Following you: Disciplines of listening social media
This essay is kind of engaging with a set of modes of paying attention online, and to propose that they be considered practices of listening.
The concept of listening will allow us to analyze the various affordances of online attention, and to access the ways in which we listen also shape us as late modern subjects.
Listening is not a common metaphor for online activity
The author categorized the listeners into three groups, individual, politicians, and corporations. And depends on the creation of different qualities of listening, he considered three modes “ reciprocal listening, background listening, and delegated listening. Here is a quotation from the reading “ these modes are not exclusive, nor are they singular: they can be adopted by any category of user, be they representing themselves or acting on behalf of a company or political party, further, internet users may regularly switch between modes of listening throughout a day.
So Like twitter, it offers a young platform and functions for most users as a continuous background presence, a steady stream of message. It connects the life with the friends, family. Companies and colleagues,
But also we have complex ramifications of how they can manage across their life.
There is a new word called “lurking” means that some people are also underneath the talking, and always witness the whole talk but no discussion at all. They are always tracking on other people’s contribution and directly contribute to the community by acting as a gathered audience; neither agreeing nor disagreeing, just listening. This kind old people we call it lurkers
But it is different from the definition of listeners. They are more embedded with and as a part of networked engagement. Listening more usefully captures the experience that many Internet users have and then ”speaking up” as the only significant forms of participation.
There is a listening mode called background listening, lie in twitter, we are using as text based up to 140 characters, it is as a way of many to many. So it is very easy just scanning the message very quickly. It is kind of like “ambient intimacy’ that mentioned in the reading.
vickiedeng 