potentially dangerous (McNair, p. 237) just like nowadays' situation where governments are finding the internet useful but are needing to control it in case of any future danger. Second, journalism is a source of information in a deliberate democracy (McNair, p. 238) which is quite similar today where every Web 2.0 participant deliberately joins the conversation in the digital sphere, the one that can be a model of Habermas' public sphere mentioned above.

Third, journalism is like a watchdog to prevent the abuses of authorities (McNair, p. 239) which reminds me the role of Wikileaks (Fildes, 2010) and the spread of news by the social media users that threatened the governments' policies that are hidden behind the curtains. Fourth, the journalism as a representative who ensures that the voice of public is heard (McNair, p. 239), which we can be seen as a model in social media where the politicians and citizens, which are the new digital journalists, meet for public debate on the internet to create public opinion. The last one, journalism as advocates that defend the rights of the people (McNair, p. 240), can be seen in today's Twitter and Facebook users who are producing content for and against the news items in a continuous digital process. To sum up, it seems that the types of journalism in McNair's article quite resembles the positioning of social media users of our time, which means that internet users are not only people that are having fun unconsciously but rather use it in an effective and influential way through participating and producing content. Actually more than that, they get together with social media while being voluntary journalists which I will mention in a couple of paragraphs later.

Similarities of significant thoughts from Berelson and McNair about communications, personalization and types of journalism with new digital sphere and players of our century are the ones that should be kept in mind to better understand the spirit of digital time. To conclude this section, the last review will be from the article named “Why Kierkegaard Hates Slacktivism” from the book “The Net Delusion” written by Evgeny Morozov which, in brief, is about the delusional positioning of the social media users for being proactive in the virtual world and its consequences of passiveness in the real world due to the virtual satisfaction. Morozov tells more about the psychological sides of the virtual pro-activity where social networkers are looking to promote themselves by joining groups and events virtually and not taking action in reality (Morozov, p. 186). It is useful to create awareness by creating groups and events on Facebook or tweeting about issues that are worth discussing about but he criticizes that this awareness is only valuable when it is converted into action “and this is where tools like Twitter and Facebook prove much less successful” (Morozov, p. 191).

So the digital activism become an habit for social media users which is also supported by the moderators of related digital groups who are looking for more visitors, not for more functionality. Morozov defines them as “dissidents without dissent” (Morozov, p. 198) who create a lot of digital buzz around the subject and not being able to channel the conversations into an effective consequence. This situation also closes the way for the social media tools to become tools for communication that creates public opinion and political activism. Rami Khouri, editor of the Lebanon's the Daily Star is generally concerned about the long-term effects of the digital influence: “Such activities essentially shift the individual from the realm of participant to the realm of spectator, and transform what would otherwise be an act of political activism, mobilizing, demonstrating or voting into an act of passive, harmless personal entertainment” (Morozov, p. 202). All in all, it is quite simple to label the digital users as only virtually active where they feel virtually satisfied and not really participate. But the question is that is it the fault of the social media or the people that are using it? When we think of the social media as a tool for the revolution in Egypt, we define it as the success of people as activists and success of the social media for being a very effective communication tool. And to be against Morozov, it seems that there is this good example of how people in Egypt can become active in both real and virtual worlds.

The Role of Social Media in 2011 Egyptian Revolution

“In the 21st century, information is power; the truth cannot be hidden; and the legitimacy of governments will ultimately depend on active and informed citizens.” says USA President Barack Obama about the role of internet after the revolution in Egypt. (Banks, 2011). What he means by “active” is the masses' participation in both real and virtual worlds and what he means by “informed” is the power of social media as a tool to spread the word of information as quick as possible. In Globalvoicesonline.org, Gilad Lotan collects several pieces of blog posts written by Egyptian blogger Hani Morsi which are about the technology driven activism and the role of social media in societal changes. In order to prove that digital participants in social media are more than spectators, Morsi shows examples of April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt and Green Revolution in Iran as political movements that are grown out of social media (Lotan, 2011).

