Narrative and Social Networking Technologies

Abstract

This short paper investigates the impact of social networking technologies on the making and remaking of culture within contemporary contexts. It is premised on the concept of narrative as a way in which individuals re-present and organize experience in order to learn from it and make it sharable with others within social contexts. Narrative is treated as more than cognitive, or a ‘mode of thought’ but also as constitutive of the social construction of knowledge by providing macro-structures which enable users of social software to participate meaningfully in the exchange of experiences and ideas. The growth of social networking technologies has been argued to have democratizing effects upon knowledge-building practices by allowing participants to personalize the ways ideas are expressed and communicated. Within micro-communities, participants have to assemble meaning and make a coherent whole out of the narratives they encounter. The organization of meaning is not pre-structured or pre-defined, but evolves and the contribution of narrative function and form to this process generates a range of key areas for research, including: the role of macro-narratives in achieving coherence for users of social software; the currency of such narratives beyond the communities they serve; how such currency relates to wider shifts in knowledge production and the importance of inter- and intra-narrative contact between users. The paper offers a theoretical and conceptual examination of narrative as a tool for meaning-making and knowledge-building, as well as some attendant research questions in the context of social networking technologies.