SOCIAL

MEDIA
DESIGN 2
DR. WILL KURLINKUS
 WHAT MAKES A GOOD THESIS STATEMENT?

¡ Very specific to your topic.

¡ Bad: In this paper I argue that expertise online is complex.
¡ Good: In this paper I examine how experts on YouTube (a lawyer, a mechanic, and a dog groomer) react to misinformation about their jobs. In doing
so, I argue that though expertise is being democratized through social media (Kurlinkus, Thompson, Ridolfo) traditional expertise is still maintained
through three mechanisms, what I call, trashing, slashing, and hashing.
¡ They Say/I Say sentiment: essentially, common knowledge or research on this topic states this, but I’ve found a new angle.
¡ Signposted: Usually a sentence that follows your thesis. “To make this argument I’ll first examine pre-existing literature on the state of
expertise in the 21st century, then I’ll examine how the YouTube experts react genre subverts some of these academic expectations by trashing
(experts aggressively rejecting dumb experts), slashing (experts attempting to counter misinformation, slashing through the fog of fake news),
and hashing (experts attempting to reason with non-experts).”
¡ Includes your argument, your examples, and your theory: though people like to argue expertise is being democratized, traditional
experts have found new ways to maintain their authority. I’m looking at three raeact videos. I’m applying theories of the democratization of
expertise.
¡ Followed by a signposted “to do so” statement that lays out your examples and complications.
¡ Breaks my guessing machine: They say I say does this but so does this introduction of key interesting terms, stories, or ideas.
¡ Somewhere in your intro, include a research questions: Ultimately, this paper seeks to answer: In what ways has the interactive nature of
social media transformed expertise and in what ways is expertise staying the same? How do traditional experts maintain their status ion
platforms where everyone is an expertise? And what unique rhetorical moves do these experts make online that they couldn’t make without
social media?
THE DESIGN OF FACEBOOK

¡ “By making the world more open and connected, we’re expanding
understanding between people and making the world a more
empathetic place” —Barry Schnitt, Facebook Director
¡ Sharing: Facebook is designed to transform everything private
into public and to make this feel good. We used to not feel this
way—it would be odd to share our family photo albums for
instance with our boss.
¡ Sharing as a god term vs. privacy is a devil term
¡ The persona we share on Facebook still, of course, is not
authentic (is any persona?)
¡ The more you share and like the more money Facebook
makes. Why?
¡ Liking: user’s first positive impression. ”Biased in favor of tweets
that users immediately enjoy. We would be effectively biased
against slow-burn content” (11).
¡ Friending: to be well connected. To turn relationships into social
capital/work (this is neoliberalism)
¡ Quitting Facebook
WHAT IS
DOOM
SCROLLING?
WHY DO WE
DO IT?
WHAT DO OTHER SOCIAL
MEDIA ENCOURAGE US TO
DO? AND, ESPECIALLY, DO
QUICKLY?
SPECULATIVE
DESIGN

WHAT IF…
“Using the idea of possible futures
as a way to better understand the
present and to discuss the kind of
future people want, and, of
course, one people do not want.
For us futures are not a
destination or something to be
strived for but a medium to aid in
imaginative thought—to speculate
with”
—Anthony Dunne & Fiona Raby
 WHAT DOES IT
MEAN TO FEEL LIKE
WE ALWAYS HAVE
TO BE DOING
SOMETHING? WHY
DO PEOPLE FEEL
THIS WAY? IS A
GOOD LIFE DEFINED
BY HOW MUCH
WORK WE GET
DONE?
“As late as 1964, the American magazine Life, warned of an imminent massive
overflow of free time in modern society,” Rosa describes of contemporary
speedsickness, but “the ‘tempo of life’ has increased, and with it stress,
hecticness. . . . We don’t have any time although we’ve gained far more than we
needed before” (xxxiv-v). —Hartmut Rosa
SLOW MEDIA MANIFESTO:
IN WHAT OTHER AREAS IS
SPEEDSICKNESS HURTING
US?

Slow parenting, food, fashion, media, design,

social media…
¡ Like “Slow Food”, Slow Media are not
about fast consumption but about choosing
the ingredients mindfully and preparing
them in a concentrated manner.
¡ Slow media promote Monotasking.
Slow Media cannot be consumed casually,
but provoke the full concentration of their
users.
¡ Slow Media are discursive and
dialogic. They long for a counterpart with
whom they may come in contact.
¡ Slow Media are timeless: Slow Media
are long-lived and appear fresh even after
years or decades.
WHAT ARE PROBLEMS
& TRENDS IN FAST
SOCIAL MEDIA? ONE’S
WE’VE STUDIED SO
FAR OR YOU ARE
WORKING ON IN
YOUR PROJECT?
 SPECULATIVE DESIGN ACTIVITY

1. Choose a current problem, ideal, or trend in social media. Describe it

concretely. Give examples and facts of it in the present.
2. Imagine how this problem or trend will be solved, resolved, or magnified 5, 10,
or 15 years in the future. What do you speculate happening with it?
3. Describe a day to day/mundane interaction with your future design—a tiny sci-
fi story. What is it, who does it affect, how does it work, how has it changed
culture? Who is left out? Who does it hurt?