Morsi also replies to Malcolm Gladwell's article named “Does Egypt need Twitter?” that is published in New Yorker in which Gladwell claims that Egyptian people did not need any social media tool to revolt against the government and showed examples from revolutions in history, that had no social media tools like Twitter and Facebook, like the French Revolution and the fall of Berlin Wall (Gladwell, 2011). It is in fact true that the past revolts had not social media networks, rather they had the necessary communication tools like telephones, telegraphs etc. What they needed was not a better communication tool, it was the courage they needed and so, for today, the social media was the accelerator and the tool for the events. Morsi agrees with the point of Gladwell and says that the uprisings and demonstrations would eventually bring down the aging, coercive and non-democratic governments. But he adds that the social media tools helped to accelerate the process in the case of communication and also helped the awareness and ability to revolt of other Middle Eastern and North African countries (Lotan, 2011). According to Morsi coercive regimes have the fear of open and fair dialogue which takes us back to virtual sphere that is modeled by Habermas' understanding of public sphere where people exchange ideas and opinions in a deliberative way. So the fear of governments become real with the awareness that is established by the social networks.

“What I refer to here as the virtualization of dissent is what happened when the popular desire for change was shifted from real space, where it was in long somnolence, and cultivated it in a space that the Patriarchs do not understand: virtual space” says Morsi to prove that the unhappiness of Egyptian people goes back to Presidential elections in 2005 and the boiling point was January 25, 2011 (Lotan, 2011). To show as an example of shift to virtual space we can mention the Facebook group named “We are all Khaled Said” which gathered more than a million people at the time of the events (Villareal, 2011). Khaled Said, a symbol during the uprisings, was a young Egytian who died under disputed circumstances after being arrested by the police. His corpse's photos was spread through the social networks and it incited an outrage through the 2011 Egypt revolution. What accelerated the process was the Facebook group that brought people together with his photos but the reality is that people, with another photo or event, would still had the courage to come together to be against the government's unfair actions.

According to a 2010 report entitled “Middle East and Africa Facebook Demographics”, there are 15 million Facebook subscribers in the area which is more than the newspapers circulated in the region (Feuilherade, 2011). Despite the fact that newspapers are read by more than one person, still this really shows an huge digital potential for communication. On the other hand, although both Twitter and Facebook was very helpful to mobilize the dissidents, these social media tools did not invent the courage the Egyptians had. Both Twitter and Facebook was blocked on January 2011 (Bold Mayers, 2011) but the dissidents still found a way to keep the communication through digital channels via DNS and proxy changes or chat rooms in online gaming and dating web sites (Villareal, 2011). It is certain that without the richness internet brings to the sphere of communication, none of these would happen that fast. But it is certain that people would find another way to communicate with each other. This is because the people in Egypt, for a long period of time, had been suffering from poverty, rising prices, unemployment, social exclusion, corruption and personal enrichment among the political elite (Nguyen, 2011) which already made them ready to protest, with or without the social media.

Conclusion

Throughout the paper I tried to convince the reader that the revolution in Egypt was not all about the use of social media. My argument was that social media tools like Twitter and Facebook were not the reasons, but the accelerators for the uprisings that established awareness among people with the high-tech communications and the ability to mobilize after that. The evolution from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 made internet users to create content and share it through various channels which made it possible for people to easily communicate and share knowledge. I firmly believe that this evolution of web created a digital sphere of people, which is a model for Habermas' public sphere, where people deliberately and equally share opinions and exchange ideas. Berelson's article was to define the role of communication which pointed out that personalization and interpretation of news that is very well adopted by the new digital nation. Also the types of journalism McNair underlined is shared by today's social media members in several ways. Although, as Morozov explained, the feel for being virtually satisfied can be an obstacle for the real world political activism, the uprisings in Egypt proved it wrong that if the courage is enough, it does not matter if they had social media tools or not. Tools like Facebook and Twitter are very strong accelerators but the 2011 Egypt Revolution would not happen if the masses would not be unhappy about the ongoing political, social and economic negativity.

