The Trending Mechanism

By Phillip Quintero

There is a universal and varied interest in practices of online communications as

they evolve. Not least of all, it is a centerpiece of modern economies. Email fluency is a

prerequisite for entry to the professional class of labor. Corporate entities cannot expect to

market competitively without a presence online. For many, virtual culture is part of our

most basic socialization. This is increasingly the case for institutions as it is for individuals.

Organizations that engage in activism and advocacy--charities, non-profits, political

campaigns, and social movements--rely on the outreach and networking capabilities of

online tools. Governments and opposition movements alike turn to these tools to convey

their messages.

Accordingly, experts and scholars fill journals, databases, and conference agendas

with ideas, analysis, and thoughts for further consideration on the matter. This is not

surprising; the capacities for networking, communicating, collaborating, working, and

living in the global digital information network are already so ingrained in a large part of

the world so as to be unignorable. This is especially true in the most economically developed

regions, and is increasingly a global reality.

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) posits, “broadband [internet

access] has gone from being a luxury to a necessity for full participation in our economy and

society - for all Americans.”i Internet access grew from 41 percent of all American

households in 2000 to 68 percent in 2010, according to the US Census Bureau. As of the

2010 Census, 156,039,000 adults use the Internet at home.ii And, even with majority

coverage, the United States only ranks 19th in percentage of households with access to the

Internet among OECD Countries.iii

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On one hand, this is old news. Email and websites have been everyday features of

life for the many Americans for at least twenty years. The difference today is that tools and

services seem to emerge as fast as they can be adopted. And not only is the typical

‘connected’ demographic is expanding, but that more and more groups of people are getting

connected. For example, there is evidence that the “digital divide,” that is, the imbalance

between Internet adoption in developed vs. developing countries, is shrinking, and that

there are now lower barriers to digital connectivity in underdeveloped regions.iv

In what follows, I argue for the greater critical assessment of the emergence and

success of what is generally referred to as social media. I will begin by explaining where

intellectual energy has been applied so far in studies of the social and political implications

of Internet use, and in so doing show some unique characteristics of the more recent

developments in social media. This will lead to some thoughts the concept of “trending”. My

argument seeks to lay out common positions towards trending, and offers a pragmatic

alternative. The paper will conclude with a look at some examples of the deliberate

application of social media technologies and trending to political discourse.

Trends Towards Social Media

The question I want to engage has to do with the nature of new trends in mass-

mediated communications that are, as I see it, a direct response to the need to deal with the

much larger communicative sphere that results from the rapid expansion of Internet

adoption. Now, what is called “social media” is currently a major locus of energy online.

More to the point, there is very little content left on the Web that is unaffected by the

presence of social media tools. I will take a moment to describe this trend, which is at the

same time a fairly recent development and one experiencing very rapid growth.

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I will refer to various social media companies and services individually, but there is

also a need to be able to refer to them collectively. In other words, what do we mean when

we call something “social media”? Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein reduce the term

to the two key components of Web 2.0 and user-generated content. Web 2.0 refers to the

“ideological and technological foundation” which reimagined the Web as a “platform

whereby content and applications are no longer created and published by individuals, but

instead are continuously modified by all users in a participatory and collaborative fashion.”v

The result is user-generated content, which is information that is accessible to others, is the

result of some creative effort, and is not simply the by-product of other “professional

routines and practices.”vi I find this characterization satisfactory, though broad. What are

these media platforms specifically, and how are they being used?

While Facebook has been active since 2004, and its precursors even longer than that,

these social media services have seen explosive growth in activity over the past few years.

On its website, Facebook claims to have grown from 1 million active users in 2004, to 150

million in 2009, and 750 million in 2011.vii 100 million people have started using Twitter in

the five years since its founding.viii This is an adoption rate of over 50 thousand new

accounts made every day, on average. Recently, that rate of adoption is closer to 500

thousand per day, though it is hard to distill from that figure (which includes multiple

accounts issued to the same user and accounts controlled by automated software) the

number of unique individuals joining the service each day.ix

The recent growth in social media usership is perhaps due in part to the role it

played in the internal organization, as well as the global awareness, of political resistance

movements in Iran in 2009, Tunisia in 2010, and Egypt in 2011. During these events, social

media gained appreciation as a source for first-hand reporting. Jared Cohen of the US State

Department affirmed this by asking Twitter to delay scheduled maintenance so that

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information coming from Tehran would not be interrupted in 2009.x This sort of growth and

prominence is not limited to the number of accounts created. There is also growing

perception that social media represents a potentially huge economic sector, as evidenced by

the inflated initial public offering of Facebook shares. Even though the company’s value on

the open market did not live up to investor expectations,xi other examples, like the sale of

Instagram for $1 billion USD suggest that this combination of Web 2.0 and user-generated

content does in fact represent some real economic value.

