Social networks in digital spaces

In today’s society, cultural and technological changes are increasingly present and incisive in the daily life of subjects. Different forms of communication are greatly affected by the changes resulting from the many digital communication and information technologies available.

The space in which this occurs is called cyberspace, a space for new media outlets that come from the Internet. The term cyberspace includes not only the infrastructure of technological materials but also the contents and subjects that transit and are immersed in it, respectively. Faced with this digital context, new ways of being, feeling, relating, and knowing become accessible to subjects, thus giving rise to cyberculture (or digital culture) in which subjects interact and share content through different media, instantly, collaboratively, and in a participatory way. According to Levy (2010, p. 17), cyberculture is “the set of (material and intellectual) techniques, practices, attitudes, ways of thinking, and values ​​that develop along with the growth of cyberspace”.

In cyberspace, we do everything that people do when they meet, but we do it with words, images, videos, and on the screens of a computer's interfaces. From it, we can think that the signs of a medium create, generate, construct other signs in different ways, thus demonstrating the possibility of unlimited semiosis. Worldwide, billions of people belong to some digital social network in which their identities are mixed and interact electronically, regardless of time and place (Santaella, 2013, p. 123). It is also important to say that in this context, the social markers of difference: socio-economic and cultural condition, race, gender, and generation are present and effectively manifested in the context of the relationships established by the subjects.

Digital culture contemplates the creation/production of content in media supports and the intensification of the interconnection that may exist between these contents. Different media make people connect through different platforms that are grouped into a single device, which allows us to speak of convergence. This convergence is not only built on the evolution of the media, nor on those that present an unprecedented use, but above all it brings a significant change in the paradigms of social, cultural, and consumer relations, establishing an expanded form of integrating and interacting with the different content and information available.

Convergence is characterized as a cultural transformation that occurs as the need to seek information and connectivity to content arises.

For Jenkins (2009, p. 27), convergence is:

Content flows across multiple media supports, the cooperation between multiple media markets, and the migratory behavior of media audiences, who go almost anywhere in search of the entertainment experiences they want. [...] it manages to define technological, market, cultural, and social transformations [...]

The interactions present in the digital context occur only through the technological apparatus, mainly through the ways in which subjects appropriate technologies to produce culture. In digital culture, the subject is at the center of the process, because the contents converge on different media platforms and are also present in these different spaces. The medium is important since it is the support that contributed to the changes in the actions of the subjects immersed in it, but without a change in the perception of the subject, it would not be possible to develop interactions in cyberspace.

The most important thing, therefore, is to understand how the relationship between cultural subjects and these media is constructed and translated. One of the most obvious processes is the virtualization of personal identity. With it, come the virtual profiles that free the entity from the bonds of space-time:

Virtualization is not a derealization (the transformation of an entity into a set of possibles), but a mutation of identity, a displacement of the ontological center of gravity of the object under consideration: instead of being defined mainly by its actuality (a 'solution'), the entity begins to find its essential consistency in a problematic field. (Lévy, 2011, pp. 17-18)

Thus, we understand that convergence is a process that allows fluidity between media and languages, enabling access to different information and content that can contribute to the structuring of knowledge that breaks the barrier defined for each medium and begins to complement each other favoring the subjects. Search for information from different sources, integrating.

According to Santaella (2005), with digital convergence, content transmutations occur in innumerable virtual versions that emerge as the receiver is placed in the position of co-author. Thus, there is also a qualitative sum of the matrices of language and thought, whether sound, visual, and/or verbal, which give new meanings to productions.

Each new language brings with it new ways of thinking, acting, and feeling. Arising from the phenomenological convergence of all languages, hypermedia means an unprecedented synthesis of sound, visual, and verbal language and of thought matrices with all their possible developments and mixtures (Santaella, 2005, p. 392).

From this context, we understand that with the intensification of connectivity between subjects made possible by digital convergence, new ways emerge for the construction of knowledge to become effective. These new modes began to be guided by the exponential increase of some substantive characteristics of the information available in digital media such as; the multiplicity of languages ​​in which they are constituted, the diversity of sources, the volume, quantity, scope, range and scale, the plurality of opinions, and the worldwide phenomenon of political/ideological polarization, besides the constant confrontation of misinformation.

This complex scenario has an incisive effect on some social spheres; such as the job world, political management, investment in science and technology, the environmental agenda, consumption, communication, progressive agendas in defense of fundamental social rights, interpersonal relationships, and also education. Finally, our entire culture is in a constant process of (qualitative and quantitative) change with the increasingly intense and extensive participation of digital media in social reality.