Bibliography

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VIRTUAL WORLD AS A WAY OF CONSTRUCTING A RENEWED IDENTITY

2010

After waking up late in the morning, he turned his computer on and checked his e-mails while brushing his teeth. Along the first cup of coffee of the day, he tweeted about himself in 140 characters via Twitter. Then he opened his Facebook account and checked if there is any new notification. After commenting on his Facebook friends’ photos and status updates, he started reading and commenting on newly written blog posts of the day using his RSS reader. Of course he didn’t forget to check his favorite YouTube channels if there is any new video uploaded. Then, while eating his breakfast he played with his online character in the Second Life game. For more than 2-3 hours a day, he uses his access to internet for either communication and interaction with other online people or for content generation. These are his almost responsibilities for that he is staying in contact with his virtual social space.

Introduction

Communicating through e-mails, twitting, checking Facebook photos and status updates, following and commenting on blogs with a RSS reader, sharing a video on YouTube or playing an online game with an online character are just some forms of the 21st century style virtual social interaction. These digital interactions turn individuals’ attention from the real world to the virtual world and whether you are very much interested or not in this type of online participation, you have a more or less different identity than the one in the real world. Once an individual is online, a detachment occurs from the body and the identity he owns in the real world, as the need for the body and existing identity is no longer required in the virtual world and the user can participate separately from it.

In this paper, my theory is that although virtual world wouldn’t exist without the real world and although they are not truly separated, it is a fact that today the individuals have the chance to renew their identities with the help of internet, creating a virtual identity as they wish to have in the real world. Although there are many important points to be discussed about the issue, I will try to stay in a particular outline that I prefer to extend in its boundaries. Throughout the paper I will explain how this new virtual world space is constructed through time as a result of Web 1.0’s evolution to Web 2.0; how and in which conditions and reasons virtual identities are shaped by individuals themselves; why it is difficult for internet users to exit this newly emerged digital world and return to their former non-virtual life-style. After these points, in the last part I will examine Facebook, which is an online social networking platform, and highlight several attributes and statistics about it.

Discussing the Differences Between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0

Before coming to analyze the reasons of how virtual identity concept is formed, it will be proper to understand the evolution of world wide web via the change from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 and its consequences. Simply the outcomes of this change resulted in a more user participated virtual space which is more different than the one in the past. The phrase “Web 2.0” was first mentioned in a conference in San Francisco, California in 1994, where the leading figures of online innovation community met each other (Graham, 2005). They were seeing the existing and upcoming changes in the online world, which I will briefly mention below, and to emphasize these, they divided the internet history into two: Web 1.0 and Web 2.0.

Avoiding the technical explanations such as changing infrastructures of websites or improving programming and scripting languages, in this section there will be basic explanations for how differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 made evolutionary changes in the virtual society. In fact it should be underlined that a virtual community of what we understand today is basically a consequence of the changes between these two. Fundamentally it is the recent understanding of user participation which changed everything internet consumers knew before.

Expanding reciprocity between user and provider, which was not subsistent in the past, made web change into a platform where you can exchange data and information in several simple and quick ways. Actually data exchange was the driving force in this revolution which means everybody can be a contributor in the virtual world and create his own space. For instance, one of the prominent examples of Web 2.0 concept, Blogger (http://www.blogger.com) can help you create a free personal website for yourself in a couple of minutes, which is called a blog, where you can post your thoughts, feelings or put pictures and videos into it simply. In the past creating a personal website was not only difficult, as you had to know a scripting language, but also expensive. Likewise, Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org), with a subtitle of free encyclopedia, is also another example which is created with user generated content. Before the concept of user generated content of Web 2.0, the most popular encyclopedic data provider was Britannica (http://www.britannica.com) where users were only consumers without any chance of content participation.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is another formation of newly emerged virtual world, where you can track websites or blogs you prefer. The system simply alerts you when new posts or updates occur in the websites you follow and instead of checking on every website you follow if there is any new content, it allows user to notice and access updated websites in just seconds. Moreover, there is this new P2P (Peer to Peer) file sharing system, where every client share products like mp3s, movies etc unlike in the former client-server interaction where transaction only happens if client requests service from the server. So, using practices like RSS and P2P or generating content in a simple and fast way enable internet consumers to create their own space in the virtual world where they do not need to request service from a few providers.