The number of different companies and services available is vast. Facebook and

Twitter are only two of the most prevalent services – Reddit, Youtube, Digg, Yelp, Flickr,

MySpace, WordPress, and online gaming all comprise huge user networks that are both

distinct and overlapping. Special use services, like Causes for social movements or

Kickstarter for commercial entrepreneurs, have developed to harness these phenomena for

specific purposes.

With more venues and more users, there is also more content available. As of 2010,

more than 29 billion tweets had been sent,xii and they are all being archived by the Library

of Congress. xiiiIt is the expansion of activity resulting in rampant, accelerating content

creation that I am most interested in. It is possible to publish unedited content quickly,

easily, and for free. Bits of information can be identified, grouped, and promoted based on

any number of criteria. Conversations themselves can be content that is promoted and

commented on. Overlapping social and professional networks can lead to unintended

content exposure. One of the newest characteristics of this “content revolution” is that it is

almost as easy to publish and consume media-rich content as it is to publish text.

With the increased amount and diversity of content that is both a contributing factor

to and a result of social media, traditional forms of managing content are insufficient. A

simple keyword search on Twitter, “population” for instance, is bound to return thousands

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of results from individual users within the last 24 hours, while the same search on a

traditional search engine returns a ranked sampling of well-known news publications,

major websites, census results, and non-profit organizations. An emergent way that social

media sites deal with the bounty of content is through trending.

The Trend Towards Trending

Twitter’s Trending Topics algorithm identifies topics that are immediately popular, rather than topics that have been popular for a while or on a daily basis, to help people discover the “most breaking” news stories from across the world.xiv

While only certain channels of Internet-mediated communication use the term

"trending," as the above example in a statement from Twitter does, I will use it to refer to a

broad collection of content processing mechanisms. Most importantly, trending is the

promotion of new, popular content in near-real time. Facebook has developed a data-

engineering project around the same idea, which they refer to as memology.xv Facebook

Data Scientists Eytan Bakshy and Jonathan Chang describe the company’s interest in the

importance of trending: “There are these really large events, and they might appear as

peaks [in related activity], but it’s not necessarily because of some viral effect. It’s just that

this is an important cultural event, and it’s reflected in this conversation that people are

having.”xvi Google+, Digg, and reddit employ similar mechanisms by which the level of user

activity surrounding a piece of content will determine whether or not the content is

promoted to other users. This is why reddit calls itself “the front page of the Internet.”

I have found that there are many opinions and only some research into the

phenomena of trending. What content gets promoted? Who benefits from this model? Are

individual users exposed to more or less information than they were five years ago? What

about twenty years ago? Is the information generally more or less useful? In other words,

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what are the consequences of trending? To address this question, I will start by asking the

critics of this trend towards trending.

Trending Content as Frivolous

One dominant response to the trends I have identified is a disparaging one. There is

a widespread reaction, especially among ICT and media professionals, that the topics

focused on by trending are somehow not serious. On the one hand, it is tempting to write off

such criticism as a subjective complaint. In this version of the critique, the claim that social

media users’ preoccupation with celebrity status, or sharing personal details is equivalent

to the claim that social media users are, in that capacity, unrefined, uneducated, or boring.

Their topics of discourse are uninteresting, unimportant, and those who engage in them are

wasting their time. This perspective is well represented among journalists who cover ICT

developments.xvii

The critique is not unfounded.xviii Neither, however, is it particularly helpful, nor is

it the only way critical perspectives can be framed. There is a more sympathetic

formulation of this critical stance. In a way that is not often discussed, the critique (to

restate, the claim that the discourse facilitated via social media is dominated by

unimportant topics) is making a claim about the relation between form and content. We

could simplify and rephrase the claim as follows: If content is publicized through a medium

like Facebook or Twitter, then the majority of the content is likely to be of limited

relevance. I have purposely constructed a straw-man, here, but it is one that captures the

core of the critique I would like to start with.

