Page 1

Small talk in the Digital Age: Making Sense of Phatic Posts

Danica Radovanovic

University of Belgrade

danica.radovanovic@gmail.com

Massimo Ragnedda

University of Sassari

ragnedda@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

This paper presents some practical implications of a theoretical

web desktop analysis and addresses microposts in the Social Web

contextual sense and their role contributing diverse information to

the Web as part of informal and semi-formal communication and

social activities on Social Networking Sites (SNS). We reflect

upon and present the most pervasive and relevant socio-

communication function of an online presence on microposts and

social networks: the phatic communication function. Although

some theorists such as Malinowski say these microposts have no

practical information value, we argue that they have semantic and

social value for the interlocutors, determined by socio-

technological and cultural factors such as online presence and

social awareness. We investigate and offer new implications for

emerging social and communication dynamics formed around

microposts, what we call here “phatic posts”. We suggest that

apparently trivial uses and features of SNS actually play an

important role in setting the social and informational context of

the rest of the conversation - a “phatic” function - and thus that

these phatic posts are key to the success of SNS.

General Terms

Internet, Communication, Theory

Keywords

social network sites, microposts, phatic posts, phatic

communication, online communication, social dynamics

1. INTRODUCTION

This paper is a theoretical and implication study of the

communicative and social function of microposts on social

network sites (SNS). We do not present statistical or applications-

driven data or suggest some pattern, but we do offer qualitative

implications, theories, and better understanding of the current

social paradigm. This paper is implications-driven research and

presents the relevance of microposts and phatic posts as

derivatives of phatic communication, a term coined by

Malinowski to describe the phenomenon of small talk. Phatic

communication is “a type of speech in which ties of union are

created by a mere exchange of words” and its purpose is to

establish and maintain the social bonds of the interlocutors

(Malinowski 1923: 151). We describe the socio-technological and

communication dynamics that influence the formation of micro

phatic posts. Living in an accelerating, interconnected world of

information where the demand for instant updates and news is

present here and now, different forms of communication

dynamics are formed, referring to the socio-technological

communication processes online.

Different SNS provide an expressive medium to share with others

our feelings, needs, current status, or simple statements. Those

simple and short statements can carry light information or low

information such as: “I’m eating a dark chocolate”, or “listening

to new album by Air”, or just “life is beautiful”. It can also

provoke a communication: “anyone there?”, “does anyone

know...?”, etc. On the other side there are applications driven by

small micro posts (built by social networks) that enable the

creation of phatic expressions in the form of microblogs,

Facebook updates, signal indications of “like”, “poke”, Instant

messenger signals in the form of emoticons and wide variety of

smileys, etc.

The aim of this paper is to argue the social consequences about

the new way of communication on the SNS. In particular we are

evolving from the concept of phatic communion coming from the

anthropologist Malinowski and from phatic function coming from

the linguist Jakobson. These two concepts can relate with

networked sociality, the non dialogic and non-informational

discussion on the social networks. Although some theorists such

as Malinowski say that phatic messages do not have a practical

information value, we are arguing in this paper that they do have

semantic and social value for the interlocutors, determined by

socio-technological and cultural factors. We are using in this

paper a new coined term for such micro-posts that imply in their

content or form a phatic communication function: a term phatic-

posts. This phenomenon can be characterized as “new-word”,

which is employed here to describe the fact that it is both new and

a word. New-words are clearly evident in all human culture. The

paper consists of three main parts. First we will discuss the origin

of phatic communication and phatic culture and the way they are

presented on social networks. Second, we will discuss motivations

for creating and consuming phatic posts and their importance for

everyday communication and socializing. Finally we consider

“small - talk language” on SNS, its dynamics, functions, and

relevance to microposts.

Microposts are a dominant form in both virtual habitats (social

networks, virtual communities) and their mobile extensions and

they are of socio-technological value. Social signaling and online

presence are both communication determinants for creating

microposts. We will conclude with a few examples, based on

web desktop sphere analysis (Hine, 2005), personal web

observations and qualitative analysis of microposts and the

semantics of phatic communication. In some social, linguistics,

Copyright c 2012 held by author(s)/owner(s).

Published as part of the #MSM2012 Workshop proceedings,

available online as CEUR Vol-838, at: http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-838

#MSM2012, April 16, 2012, Lyon, France.

· #MSM2012 · 2nd Workshop on Making Sense of Microposts ·

10

and semantic theories, phatic may indicate communication being

mundane, information-less, without any value. We show in this

paper that do contain information messages, signals, values of

staying up-to-date with micro and macro world of events and

news, flirt, chat, public expressions of everyday life and emotions

among the participants.

