Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T03:59:37.375Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Please Like This Paper

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 May 2021

Lucy McDonald
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper I offer a philosophical analysis of the act of ‘liking’ a post on social media. First, I consider what it means to ‘like’ something. I argue that ‘liking’ is best understood as a phatic gesture; it signals uptake and anoints the poster’s positive face. Next, I consider how best to theorise the power that comes with amassing many ‘likes’. I suggest that ‘like’ tallies alongside posts institute and record a form of digital social capital. Finally, I consider whether ‘likes’ have ultimately improved online discourse. I argue that while the ‘liking’ function itself is relatively innocuous, public ‘like’ tallies introduce a corrosive motivation to online communication. By making the prospect of increased social capital perpetually salient to us, they encourage us to prioritise high levels of engagement over meaningful engagement.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 96 , Issue 3 , July 2021 , pp. 335 - 358
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This paper was the joint winner of the 2020 Philosophy essay prize.

References

Bourdieu, Pierre, ‘The Forms of Capital’, in Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, ed. by Richardson, J.G. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986), 241–58.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre and Wacquant, L., An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).Google Scholar
boyd, danah, ‘Faceted Id/Entity: Managing Representation in a Digital World’ (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2002).Google Scholar
danah boyd, ‘Social network sites as networked publics: Affordances, dynamics, and implications’, in A Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites, ed. by Papacharissi, Z. (New York: Routledge, 2010), 39–58.10.4324/9780203876527CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brennan, Geoffrey and Pettit, Philip, The Economy of Esteem: An Essay on Civil and Political Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004a).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brennan, Geoffrey and Pettit, Philip, ‘Esteem, Identifiability and the Internet’, Analyse & Kritik, 26 (2004b), 139–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brison, Susan J., and Gelber, Katharine, eds., Free Speech in the Digital Age (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Penelope and Levinson, Stephen C, Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).10.1017/CBO9780511813085CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coleman, James Samuel, Foundations of Social Theory (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1990).Google Scholar
Dahlberg, L., ‘Cyberspace and the Public Sphere: Exploring the Democratic Potential of the Net’, Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 4 (1998), 70–84.10.1177/135485659800400108CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, Jenny L and Jurgenson, Nathan, ‘Context Collapse: Theorizing Context Collusions and Collisions’, Information, Communication & Society, 17 (2014), 476–85.10.1080/1369118X.2014.888458CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ess, C., ‘The Political Computer: Democracy, CMC, and Habermas’, in Philosophical Perspectives on Computer-Mediated Communication, ed. by Ess, C. (New York: State University of New York Press, 1996), 197–230.Google Scholar
Evnine, Simon J., ‘The Anonymity of a Murmur: Internet Memes’, British Journal of Aesthetics, 58 (2018), 303–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Field, John, Social Capital, Key Ideas (London: Routledge, 2003).Google Scholar
Fogal, Daniel, Harris, Daniel W., and Moss, Matt (eds.), New Work on Speech Acts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).10.1093/oso/9780198738831.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerlitz, Carolin and Helmond, Anne, ‘The Like Economy: Social Buttons and the Data-Intensive Web’, New Media & Society, 15 (2013), 1348–65.10.1177/1461444812472322CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen, ‘Wahrheitstheorien’, in Wirklichkeit Und Reflexion, ed. by Fahrenbach, H. (Pfüllingen: Neske, 1973), 211–65.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen, ‘Political Communication in Media Society: Does Democracy Still Enjoy an Epistemic Dimension? The Impact of Normative Theory on Empirical Research’, Communication Theory, 16 (2006), 411–426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habgood-Coote, Josh, ‘Stop Talking about Fake News!’, Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, 62 (2019), 1033–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kemp, Simon, ‘Digital 2020: 3.8 Billion People Use Social Media’, We Are Social, 2020 <https://wearesocial.com/blog/2020/01/digital-2020-3-8-billion-people-use-social-media> [accessed 27 April, 2021].+[accessed+27+April,+2021].>Google Scholar
Malinowski, Bronisław, ‘The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages’, in The Meaning of Meaning: A Study of the Influence of Language upon Thought and of the Science of Symbolism, ed. by Ogden, C.K. and Richards, I.A. (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc, 1923), 296–336.Google Scholar
Marsili, Neri, ‘Retweeting: Its Linguistic and Epistemic Value’, Synthese, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Marwick, Alice E. and boyd, danah, ‘I Tweet Honestly, I Tweet Passionately: Twitter Users, Context Collapse, and the Imagined Audience’, New Media & Society, 13 (2011), 114–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonald, Lucy, ‘Your word against mine: the power of uptake’, Synthese, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Mukerji, Nikil, ‘What Is Fake News?’, Ergo, 5 (2018), 923–46.Google Scholar
Nagel, Jennifer, ‘Epistemic Territory’, Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 93 (2019), 67–86.Google Scholar
Thi Nguyen, C., ‘Echo Chambers and Epistemic Bubbles’, Episteme, 17 (2020a), 141–61.10.1017/epi.2018.32CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thi Nguyen, C., Games: Agency As Art (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020b).10.1093/oso/9780190052089.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norlock, Kathryn J., ‘Online Shaming’, Social Philosophy Today, 33 (2017), 187–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pariser, Eli, The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You (London: Viking, 2011).Google Scholar
Pepp, Jessica, Michaelson, Eliot, and Sterken, Rachel, ‘What's New About Fake News?’, Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 16 (2019), 67–94.Google Scholar
Pew Research Centre, Political Polarization in the American Public, 2014 <https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/> [accessed 27 April, 2021].+[accessed+27+April,+2021].>Google Scholar
Putnam, Robert D, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (London: Simon & Schuster, 2001).Google Scholar
Rini, Regina, ‘Fake News and Partisan Epistemology’, Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, 27 (2017), 43–64.10.1353/ken.2017.0025CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sherman, Lauren E., Payton, Ashley A., Hernandez, Leanna M., Greenfield, Patricia M., and Dapretto, Mirella, ‘The Power of the Like in Adolescence: Effects of Peer Influence on Neural and Behavioral Responses to Social Media’, Psychological Science, 27 (2016), 1027–35.10.1177/0956797616645673CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stalnaker, Robert, ‘Common Ground’, Linguistics and Philosophy, 25 (2002), 701–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sunstein, Cass R, #Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018).Google Scholar
Williams, James, Stand Out of Our Light: Freedom and Resistance in the Attention Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018).10.1017/9781108453004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yngve, Victor H., ‘On Getting a Word in Edgewise’, Papers from the Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 6 (1970), 567–78.Google Scholar