It is important that, in the trending model, the merit by which a piece of information

is judged to be a feature, worthy of promotion and distribution, is not the content of what is

said, but the number of people who have said it. This represents a (potential) kind of

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divorce between the content of information and its value, where value is understood either

in terms of privilege and priority in promotion and propagation, or in terms of economic

value. There are some simple examples that affirm this. One, which has received increased

scholarly attention lately, is the way the logic of trending can be co-opted by the strategic

logic of private interests. Li, Irani, Webb, and Pu, for instance, detail the practice of “trend-

stuffing.”xix Trend-stuffing is an abuse of the trending mechanism by accounts that use

popular trending topics to promote unrelated material. An example would be a user who

includes many popular keywords to a post on a social media site, with the intention of

promoting that post through a trending mechanism and redirecting viewers to an unrelated

website where the individual collects advertising revenue. The related critique is that the

trending mechanism is open to abuse, because trend-stuffing is difficult to prevent. Similar

critiques have ben brought to bear against what is now a major industry, Search Engine

Optimization (SEO). SEO often works by associating a web page with popular keywords in

order to give that page a higher prominence in keyword searches. Corporate viral

marketing campaigns operate according to the same logic.

It is worth noting that valuable industries have arisen from this divorce of form and

content. SEO, Marketing, and even Spam provide jobs and services that are important

forms of capital in an increasingly information-based economy. However, I would like to

move on to other critical responses to trending.

Trending Content as Pastiche

Rob Horning wrote an excellent article in which he identifies a likeness between the

logic of social media and fast fashion. “Fast Fashion” is a business model that operates by

producing clothing to appeal to the latest trends as quickly and cheaply as possible. A store

like Zara, for instance, can design and distribute a new garment in 15 days. The situation is

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similarly a divorcing of form and content. Value, instead of being derived from the products

themselves, is derived form the information economy produced by the processes of mass

production and consumption. To paraphrase Horning’s analogy, the cheaper the clothing is,

the more of it a store can sell, regardless of profit margin. The more clothing it sells, the

more information it has about trending styles. The more effectively it can identify and

design according to breaking trends (and in so doing, reinforce those trends), the more

effectively it can move appropriate merchandise.

He makes a very sharp critique in comparing this business model to the ubiquitous

social media services:

Facebook and other social-media companies have a similarly parasitic business model. They also appropriate the content and connections we generate as we recreate our identities within their proprietary systems, and then repurpose that data for marketers who hope to sell tokens of that identity back to us. Much as fast-fashion companies are routinely accused of pirating designs, Facebook continually oversteps once sacrosanct norms of privacy, opting users in to data-divulging mechanisms by default and backpedaling only when confronted with public outcry. It offers a space akin to the fast-fashion retailer’s changing room for the ritual staging of the self, inviting users to seize upon “stylistic elements” from wherever they can be grabbed. We become involuntary bricoleurs, scrambling to cobble together an ad hoc identity from whatever memes happen to be relevant at the time.xx

Horning’s critique operates in many registers. It brings a social, psychological, and

philosophical insight to bear on the way trending (to which he refers by “memes”) becomes

something of an economy of empty signifiers, or postmodern Pastiche whereby entire

communicative transactions can take place and achieve some kind of value that is entirely

independent of their content. While Ernesto Laclau and Frederic Jameson did not have

social media in mind with these concepts, their theoretical point does, in fact, play out in it.

For instance, one of the most popular memes on Facebook in 2011 is the tag “lms” for “like

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my status.”xxi The tag asks readers to “like” a statement that the user has made on his or

her personal profile, contributing to the quantifiable popularity of the profile, thus raising

it’s visibility and value.

The persistent problem addressed by these positions is the way the trending model

dissociates value from content though, to my knowledge until now, the critique has not been

stated as such. This is often done knowingly and towards a certain end, as in the case of

corporate “viral” marketing, and trend-stuffing. It is also performed and accepted

unknowingly, as in the scenario Horning has created.

This critique paints a bleak picture, as it implicates beloved services and their

individual users in the devaluation of the content of their intellectual production. However,

in and interesting counterpoint, there is a complementary trend to the lms meme. Lms

interactions are commonly linked with “tbh” or “to be honest.” The practice is one where a

viewer can “like” another user’s status, and in return, the user will respond with a personal

message. While the lms trend is in-line with the idea Horning is criticizing, the way it

works in practice does not exclude meaningful content or personal communication. While

this is just a small example, I would like point towards a more optimistic reframing of the

critique.