2. MALINOWSKI AND JAKOBSON: THE

ORIGIN OF “PHATIC POSTS”

Bronislaw Malinowski, an anthropologist who carried out a lot of

research in ethnographical fields, introduces in his book “Coral

Gardens and Their Magic’’ two fundamental concepts for the

study of language: context of situation and context of culture

(1935: 73). He introduced three major ideas into his semantic

theory: the first is related to the context of linguistic data; the

second idea concerns the range of meaning and finally the third is

that the context of situation may allow one to disambiguate

sentences that are semantically unclear. All these three new ideas

are important here. In particular it is interesting to underline the

first and the last one. In the first one Malinowski clearly said that

the real linguistic fact is the full countenance within its context of

situation and in the last one that it is the context of situation that

permits one to understand ambiguous sentences.

In this paper we are arguing that the origin of modern, social web

micro posts (tweets, Facebook status updates, likes, pokes, geo-

check-ins on Foursquare, Flickr comments, etc.) – which we call

here “phatic posts” - have their origins in the human need for

phatic communication, i.e. communication for social upkeep. The

quality of the information being communicated has no practical

value and is rather mundane and comes from Malinowski’s

concept of phatic communion. In particular phatic communion has

three phatic functions: a social function to establish and maintain

social connections; a communicative function to demonstrate that

the channel of communication is open and present oneself as a

potential communication partner; a validation and recognition

function to indicate recognition of one’s interlocutor as a potential

communicative partner. To these three main functions, Philip

Riley has added another three functions: to provide indexical

information for social categorization (that is to signal different

aspects of social identity); to negotiate the relationship, in

particular relative status, roles and affectivity (which clearly could

be seen operating if we look at the various forms of greetings and

address that some individuals use according to his or her social or

affective relationship with the interlocutor); to reinforce social

structure (Riley 2007: 131-32).

Another important concept useful to better understand phatic

culture (Miller 2008) and its social implication in everyday life is

the term “phatic function” coined by Roman Jakobson. As is well

known, Jakobson included the metalinguistic (verifying the code),

as one of five general functions of language, along with: Emotive

(expressing the sender’s state); Conative (inciting the receiver’s

response); Phatic (tries to maintain contact with the receiver);

Referential (relating to a context); and Poetic (existing as a

construct for its own sake). Clearly depending upon the meaning

of a particular speech act, one of these functions will come to

prevail while the others remain subordinate. In particular in our

discussion we are arguing about the phatic function of online

communication in the context of this theoretical framework and

we are going to discuss why the phatic function that tries to

maintain contact with the receiver is important on SNS for

maintaining and strengthening existing relationships. This is more

evident in the case of Facebook where its primary purpose is to re-

establish relationships lost in time, such as those between former

classmates or older friends.

3. MOTIVATIONS FOR CREATING AND

CONSUMING PHATIC POSTS

At this point we are explaining why phatic communication

practices are useful. Beside the demands of constant online

connected presence in an increasingly networked world, we are

exploring motivations why phatic communication is being

supported, encouraged, and practiced by social media services.

The importance of phatic communication has already been

recognized by software engineers defining protocols for use in

messaging. Notably, the SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) and

SIMPLE (Session Initiation Protocol for Instant Messaging and

Presence Leveraging Extensions) protocols draw extensively on

the idea of “presence” as a signal to networks of users that

communication is possible and of the disposition of other users to

communicate. In some senses, phatic posts up-level the same

principle.

However, we are focusing on the phatic function. It is crucial

because what really counts in human interaction is to stay in touch

and let others know that “I’m here too”. To do this participants

just write “nonsense”, expressing their thoughts freely and making

witty comments. This apparently “nonsense writing”, has an

intimate purpose, not so much in what has been written, but

keeping in contact and reinforcing relationship. For example,

Twitter, beside micro-blogging, implies social networking,

interacting, text messaging, learning, enabling communication

both through the internet and mobile devices. These

communications are designed to be read as soon as they are sent;

essentially they are updates creating the notion and feeling of

intimacy by being constantly connected online, in real time with

others, globally. These practices have resulted in forming ‘phatic

media’ (Miller 2008) in which communication without content

has taken precedence. Indeed, these phatic messages tend to

reinforce existing relationships and facilitate further relation

without giving information or adding to the messages.

