Identity and Connection: How does one person affect another?
In an attempt to answer this exploratory question, I have focused on the application of Berger’s, STEPPS Framework (Social Currency, Triggers, Emotions, Public, Practical Value and Stories) within an Aboriginal Australian social media context.
The rise in the use of social media as a means of cultural and social interaction is a unique value proposition for communitties that do not have huge marketing budgets to represent themselves! Aboriginal people in Australia are using social media in unique ways – to connect between generations, to connect with culture and to connect with other Indigenous peoples globally, writes @IndigenousX host, Bronwyn Carlson
“Indigenous people use social media at a rate higher than non-Indigenous people, and this is the case right across the country” Carlson, 2017
Berger’s emotion theory and science behind word of mouth and how you can use it to get more people talking - can be applied as a way of understanding social sharing of content culture. It can help to explain why emotion drives the spread of content online. In this way, social media has in many ways bridged distances and is, as the founder of Electronic Frontier Foundation, John Barlow explains:
“Indigenous populations worldwide are interacting online and supporting Indigenous issues and causes in a global collective. Given the similarities of experiences with colonisation, Indigenous peoples can relate to, engage with and support each other on social media”
For millennia, Indigenous Australian communities have been passing down histories, knowledge, language and customs, through oral storytelling. In terms of self-representation, Facebook and Instagram are becoming the most popular vehicle amongst Aboriginal people, to build, display, and perform storytelling and Aboriginal identities.
Berger explains that, storytelling and, certainly, good stories get passed along through generations and can help drive information or content to be shared online.
Social media is here, Aboriginal people are online and are posting and interacting with one another, having conversations, debates and forming relationships.
Social media is a social site, it is also a political site where Aboriginal struggles and identities and connections can be driven by emotion!
What other examples within the public sphere can we see social media and emotion play out?
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