The digital convergence movement enhances the actions that can be carried out in a network, something that for almost two decades deserves special attention in mediated environments is the connection between people, popularly known as the network. Previously defined as a social gathering or mobilization around a common topic, the concept of the network began to receive new interpretations with the arrival of the Internet. The Spanish sociologist Manuel Castells was one of the pioneers in the interpretation of this new social configuration that began to rely on mediated environments and, above all, on the importance of the citizen in the processes of network construction.

In his work "La Sociedad en Red",Castells (2000) proposes the importance of Being in the information society and communication processes based on the identity in networks. According to Castells (2000, pp. 57-58), “by identity, I understand the process by which a social actor recognizes and constructs meanings mainly from a certain cultural attribute or set of attributes to the point of excluding a broader reference to other social structures”.

It is important to emphasize that Castells does not consider the concept of the network since technology scholars consider the same word. Although the philosophy is the same -computer networks or social networks are interconnected by various nodes, either neural, of process, or physical connection-, the network proposed by Manuel Castells goes beyond this simplification. For the author, a social network is based on other characteristics, including immaterial ones, such as mutual interests and objectives. This social network promotes collective changes, voluntarily or involuntarily.

In more current work,Castells (2013) presents the concept of a social network with specific purposes of mobilization and collective change. According to the author, "in fact, social change implies individual and/or collective action that is, in its essence, emotionally motivated, like all human behavior" (Castells, 2013, p.126).

On this subject, the author also demystifies the need for technology for the formation and existence of networks. For Castells, technology collaborates and empowers, but the fundamental thing is to share interests, needs, and solutions.

They are networked in multiple ways. The use of communication networks over the Internet and mobile phones is essential, but the way to connect to a network is multimodal. It includes online and offline social networks, as well as pre-existing networks and others formed during the actions of the movement. Networks are formed within the movement, with other movements around the world, with the Internet blogosphere, with the media, and with society in general. The technologies that allow the constitution of networks are significant in providing the platform for this continued practice, which tends to expand, evolving with the change in the format of the movement. (Castells, 2013, p.128).

When discussing networking, Manuel Castells values ​​the language used to share collective ideas. Among the most prominent, the image occupies a privileged place in the process. According to Castells (2013, p.130), “the power of images is sovereign. YouTube was probably one of the most powerful mobilization tools in the early stages of the movement. "Indeed, for the author, the image is the protagonist of a greater power of mobilization and networking, which can be observed from the quantitative results presented by this research.

However, when thinking about networks, in the context of this research, we must consider the territorial field. However, as proposed by Marc Augé (1994), in digital environments we rely on non-place. From this idea, the theorist develops an anthropological reading of contemporary society as a network of people who inhabit the non-place since it does not depend on the physical condition to connect. For the author, "The non-place is the space of others without the presence of others, the space constituted in a spectacle" (Augé, 1994, p.167). The author considers, in another text, that the non-place is the common space of what he defines as super-modernity. And he explains:

But, insofar as the non-place is the negative of the place, it is necessary to admit that the development of spaces for circulation, communication, and consumption is a pertinent empirical feature of our contemporaneity, that these spaces are less symbolic than codified, ensuring in them all the signage and a whole set of specific messages (through monitors, synthetic voices) in the circulation of passers-by and passengers (Augé, 2006, p. 115).

However, Augé's idea is not supreme. With another look, the Portuguese Boaventura SousaSantos (2005) defends an intermediate position between geographical and virtual territory. To the author:

The present time seems to us dominated by a dialectical movement in which the processes of globalization occur in parallel to those of localization. (...) social relations, in general, seem to be increasingly de-territorialized (...). But on the other hand, and in apparent contradiction with this trend, new regional, national, and local identities are emerging, built around a new protagonism of fundamental rights. These localisms refer to real or imaginary territories, as well as ways of life and sociability based on face-to-face relationships, proximity, and interactivity. (Santos, 2005, p. 54)

These notes lead to a fundamental understanding to support the value of the publications found in this research. It is noted that there is a spatial coherence that reflects, in a way, the pandemic situation in the Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking countries. It makes it clear, however, that the relationship between the actors that make up the networks can exist from face-to-face or virtual connections, especially if we take into account the positioning of Boaventura Sousa Santos (2005), which leads us to a broader reality.

The research corpus

This research focuses on Instagram as it is the social network with the highest impact from the point of view of images. At a time when the Internet is eminently visual, the behavior patterns on image social media management platforms are expressively interesting to analyze the behavior of the population from a macro perspective.