For many users, the point of Twitter is the maintenance of

connected presence, very similar to saying “what’s up?” in an

analogue space as you pass someone on the street when you have

no intention of finding out what is actually going on. The phatic

function is communication practice that simply indicates the

possibility that communication may occur.

Furthermore, one of the contemporary digital media scholars,

Mizuko Ito, described the appearance of phatic communication

processes among Japanese teens in “low-content text message”

groups, whose purpose is simply to stay in contact with others.

These mundane communication exchanges represent the kind of

communication that arises among people who are overwhelmed

with other forms of communication. For example, in Japanese

culture, phatic function is called aizuchi. Aizuchi tweets are real

time, continuous, two-sided communication where, if one drops

out of the communication thread, the dynamics of the aizuchi is

lost. Aizuchi also involves very short expressions of approval or

disapproval and expressions and connotations of someone’s

online presence. Aizuchi has a social function: to keep

connectedness with others. The stage of connectedness is always

characterized by a very high degree of alertness. We have

conducted a set of interviews1 , including an interview with

1 Radovanovic, D, Qualitative research, set of semi-structured

interviews (N -31) from 2010 to 2012.

· #MSM2012 · 2nd Workshop on Making Sense of Microposts ·

11

Takashi Ota, Japanese software developer and Wikimedian, in

order to clarify aizuchi. One can assume aizuchi as a sign of the

confirmation of presence: "I'm listening", "it's your turn", "I won't

interrupt you" or "you're expected to keep talking". This is a

typical effect when interlocutors use aizuchi during direct

conversation or phone calls, but it may be applied to online

conversations as well. When being used online, aizuchi “makes

you think as if your counterpart is talking in front of you. It makes

you feel we are connected”.

All those examples, again, show how the phatic function is

fundamental in SNS because the aim is to maintain and reinforce

relationship: This is why Twitter and Facebook are the virtual

realms of constant connections, sharing and relationships between

people, interactive playgrounds where the phatic function is really

important, if not fundamental. Online awareness streams that

indicate online presence are incredibly good at providing phatic

communication. Phatic function being the language we use for the

purpose of being social, not so much for sharing information or

ideas, though these two are not excluded: it is in the virtual

communication ‘what’s up?’ or ‘how’re you doing?”

Our ancestors used to check in at different places, using chalk,

pieces of wood and stones to signal their presence or potential

danger to their community, in order to establish social contact in

everyday life. Computer-mediated and mobile-mediated

environments today provide the channel of communication to be

open and to present oneself as a potential communication partner.

Pokes, likes, signals, phatic posts and other small, micro-symbols

indicate the recognition of one’s interlocutor (presence and

validation) as a potential communicative partner. Once the

connection is established, there are a variety of communicative

processes happening on the walls of SNS profiles with the

important consequence of keeping social and communication

dynamics alive.

4. THE DYNAMICS OF PHATIC POSTS

Facebook exists to make the world “more and more connected”,

and by that it encourages, among other dynamics, the phatic

function of interaction and communication through sociable

applications, games, and add-ons. For example: the basic two

phatic expression functions are the “Like” button and “Poke”.

Here a couple of examples coming from qualitative research on a

social network. David, (engineer, 50) talking about the Poke

function said: “I have a few people I have been exchanging

"pokes" with for ever - in most cases I have no recollection who

started it! They simply mean "I was online and thought of

you".”Another example comes from Corky (programmer, 39): “I

respond to pokes, but I very rarely initiate them. I saw a post once

that said "'Like' buttons mean "I like your post, but I am far too

lazy or not interested enough to make an actual comment, or in a

hurry" - I think poking is similar. I am thinking of you, or I

noticed your profile photo in my feed or whatever, and I poked

you to let you know you crossed my mind, but I'm far too lazy, or

uninterested or busy to take the time to write a message. "

Communicative dynamics established with the web 2.0 paradigm

shift and the development of microblogging culture and the usage

of social media and SNS using mobile communication,

encouraged users to practice in everyday life what we call here: a

phatic display of connected presence. This phatic display of a

connected presence is expressed through microposts, comments,

short messages, leet-speak, tweets, status updates, Facebook

social add-ons, and embedded applications. All these forms have

elements of communicative discourse enabling users to get

socially engaged through brief, non-formal messages that have

meaning and within their context denote something: interaction,

connected presence and fostering and maintaining connections.