In addition to a virtual space of every individual, now there is the chance for everyone to create their own virtual identity through instant messaging services, social networking websites and online games. To start with, instant messaging services like MSN Messenger or ICQ are providing an alternative communication model to calling each other via telephones that you can communicate with your friends sitting in front of a computer. Moreover, social networking sites like Facebook (http://www.facebook.com) and Twitter (http://www.twitter.com) or online games like Second Life (http://secondlife.com) enable individuals to create their virtual identity as they prefer to be. What is remarkable is the fact that while a new world wide web understanding of content generation ability or not only consumerist but also provider practices are appeared, it is also led to a circumstance that individuals are now able to renew their identities virtually where many of the basic cues about personality and social role we are accustomed to in the real world is absent and ambiguous in this disembodied world of virtuality (Kollock and Smith 1999, p. 29).

Reasons to Construct Virtual Identities

For hundreds of years, humanity existed in one way or another without the digital world we now experience. Every individual had his own identity and social space without generating content or sharing data on the internet. Is the advancement of technology the only reason for our generation’s search for a virtual space and identity? Extending communication technologies brought new ways of being, new chains of values and new sensibilities (Holmes 1997, p. 29) but what reasons encourage individuals to construct new identities and new virtual social spaces in the non-real world? Three conditions are essential in my opinion: First one is realizing the existence of the world society via internet and consequently feeling like a smaller piece than imagined. Second one is the opportunity to construct the self-identity from the start and the last one is the easy accessibility to the virtual world. These three are combined with the advancing technology which let individuals easily generate content, build online identities and create a new space for themselves.

Before spending hours of time in the internet while social networking, chatting with people, playing online games or generating content via blogging services, individuals’ social interaction was generally around their neighborhood and work places. In today’s techno-social world space, you can get in touch and even be friends with a Chinese or African guy that you probably will not see in your life for once. The world population was again crowded before the advancement of technology and internet but the social environment we were interested in was only our close neighborhood. It was realized that the communication with people outside the neighborhood was possible, thanks to the advanced online opportunities. So if we change the former definition of social circle and integrate it with the reality of social circle of the virtual world, then it can be seen that the location we fill in the new virtual social circle is a lot smaller than the one in the former neighborhood-social circle. Now there are more than millions of people in the internet and it is possible to notice them as long as they generate content, use social networking web sites and build social spaces of their own. As a consequence it is normal to feel like a small virtual grain of virtual sand in this virtual desert.

After all, this “feeling like a small grain of sand” condition and its consequence as a trigger and the motivation to extend it went arm-in-arm with the opportunity of content generation in the internet. Owing to blogging services, an understanding of citizen journalism (McNair 2009, p. 223) appeared and as a blog owner or content generator in another web service people realized that they have the opportunity to enter a social circle much bigger than their neighborhood. The enthusiasm to feel like more than a small grain of sand and a largely self-referential desire motivated by personal fulfillment changed the dynamics of the social circles of individuals once and for all (Papacharissi 2009, p. 230). In this point one can remember the famous quote of Andy Warhol which is “In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes” and change it to “Today everyone can be famous in any minute.”

Another reason or condition that motivates individuals to create online identities is the possibility to virtually construct identities from the start which they are not satisfied in reality. This renewing phenomenon is mentioned in a satirical cartoon by Peter Steiner in The New Yorker in 1993 in which a dog sitting in front of a computer talks to another: “On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog” (UNC, 1997). In other words, reconstructing the identities via the social networking websites or other online communication forms enabled human beings to reshape their appearances as they would like to be. This virtual reconstruction and the feeling of conscious or unconscious disembodiment from the real world via the online practices do not mean a total change in the real world appearance and identities of individuals. Still, this availability of virtual reshaping definitely has more than an imaginary effect in real lives as nearly all the interaction in the online world occurs with online people who also have real world identities. For instance, as one Facebook user makes comment on a photo of his friend’s, this interaction will not only stay in the online sphere and will have an influence in the real world. This may well be the consequence of the interference of the real and virtual worlds.