The choice of hashtags is related to their role in the visibility of the communication topics. A role that can also promote debate perspectives and promote common narratives (Rambukkana, 2015). Through hashtags, communication multiplies and expands the interconnection nodes, expanding the possibilities of reaching messages.

Although Spain and Brazil represent only two of the Ibero-American countries, they acquired special relevance in the crisis. In fact, following R Rovetta and Bhagavathula (2020), Brazil and Spain are the second and third most cited nations, regarding COVID-19, by the global community of Instagram users (with 551,000 and 376,000 hashtags, respectively), which leads us to think about a true polarization of the social conversation.

For this reason, the research corpus focuses on the publications made on this social network, identified by the hashtags #covid and/or #coronavirus, made in Spanish or Portuguese (sixth and eleventh most used language on the network and covering a wide range of user community).

The time frame

The data collection period includes publications made between March 13^th and May 20^th, 2020, justified as follows:

• The Government of Spain declared on March 13^th the "State of Alarm", which would last two months; On March 20^th, the Federal Senate of Brazil approved the Decree of Public Calamity.

• The Government of Spain began the opening in June, ending quarantine. The same thing happened gradually in Brazil, after two months of social distancing plans.

Tools

To carry out this research, the CrowdTangle software was adopted, which found 103,775 publications tagged with the selected hashtags (51,732 in Spanish and 48,746 in Portuguese, 2% of the sample in other languages not detected by the platform), issued by a total of 13,051 users.

For the data extraction process, the CrowdTangle tool (CrowdTangle Team, 2020) was used, a native Facebook app that integrates perfectly with this company's platforms (including Instagram), which allows data extraction in .csv format.

For data analysis, we opted to use the Graphtext (s.f) tool, ideal for performing complex analyzes according to the low-coding philosophy. With the tool, it was possible to transform the data, explore it, visualize it, and present its findings from a browser-based workspace.

Time evolution

Besides the relevance of the posts on media scandals (Thompson, 2002), the posts with hashtags #covid19 and #coronavirus had a cycle clearly interpreted in Figure 2. At the beginning of the analyzed period, we observed a strong growth of publications marked by hashtags coinciding with the decree of the State of Alarm in Spain and in much of Europe, although with time the publications wear out. This was not because the coronavirus disappeared, but because the subject is less and less talked about on Instagram. A phenomenon that was found by other studies on the use of social networks in the first phase of the pandemic, for example, Hung et al. (2020), and this could be considered as the first symptoms of “pandemic fatigue”. Moreover, there is a peak of publications after the Decree of Public Calamity declared by the Government of Brazil, with the same concerns in Spanish and Portuguese. It is noteworthy that the virus reached Latin America at the same time that it was manifesting in Brazil. The same happens with Portugal and Spain, which had similar situations over time.

Source : self-made.

However, Figure 3 represents something curious. Unlike what was analyzed in other research on the behavior of social media users (Martínez-Rolán, Tymoshchuk, Piñeiro-Otero, & Renó, 2019), if we look at daily posts, we notice a drop in posts with hashtags on weekends, when the use of social networks tends to be more intense. This reality deserves qualitatively detailed observations and suggests as a possible explanation the lower information pressure from the media about the coronavirus, derived from the lack of data and official information on weekends, which leads people to develop more habitual attitudes on Instagram, like the publication and interaction around leisure topics, less worrisome and/or depressing.

Source: self-made.

Source : Self-made

This result is especially interesting because although practically the entire planet was confined, including Ibero-American countries, the patterns of use of Instagram, at least in terms of volume of publications, revealed a weekly trend in normal situations. Rather, even though every day seemed to be the same (it was not possible or advisable to leave the house), on weekends, publication drops were noticed.

The confinement and attrition occurred a week earlier in Spain compared to Brazil, which was projected in the social conversation around the hashtags #covid19 and #coronavirus on Instagram. As we can see in Figure 4, the design of the publication curve is made with a difference of one week between the two languages. In Spain, in particular, the confinement ended in May. For this reason, the publication curve narrowed at that time. Brazil, in turn, has remained in disorderly confinement since then, although, curiously, the curve has also decreased, probably due to social exhaustion.