Human relationships depend more and more on new technologies,

such as computers, mobile phones and, most relevantly here, on

their social network identities. These enable us to interact with

others and human relationships in new interconnected virtual

habitats become increasingly dependant on these objects. This

“dependency” creates a new sociability pattern of being constantly

online and present and of relationships becoming a fluid ever-

changing continuum. These new technologies enable the exchange

of communication practices that we call here ‘phatic expressions’:

phatic posts that enable creating, fostering and sustaining

relationships and social interaction through non formal

conversations, online presence and intimacy. Some researchers

like Licoppe and Smoreda (2005) indicated that non formal and

non-dialogic means of interaction had helped the emergence of

small communicative processes and gestures whose purpose at the

first glance may appear to lack meaningful information, but in its

substance those gestures and communication expressions foster

sociability and maintain social connections. As we showed earlier

in the paper, these are communicative processes Malinowski

described as phatic communion. Phatic expressions in

communication practices are very meaningful because they

indicate and imply social recognition, online intimacy and

sociability in online communities. Phatic posts potentially denote

a lot more substance and weight to them than the content itself

suggests.

Coming back to the phatic function postulated by Jakobson we

can add a new function particularly present, on the social

networks: conflict avoiding. On Facebook the two most popular

forms of phatic communication on which we want to focus -

besides status updates - are the concept of like and poke. This last

form seems very interesting because Facebook has a "Like" button

and not an “I don’t like” button. This is because it seems to be

much easier to maintain balance in a community if one establishes

relationships of mutual conformistic harmony with other people

and it could create a conflictual relationship, reducing interaction

(someone could be unfriended) and reducing the total number of

the users. Iacchetti, Altafini and Iacono (2011: 1) have based their

theory on the “Balance Theory” a motivational theory of attitude

change, proposed by Fritz Heider, (1958) whose work was related

to the Gestalt school. This theory tends to study the origin and the

structure of tensions and conflicts in a network of individuals

whose mutual relationships are characterized in terms of

friendship and hostility. Furthermore this theory, using a

mathematical model, shows how on a social network the users

tend to be more conformist and that clearly shows how stressful

situations from a social perspective tend to be avoided. In fact

they show how a “balanced relation” is more valuable than an

unbalanced relation that tends to generate frustration. Therefore,

by using phatic function, such as keeping in touch or performing

light conversations, we are avoiding contrast and conflict, and the

social and communication tensions are weakening, excluding

whose who would disturb the structure of the social network. In

this way phatic communicative practices are useful, because they

allow the members of the SNS to be involved in the discussion,

sometimes without having anything to say, just by clicking on

“Like” to say “I agree with you”. The Facebook feature “poke”

offers the same situation. Facebook defines poke as a social utility

that connects you with the people around you. Radovanovic

(2008) indicated that in social networking terms, poke is

contextual, and the context of poke is dependent upon the current

level of familiarity between the ‘poker’ and the ‘pokee’. It usually

denotes an expression such as: “Hey, what’s up?” or “Look at

· #MSM2012 · 2nd Workshop on Making Sense of Microposts ·

12

me!”, saying “Hi” to someone you already know well: “Hey, I’m

here, online!” followed usually by a message or email. There are

numerous possible meanings and interpretations behind the poke

and in the context of social networking technologies they can

include: a) showing romantic interest for the other; b) a high

visibility, low pressure way of getting attention; c) a lightweight

interaction.

Following a feature that is typical of participative web

applications, trending topics on Twitter provide an insight into the

different types of communication dynamics and practices.

Through web observation of trending topic tweets we identified

four types of phatic posts:

a) the first type of phatic posts implies short nodding, approval

or disapproval using expressions like: yes, right, uhm, hm, lol, <3,

smileys here when they are used as a message or a (hash)tag, and

many other signs and expressions from leet-speak and everyday

communications similar to aizuchi in Japanese.

b) the second type of phatic posts implies information about

mundane everyday life in order to start up the conversation. Some

may call it a pointless conversation form without any value. But

looking below those pointless phatic posts one would realize that

they contain an information value that actually carries a specific

message. For example, a person who is just eating an ice-cream

informs their audience of the type of food they are eating. If that

person is a micro-celebrity it brings even bigger value to this

information-micropost.

c) the third type of phatic posts indicates a secret language or an

internal language especially between teens. Teens and young

adults use a lot of phatic when communicating among themselves.