Additional triggers of will to have a place in the virtual world are its easy accessibility and being free of charge. If you have an internet accessible computer and internet provider, all the virtual doors of the digital world is open for you to enter and create a new and also a non-real space and identity which is also nearly free of charge. As the advancement of technology goes beyond our imaginations comparing to 1990s, now many people have notebooks to log on to the internet in anywhere they want and even use a cell phone to check e-mails or the updates in favorite blogs or social networking websites. In some respect this means that individuals have the possibility to carry their virtual identities along with themselves. It is not difficult to foresee that as the improvement in mobile access to the internet and in the wireless technologies continue, the interference of virtual and real worlds will not be a subject of an utopian world.

Binding Power of the Virtual World

The reasons I have mentioned above basically tried to explain how this virtual identity and virtual space phenomena nearly replaced or at least had an irreversible change in the real equivalents. But is there any chance to exit this digital world and return back to our non-virtual daily lives? Besides, if it is even possible, do we want to return to our former life-styles? The fact is that the ability to change and form identities of themselves gives people the sense of confidence they need. As long as you have your access codes to your online identity, you have the power to present yourself as you prefer to other online people. However the only way to keep this power alive is to stay online. Besides staying online is not enough to keep your online identity breathing, you also have to generate content, share mp3s, movies etc or contribute to a social networking website with your existence. This dependency condition proves a binding interaction where the both parts need each other but more importantly the individual need the virtual space as the virtual world can place anyone as soon as he quits. But does the individual, who had once experienced the digital climate, have a replacement for the virtual world?

There is another point to mention which is the constant innovation habit in the digital world. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of the social networking website Facebook, is one of the contributors to the innovative atmosphere of the online world: “We view it as our role in the system to constantly be innovating and be updating what our system is to reflect what the current social norms are” (Digital Beat, 2010). The norms he is talking about are in fact the issues which make internet users feel an obligation to stay connected as long as they can. The pressure not to get behind of the frequently innovating digital world and the motivation to be keeping attached to the system, which enable users protect their presence in the virtual world, make them got caught by the binding spirit of the internet. All those conditions make it difficult for internet consumers to give up their efforts to quit which have possible consequence of alienation from the virtual society.

The result of this binding process and the search for a digital identity makes a total blindness for individuals in which they are drifting away from the non-virtual world. This blindness of virtuality phenomena is also pointed out in some Hollywood movies, one of which has the most impact called The Matrix (1999). In the movie, a non-real system called “matrix”, which is developed by the machines created by humanity, is deceiving the human beings and using their energy to extend their machinery world. The dialog between the leading character called Neo and the man called Choi is remarkable: “My computer… You ever have that feeling where you don't know if you're awake or still dreaming?” “Mm, hey, it sounds to me like you need to unplug, man.” Another dialog, this time between Neo and another character called Morpheus, shows the problematic of body and mind separation which can be reflected to our reality-virtuality paradigm: “I thought it wasn't real. If you're killed in the Matrix, you die here?” “Your mind makes it real. The body cannot live without the mind.” (IMSDB, 2006)

Analyzing Facebook: A Binding Social Network

The identities we own in the real world can be noticed with our actions, choices, behaviors, speeches etc. Facebook is one of the most popular social networking websites that carries the hard labor of defining self in the real world to the virtual world where we can feel our existence in an another way. It also fits the procedure of the non-real world that you can form your identity nearly as well as you like. Below you will find some really interesting facts and statistics about Facebook which is all taken from the press room page of the website.

