Transparency, Social Media and Cultural Patterns

Gain 500 Followers on Twitter Instantly, Quantity or Quality?

Gaining followers is easy. One way of instantly gaining followers is following everyone that auto-follows you back. You want 500 more followers? Add everyone on this list. Another way is tweeting a few buzz words like sex, money, real estate etc and you will have a few new bots or auto-followers.

The best tip about how to gain followers on Twitter is probably tweeting tips on ”how to gain followers” since this will attract anyone else ”trying to gain a following” to follow you. Similar people are attracted to each other and will most likely reach their goals together. But why gain a following on Twitter just to ”gain a following”?

One of the ways some people use to measure their importance on Twitter is counting the number of followers they have. This popularity contest is nothing new. A lot of people still play the ”I have more friends then you” game on Facebook as well as in real life. This is a way of measuring their perceived importance and impact based on quantity rather then quality of friends. There is nothing wrong with this in itself, as long as it is what you truly believe. Believing in quantity over quality will always attract like-minded people who give you a pseudo-importance that you have in inspiring them to get a larger quantity as well.

What about quality then? If you want followers that truly interact you need to gain them organically. Posting relevant tweets about what truly interests you and it will bear fruit. Another important part is commenting on others and discussion. When you want to make new friends you need to be more social then usual. Find the people, comment, discuss and praise to gain qualitative new friends. One of the ironic parts is that some of these people first look on your number of followers to see if ”you are important” which means that it could be an idea to build up numbers with ”empty followers” in order to get more quality followers.

What are your thoughts on Followers?

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Sierra Tequila Label Brand Through a Semiotic Perspective

This is part of my studies in Visual Communication that I thought I’d share with you.
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I. Introduction and Method
II. Analysis (with help of Panofsky’s three levels of understanding)
III. Discussion and Conclusion

I. Introduction and Method
The visual object I chose for this ‘case study of contemporary visual culture’ was a picture of label for a Sierra tequila bottle. The reasoning behind the choice of this particular picture is an interest for branding and analyzing this from signs. Basically a sign is the result of the difference to other signs. This makes it interesting to analyze brands and see how they set themselves apart from their competition. In this analysis I will discuss and analyze how a brand of tequila chooses to depict themselves in their visual communication.

This analysis will work from the theoretical framework of Panofsky and his concepts about Iconology and Iconography.  The reason I chose to use Panofsky is that his way of understanding a picture is a way that coincides in many ways with my own understanding of pictures. The thought from the start was applying a few different ways of understanding a picture (Saussere, Barthes, Peirce) and comparing the results with each other but this essay will have to focus on Panofsky due to a limited amount of space. I will start off by applying Panofsky’s three levels of understanding to the picture.  After the analysis I will follow up the analysis with a discussion and conclusion about the results found.

II. Analysis
I will start to analyze the picture by using Panofsky’s three levels of understanding to find the meaning of the picture. The first level is ‘Pre-iconographical description’: seeing lines, shapes, colors and volumes representing something in the picture. The second level is ‘Iconographical analysis’: using themes, stories, allegories and concepts to understand the meaning of the picture. The third level Panofsky uses is ‘Iconological interpretation’: linking the analysis with people, nations and periods of time.

Pre-iconographical description
The image portrays a lone Mexican sitting by a large cactus in the middle of the desert while the sun goes down in the background. One can see that the person is Mexican since he has a big Sombrero and a distinct black mustache coupled with a vest, bandana and boots which is an attire often used in the image of Mexicans. Sierra Tequila is prominently displayed by words right above the Mexican and the cactus. The colors most used are red, green, white, yellow and silver. Other colors exist as well but only as minor details on the Mexican person displayed on the bottle. The text on the bottle is written in spanish and the word ‘Sierra’ has an ”old type” font whilst ‘Tequila’ uses a more straight and modern font mixing old and new. There’s a ”branding” in silver above the wording ‘Sierra’ that says ”Jalisco Mexico” with a symbol that looks like a crown in-between. There is a framing around the picture which is in red with a gold line in the middle.  The banner on the top of the frame is green, white and red and says ‘Mexico’ in the middle.