Chart 4:

Source: Self-made

Another interesting piece of quantitative information obtained in this research refers to the type of content of the publication since Instagram allows a variety of formats ranging from photography to audiovisual, through iconography, texts, and audio. Furthermore, it is possible to publish an album of up to 10 photos and make live video broadcasts. In the data collection with the hashtags #covid19 and #coronavirus, we obtained four types of publications based on their linguistic form with the following classifications (Figure 6):

• Photographs: a single photograph, optionally accompanied by a text (caption);

• Album: a set of two or more photographs optionally accompanied by a text (caption);

• Video: a video fragment optionally accompanied by a text (caption);

• Instagram TV: A live video broadcast, optionally accompanied by a text (title).

Source: Self-made

Within the scope of this collection, figure 7 draws attention with the specific figures for each type of language-form adopted. In the selection, photographs predominate with 66,642 publications (64% of the publications are unique images). This figure lives up to the origins of the social network. Photographs are the easiest way to communicate on Instagram and the favorite of users who share ideas, thoughts, concerns... condensed into a single image that, accompanied by a text, creates a multimodal discourse on what interactions are established.

The remaining 36% of posts (a total of 37,133 posts) are distributed more evenly among the other types of Instagram language. Thus, with 13% of the sample, the practical balance between publications with photo albums (an expansion of photographs present in 13,387 publications) and those that use videos to contribute their perspective to the collective narrative of the pandemic on Instagram can be highlighted (13,706 publications).

In this sense, a positive evolution can be noticed in the publications that use the audiovisual format on Instagram. While static images -photos and albums- continue to slow down the prevalence of cheerful posts on these platforms, the growing presence of videos and the rapid evolution of video broadcasts on IGTV (10,040 posts that already account for 10% of the analyzed sample) allow us to observe an evolution in the conception and appropriation of this platform by the user community.

This mixture of languages ​​allows us to support the idea that Instagram is a post-photographic social media space, considering the concept presented by Joan Fontcuberta (2011). For the author, the contemporary mediation environment is characterized by the association of various image languages ​​such as photography, audiovisual, computer graphics, and iconography.

Types of interaction, mean and median

The sample of this research is represented by 103,775 publications, which yields high mean and median figures. Authors such asSheldon and Bryant (2016) defined Instagram as a network focused more on people than on relational identity. The reality is that in the daily life of the platform and the interactions that are established in it, certain personalities (from different offline entities) have been defined with greater weight and influence in the social conversation. These influencers -also in the health field- have become true opinion leaders (Fregber, Graham, Mcgaughey, & Freberg, 2011) to the point that some health authorities have requested their collaboration in the fight against the virus (Público, 2020), and their performance in the social conversation on Instagram has been an object of study (Torres-Romay & Mirón, 2020).

Thus, the publication with the highest volume of sample interaction, authored by the player Leo Messi, has, at the time of analysis, 2,656,944 shares divided into likes and comments. On the other hand, the one who received the least impact was that of the Brazilian deputy Arnaldo Jardim, who achieved 17 likes.

As can be seen in Table 2, when considering the total number of publications and interactions received, a mean of 18,947 interactions is obtained, with a median of 3,232 interactions. The data is relatively high since the number of video reproductions is always expressive. In this case, a mean of 55,831 views should be considered (the median is significantly lower, with 24,165 views).

On the other hand, the traditional forms of interaction (likes and comments) reached more modest figures, although equally high. The mean number of likes per post is 4,982, accompanied by 59 comments. Although the number that is repeated the most, the median, is the publication that contains 2,024 likes and 59 comments. This represents one comment for every 34 likes (median) or every 28 average likes.

Source: Self-made

The data is in line with what the different levels of interaction on Instagram imply: the greater the effort required for the interaction, the lower the volume of interactions, and vice versa. Thus, reproductions (very low interaction) are much more than likes (low interaction), which in turn are smaller than comments (medium interaction).

Total users and participation volume

With a total of 103,775 publications, 13,051 different users were counted. Of these, about half of the users appear with a single post: 6,326. On the other hand, the other 6,587 users who were selected by the sample are responsible for the remaining 97,449 publications. It should be noted that the distribution of this participation is irregular and does not respect the mean (14.7 publications per user).

First of all, it should be noted that a small number of users (only 13) are responsible for more than 500 posts. Furthermore, there are 159 users who have published between 100 and 500 publications and 1,230 users are authors in a range between 10 and 100 publications. The highest proportion of users is in the range of 2 to 10 publications, which represents a total of 5,185.

Source: Self-made.

This distribution of users reflects a logarithmic decrease in the number of messages sent, following the Pareto principle, since 20% of users would be responsible for 80% of messages: few users are responsible for most of the messages on the sample.