Facebook is founded in February, 2004 by Harvard University student Mark Zuckerberg and his three friends. It defines itself as social utility that helps people communicate and share information more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers. In the end of its first year, 2004, Facebook reached 1 million users which in 5 years in 2009 achieved an enormous number of 350 millions from which a 70% is from outside the United States. In addition it strikes attention, as it is an American foundation, that it now gives its service in 70 languages with the help of more than 1000 employees around the world which means a large sphere of neighborhood for users.

Here are some facts about how individuals take Facebook and the virtual reality it possesses seriously: Half of the total 350 millions of users enter the website in daily basis and an average user stays in the Facebook for approximately 55 minutes. Moreover, Facebook enables users to create fan groups where people join other people that share the same taste just like in the real world where individuals come together at the same table to share similar opinions. Again, in one month, an average user clicks the interactive “like” button for 9 times and posts 25 comments on Facebook content that is generated by users, which enable them express their appreciation and help establish a social space.

Content generation is getting in a more important position for Facebook’s plans as since they noticed that the content which is generated by the users make them unconsciously attach themselves to the virtuality, they started working on developments that make it easier for users to create data and share information. Today 2,5 billion photos and 3,5 million event links are uploaded by users each month. Furthermore, 3,5 billion pieces of content like web links, web stories, blog posts and notes etc are shared each week again by users. These massive numbers help Facebook and the consumers build a virtual world that is came out of real world and then become somehow a sort of threat against the real world and real identities. After all I wonder if the Facebook’s closeness to the real world makes us connect and get attached to the virtuality of Facebook more.

Facebook is not only working on infra-firm developments, it is also planning to possess more space in the internet. Since December 2008, Facebook allows other websites in the internet to make connections with its database of users by using the “Facebook Connect” system. Facebook Connect lets website owners to easily create links between their own web pages and Facebook which in result helps Facebook to have more generated content and also free advertisement in some way. In return website owners have the opportunity to reach more people via the large database of Facebook. In numbers, more than 80,000 websites have implemented Facebook Connect since its availability and more than 60 million Facebook users engage with Facebook Connect on external websites every month.

Another feature that makes individuals to stay connected is the availability of the mobile access, thanks to the recent developments in the wireless and cell phone technologies. There are more than 65 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices and people that use Facebook on their mobile devices are almost 50% more active on Facebook than non-mobile users. This constant togetherness of individuals and Facebook causes a relationship that drives people to a feeling of not to fall behind of recent updates, contents and news. In the end it becomes a relationship in which individuals are -intentionally or not- made to carry their virtual identities to their real worlds.

Last point in my Facebook study is the one that helps my argument about the binding atmosphere of the virtual world and nearly the impossibility of individuals’ exit from it. The fact is you cannot leave Facebook permanently. It does not let you end your relationship with itself forever and if you decide to close your account it just freezes it until the time you come back. It is already difficult to even think about leaving your virtual identity and it seems that it does not matter if you decide to close your virtual identity or not, Facebook does not let you do it anyhow.

Conclusion

Throughout the paper I tried to explain how and in which conditions and reasons individuals create virtual identities and virtual spaces of their own. The intention of detachment from the body and the identity in the real world is mostly triggered by the evolution of internet technology and its consequences. After the emergence of Web 2.0, internet users were able to generate content, participate in the social sphere of the digital world and contribute to it in one way or another. But is the advancement in technology the only trigger for individuals to deepen their existence in the virtual world? Realizing the presence of the world society more seriously than before -thanks to the social networking websites, blogging services and other Web 2.0 features- individuals’ feeling of “a small grain of sand in the desert” encouraged them to establish a more durable place in the virtual world by generating content and sharing information etc.

Also easy accessibility to the internet and the opportunity to construct their identities from the start, though it is non-real, made individuals attach themselves to the virtual system. Furthermore, the constant innovation of the digital world and the pressure not to fall behind from the virtual social space caused individuals bound themselves to this phenomena day by day. However this virtual rebuilding and the position of disembodiment from the real world through the online practices do not mean a total alteration in the real world appearance and identities of individuals. Yet, this availability of virtual reshaping definitely has more than a sentimental effect in real lives as nearly all the interaction in the online world occurs with online people who also have real world identities.



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