Iconographical analysis
This part requires a bit more understanding on underlying factors behind the picture. Tequila has become a product which is only allowed to be produced in the province of Jalisco in Mexico. This explains why this is displayed in such a visible part on the label. The theme of Mexico runs through the label with the words ”hecho en Mexico” (made in Mexico),  Jalisco and the decision to keep the text in Spanish on the label even though it’s an exported bottle. The choice of colors also reinforce the theme of Mexico  by having red, white, green (flag of Mexico) in the banner and almost all objects in the picture (red frame, white text, green cactus). The cactus is displayed since Tequila is made out of the Agave cactus. Showing only one cactus in a big and hot desert on the label creates a higher value in the Tequila since it communicates a limited amount of cactus to make the tequila from in a hostile environment.

Iconological interpretation
When going another level down in the understanding and analyzing the ‘world-view of time and place’ we find the importance of Mexico again. The historical context of Tequila being produced in Mexico is reflected in the image. The tradition is communicated through the old font style used on ”Sierra” and contrasted by the silver letters in a more modern font used in ”Tequila”. This mix of styles is probably because they can’t communicate themselves with only the ”old image” as Cognac or others are able to. The characteristic Mexican is displayed in the picture and communicates a message that this is what Mexicans drink.

III. Discussion and Conclusion
Each level of understanding used to analyze the picture brings a deeper understanding on what the meaning behind the picture is. The first level is the easiest to analyze and describe. The deeper one goes in levels the harder it becomes to analyze. The lower levels  also requires more of the person trying to understand the picture in terms of knowledge needed to get out more meaning from the message. This knowledge can sometimes be seen in different ways and therefore some subjectivity is added to the picture when analyzed deeper.

The other thing about understanding a picture using Panofsky’s method of analysis is that you find more things about the picture when you study it harder. Panofsky does not mention anything about how much visual communication is passed on to a person only looking at a picture for a limited amount of time. The impact of finding more understanding of a picture the more time one spends on it implies that there might be an even deeper level of understanding, than the one I have achieved in this analysis, if  even more time had been spent on understanding this picture.

Sierra Tequila utilizes the theme and concept of Mexico on several levels to create consistency and emphasize the connotation between Mexico, Tequila and the Sierra brand.

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Inspiration for Week 6

creative business cards

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Horrible Quality on Twitter Article in SvD

I read the article on the website of the Swedish newspaper SvD titled: ”Twitter-noviser missar väljare” [Twitter-novices misses voters]

Interesting how an article with such low quality can be posted on one of the bigger Swedish Newspapers. This clearly shows that traditional media has a poor understanding how social media works. It also shows the eagerness from traditional media to down-play the importance of social-media by releasing negative articles like these.

The aim of the article written on SvD was as a response to the recent employment of several social-media experts. The reporter wanted to test if there was a social-media presence from our Swedish politicians. The reporter decided to narrow down his research to one social media. The research that followed on Twitter was of very poor quality.

The reporter begins his research by starting up a completely new account on twitter. This new account he does not even take the effort to fill out completely. NO bio and NO picture. He continues by spamming out one message each to every politician on his list (81) within 3 hrs. The spam is only inter-punctuated by a few small tweets which the reporter probably believes are normal for Twitter:

Uppe med solen 12:06 PM Jan 20th from web
Tycker att det får räcka med snö nu 12:16 PM Jan 20th from web
Har ätit en god lunch med polarna 12:11 PM Jan 20th from web
Testar testar 12:27 PM Jan 20th from web
Haha 12:36 PM Jan 20th from web
Twitter ist fantastic 12:36 PM Jan 20th from web
tebax efter sen lunch 2:21 PM Jan 20th from web
mörkret faller, men vi går mot ljusare tider 2:31 PM Jan 20th from web
Lite tam riksdagsdebatt eller vad säger ni? 2:42 PM Jan 20th from web
Hej och hå teknikproblem 2:48 PM Jan 20th from web
Stopp på tuben 4:02 PM Jan 20th from web
På väg hem 3:07 PM Jan 20th from web
Börjar tröttna på survädret 3:06 PM Jan 20th from web

The only thing to notice here is the reporters poor understanding of what people tweet, the fact that the SvD reporter counts being up at 12pm as ”waking up with the sun” and that they apparently eat lunch twice at SvD:)

The list of politicians on Twitter that the reporters use contains 81 people, some of these not updated in a VERY LONG time!
E.g. last tweet: Jun 1st, 2009, May 27th, 2009, May 31st, 2009 <- not sure why he expects a reply from DEAD accounts.
He still sends these accounts a message to get his statistics inflated a bit. He later in the body adds his definition of an active account which he sets as active within the last month(!) Real-time social-media activity dies a lot quicker then that. When he subtracts his definition of dead accounts he ends up with 59 ”active” politicians.