They use it to protect their privacy and publicly express

themselves through these short messages and posts – of which

only they know the meaning – so that way they keep adults from

their world. danah boyd (2010) wrote on this – decoding the youth

and their “secret” language.

d) finally the fourth type of phatic posts is to indicate online

connected presence. Also we can see that the phatic process has

the function of displaying the other person's online presence, i.e.

expressing that one is still “there”. This is very indicative to

young people, (Radovanovic 2010), who post from their mobile

phones status updates in the evening after school, and look for

their peers online. This is the function of online presence – to

know that someone is out there. Phatic communication and online

connection to the other becomes significant and phatic dialogue

enables relationship maintenance as well as connected presence in

social networks. This way the relevance of the phatic function of

microposts is emerging as a form of online intimacy and of social

connections in social networks.

5. CONCLUSION

The concepts of phatic communion coming from Malinowski and

the phatic function theorized by Jakobson, are both concepts of

real importance in this moment, giving us a fundamental

theoretical framework on which to move to better understanding,

and revealing implications for development and applications in

the future. The phatic function comprises: a) social function; b)

communicative function and c) validation and recognition

function; d) to provide indexical information for social

categorization; e) to negotiate the relationship, in particular

relative status, roles and affectivity; f) to reinforce social

structure. Furthermore, in relation with the social networks, we

have added another function: conflict-avoidance. This one helps

the social network to keep a balance and harmony, and diminishes

the damage caused by conflicts. By using and stimulating new

application of phatic communication and small-talk, tensions are

weakened and the social network in which it is applied could be

positively influenced. We thus believe the role of phatic posts

deserves further scrutiny. It is clearly important to the success of

SNS, and has analogues in the underlying protocols used by

communication technology. We expect there will be re-usable

patterns that system designers can use to ensure channels for

phatic communication are available. There is clearly much

opportunity for further investigations and research, since we

anticipate that the role of phatic communications is inherent in all

human social communication and expect to find it implicated in

any online communications system.

6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Dr Bernie Hogan, Oxford Internet Institute, Simon

Phipps of the Open Source Initiative, and Dejan Petrovic,

BMm http://dejanseo.com.au/dan/

7. REFERENCES

[1] boyd, danah. (2010). "Living Life in Public: Why American

Teens Choose Publicity Over Privacy." AOIR 2010.

Gothenburg, Sweden, October 23. URL:

http://www.danah.org/papers/talks/2010/AOIR2010.html.

[2] Giuseppe Facchetti, Giovanni Iacono, Claudio Altarini,

Computing global structural balance in large-scale signed

social networks, National Academy of Sciences of the United

States of America,

http://people.sissa.it/~altafini/papers/FaIaAl11/FaIaAl11.pdf

[3] Heider, Fritz (1958). The Psychology of Interpersonal

Relations. John Wiley & Sons.

[4] Hine, Christine. (Ed.) (2005), Virtual Methods: Issues in

Social Research on the Internet, Oxford: Berg Publishers.

[5] Jakobson, Roman. (1981) "Linguistics and Poetics." Poetry

of Grammar and Grammar of Poetry. Vol. 3 of Selected

Writings. 7 Vols. The Hague: Mouton. 18-51.

[6] Licoppe, C., & Smoreda, Z. (2005). Are social networks

technologically embedded? How networks are changing

today with changes in communication technology. Social

Networks, 27 (4), 317-335

[7] Miller, Vincent. (2008), New Media, Networking and Phatic

Culture, Convergence: The International Journal of Research

into New Media Technologies, Vol. 14, No. 4, 387-400

[8] Malinowski, B. 1923. ‘The Problem of Meaning in primitive

languages. In C. K. Ogden & I. A. Richards (Eds), The

meaning of meaning (pp. 146-152). London: Routledge &

Kegan Paul

[9] Malinowski, B. (1935). Coral gardens and their magic, 2

vols. Allen & Unwin.

[10] Radovanovic, Danica (2008). Digital Serendipities, blog

post: “Poke me, poke you back: Facebook social networking

context”http://www.danicar.org/2008/02/15/poke-me-poke-

you-back-facebook-social-networking-context/

[11] Radovanovic, Danica, Интернет парадигма, структура и

динамика онлајн друштвених мрежа: Фејсбук и млади у

Србији (Internet Paradigm, Structure, and Dynamics of

Online Social Networks: Facebook and Young Adults in

Serbia) (June 20, 2010). Pancevacko citaliste, Vol. III,

No.17, pp. 20-26, 2010. Available at SSRN:

http://ssrn.com/abstract=1986066

[12] Riley, Philip (2007) Language, culture and identity: an

ethnolinguistic perspective, London: Continuum.

· #MSM2012 · 2nd Workshop on Making Sense of Microposts ·

13