Intelligent Habits

There is an industry built up around using and making sense of the trending

mechanism that is found across the social media spectrum. The Stream, a social-media

based news show from Al Jazeera English, makes an effort to distance itself from the

perception that social media sites are dominated by news of pop music icons, celebrity

scandals, or vapid self aggrandizement.xxii The show claims to be based on the ideals behind

social media - viewer participation, global perspectives, low cost of contribution, real-time

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input, and capacities for network-building. The show, for instance interviewed Iceland’s

Foreign Minister Össur Skarphéðinsson after that country’s decision to formally recognize

the sovereignty of a Palestinian state.xxiii Viewers were invited to participate in the

conversation in real time through video submissions and questions submitted via Twitter

that were then fielded by the show’s hosts. The show also bases show topics on what is

trending, though the topics are curated to those with global political relevance.

The show, despite being based on the trending mechanic, is extremely content-

oriented. Guests are directed to respond to critical questions stated very plainly—often in

140 characters or less. The show, based in DC, almost always features international voices,

even on issues of American domestic policy. For instance, the episode discussion the Stop

Online Privacy Act opens with a video submission from a teen in the United Kingdom who

points out the international implications of the legislation. The show also highlighted that

it’s viewers believe immigration policy is a racial issue, and brought that topic into

discussion. One contributor stated that racial integration is a matter of fact, while another

participant pointed out a discrepancy between actual political preference and party

rhetoric.

This industry is, after all, one that can pay attention to quality content. The

question is one of fostering more of the same.

Many long-held beliefs are taking a beating… chief among them the idea that if you want to connect with young people, you’d best keep it short, funny and stupid.

-David Carrxxiv

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References:

i http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/connecting-america accessed December 18, 2011 ii http://www.census.gov/hhes/computer/ accessed December 18, 2011 iii November 2011 OECD Report: http://www.oecd.org/document/23/0,3746,en_2649_37441_33987543_1_1_1_37441,00.html accessed December 18, 2011 iv Robison, K. K. and Crenshaw, E. M. (2010), Reevaluating the Global Digital Divide: Socio-Demographic and Conflict Barriers to the Internet Revolution. Sociological Inquiry, 80 vAndreas M. Kaplan, Michael Haenlein, Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media, Business Horizons, Volume 53, Issue 1, January-February 2010 vi ibid. It is interesting that this definition is based on a paper published by the OECD’s research on Internet and information economies. vii https://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?timeline accessed December 18, 2011 viii http://blog.twitter.com/2011/09/one-hundred-million-voices.html accessed December 18, 2011 ix http://blog.twitter.com/2011/03/numbers.html accessed December 18, 2011 xhttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/world/middleeast/17media.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Twitter&st=cse accessed December 18, 2011 xi http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-06-01/the-backsplash-from-the-facebook-ipo-bellyflop accessed June 19, 2012 xii http://gigatweeter.com/counter accessed June 19, 2012 xiii http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/1005/twitter.html accessed June 19, 2012 xiv http://support.twitter.com/entries/101125-about-trending-topics accessed December 18, 2011 xv https://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=10150391956652131 accessed December 18, 2011 xvi interview with Facebook Engineering: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150515096128109 accessed December 18, 2011 xvii Some notable examples of this perspective: Twitter as educationally detrimental: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/magazine/the-twitter-trap.html accessed December 18, 2011 Twitter as vapid entertainment news: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/09/17/don-t-tweet-on-me.html accessed December 18, 2011 Trend-promotion marketing as commercially unviable http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/29/the-challenge-of-advertising-on-promoted-trends-royalwedding/ accessed December 18, 2011 xviii see 2011’s top trends on twitter: http://twend.it/year/2011/ accessed June 19, 2012 xix Li, Irani, Webb, and Pu, Study of “Trend-Stuffing on Twitter through Text Classification”, CEAS 2010 - Seventh annual Collaboration, Electronic messaging, Anti- Abuse and Spam Conference July 13-14, 2010, Redmond, Washington, US xx Horning, Rob. “The Accidental Bricoleurs.” In N+1, 3 June 2011. Accessed December 19, 2011 http://nplusonemag.com/the-accidental-bricoleurs accessed December 18, 2011 xxi http://allthingsd.com/20111207/like-my-status-was-facebooks-breakout-meme-in-2011/ accessed December 18, 2011 xxii http://stream.aljazeera.com/about accessed December 18, 2011 xxiii http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/campaign-palestinian-recognition-succeeding-0021909 accessed December 18, 2011 xxivhttp://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/17/business/media/17carr.html?pagewanted=2 accessed December 18, 2011