A revised conclusion for the ”research” done by SvD’s reporter.
13/59 replied to a ”spam account” with no bio or picture. Seeing that it was obviously not a voter with serious questions  I believe the reporter should be happy with the response rate, especially when those 59 accounts are adjusted to only the ‘real’ active accounts instead of including all updated within the last month. For those 13 politicians who actively took the time to write a response the questions asked the reporter didn’t even reply back and thank them.

Social media is about discussion, don’t claim someone doesn’t know it if you clearly don’t know it either!

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Political Communication in Facebook and by Piratpartiet

We had a workshop about political communication where we chose to do some interviews on political communication and social media. The interview with Zana was done over e-mail and the one with Anna was taken over the phone. Both interviews were done in Swedish and translated into English by me. I’m happy to correct any misstakes I might have made in the translation if you point them out.

The two interviews were conducted with:
Zana Hussan, who started one of Sweden’s biggest Facebook groups ”Sverigedemokraterna i Riksdagen – Nej Tack!”
Anna Troberg, Vice Vice Chairman of Piratpartiet

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Interview with Zana Hussan
The Facebook group ”Sverigedemokraterna i Riksdagen – Nej tack!” was created by Zana Hussan on August 31st 2009. The group is in response to ”Sverigedemokraterna” (SD), who is an extreme right party trying to get into the Swedish parliament. The aim of the group is to show that SD is not wanted in the parliament according to the group members. The group has no political ties and is open for everyone that wants to renounce the party. The group managed to reach 300.000 members in its’ first five months which is a significant amount compared to the population of Sweden of 9M inhabitants. The ”anti-group” that started in response to this group managed to reach 16.000 members.

”…large groups will remain latent and ineffective if not mobilized by selective incentives” (”Democracy and Lobbying in the European Union” by Karolina Karr, p. 46)

”I had been thinking a long time about there being no organization or movement on internet collecting Sweden against racism, xenophobia and especially against ”Sverigedemokraterna”. Xenophobia isn’t a left or right question but a question for all of Sweden. I wanted to do my part in this which is why I created this Facebook group with an ambitious goal of collecting the broad Sweden with everything from the stockbroker to the assistant nurse”

Zana writes that he wants the group to be a rally point for discussions and actions where everyone is welcome to debate. Members are able and encouraged to share articles, arguments, experiences and strategies. Zana stresses the importance of not being quiet to the members of the group.

”People who are members in the group can achieve something by showing that they refuse to be quiet and thereby actively taking a stance for diversity and against racism. I constantly encourage people to become members of a political party or an organization to have a better influence in society”

Interview with Anna Troberg
Piratpartiet is a Swedish political party that started in 2006 to limit intellectual property and enhance the rights for a private life. Piratpartiet has from their upstart been in the forefront of internet and has had a big presence in social media. Politometern just listed the most influential political blogs in Sweden where Piratpartiet was listed in 10 places in the top 25, this despite that the party has only existed since 2006.

Anna Troberg told us that Piratpartiet uses social media for a lot of their political communication. One of the reasons for them working mainly with social media is that newly started parties in Sweden have very limited resources, the other reason is because of it being an effective way of communicating. She also emphasized that even if they had more resources they would keep using social media to the same extent as today. Blogs, Facebook and Twitter often create a discussion climate where people have an ability to express themselves in a deliberative democracy. Anna believes that through social media the political communication of smaller parties has been simplified but that the traditional parties have a hard time adjusting.

Piratpartiet has an official Facebook group  with 20.000 members and an official Twitter account. Their twitter account is most of the time updated through their Skype channel which is accessible to 70-80 of their members. Piratpartiet also set up a ”live web page” to monitor and inform people about what is being said about the party.

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Some Conclusions
Social media will become more and more important, not only in political communication but also in other areas of society. There is a lot of talk about social media and the effect it will have on this coming election in September and many are inspired by Barack Obama’s campaigning for presidency in 2008. Social media has a big effect as a creator of public opinion which can easily be seen by a group on Facebook managing to rally 300.000 members or by Piratpartiet managing to get 7% of Swedish votes in the EU-election. The ”two step flow of communications” also maintains an important part in the spreading of information through opinion leaders who passes it on to a greater mass.

The importance of having a big network and several channels to reach people is of bigger importance today. Internet makes the line between a political actor and a citizen very uncertain. A user of social media can easily express their opinions and get others to follow their lead. Groups are created between like-minded people that enhance and strengthen their power. Citizens gain more power and politicians must realize the importance and possibilities that this new digital era gives to democracy.

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