Social Media in Emergent Brazil

Front matter

Juliano Spyer x

SOCIAL — ep: —

IN METTA BRAZIL

Introduction to the series Why We Post

This book is one of a series of 11 titles. Nine are monographs devoted to specific field sites (including this one) in Brazil, Chile, China, England, India, Italy, Trinidad and Turkey — they have been published in 2016-17. The series also includes a comparative book about all our findings, How the World Changed Social Media, published to accompany this title, and a book which contrasts the visuals that people post on Facebook in the English field site with those on our Trinidadian field site, Visualising Facebook.

When we tell people that we have written nine monographs about social media around the world, all using the same chapter headings (apart from Chapter 5), they are concerned about potential repetition. However, if you decide to read several of these books (and we very much hope you do), you will see that this device has been helpful in showing the precise opposite. Each book is as individual and distinct as if it were on an entirely different topic.

This is perhaps our single most important finding. Most studies of the internet and social media are based on research methods that assume we can generalise across different groups. We look at tweets in one place and write about ‘Twitter’. We conduct tests about social media and friendship in one population, and then write on this topic as if friendship means the same thing for all populations. By presenting nine books with the same chapter headings, you can judge for yourselves what kinds of generalisations are, or are not, possible.

Our intention is not to evaluate social media, either positively or negatively. Instead the purpose is educational, providing detailed evidence of what social media has become in each place and the local consequences, including local evaluations.

Each book is based on 15 months of research, during which time the anthropologists lived, worked and interacted with people in the local language. Yet they differ from the dominant tradition of writing social science books. Firstly they do not engage with the academic literatures on vii viii social media. It would be highly repetitive to have the same discussions in all nine books. Instead discussions of these literatures are to be found in our comparative book, How the World Changed Social Media. Secondly these monographs are not comparative, which again is the primary function of this other volume. Thirdly, given the immense interest in social media from the general public, we have tried to write in an accessible and open style. This means we have adopted a mode more common in historical writing of keeping all citations and the discussion of all wider academic issues to endnotes.

We hope you enjoy the results and that you will also read our comparative book — and perhaps some of the other monographs — in addition to this one.

INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES WHY WE POST

Acknowledgements

This work has been done in continuous co-operation with several friends from the settlement where the evidence used in this book was obtained. They were active collaborators with whom I openly discussed my ideas about, and understanding of, technology, family, social life, prejudices, personal history and affection. Unfortunately I cannot mention any of their names here to protect their privacy.

My wife and I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Professor Daniel Miller, my mentor and supervisor on this project. He has offered generous amounts of feedback, support and patience with my shortcomings and delays. Above all, he has been an exemplar of a scholar: one that loves the discipline and loves doing research. We are also thankful to Daniel’s wife, Rickie Burman, for offering encouragement in past years and for welcoming us many times into their home.

This project involved a team of researchers who worked together for several months before leaving for field work, then kept in regular contact by reading and commenting on each other’s monthly reports, and finally collaborated further to produce an online course, a comparative volume and their own individual monographs. Thank you to Dr Elisabetta Costa, Dr Jolynna Sinanan, Dr Nell Haynes, Dr Razvan Nicolescu, Dr Tom McDonald, Dr Shriram Venkatraman and Dr Xinyuan Wang.

Dr Alex Pillen, my second supervisor, has been part of this academic adventure only since I arrived back from the field, but she has indicated and then helped me to navigate a body of literature in the discipline essential to analysing central aspects of my ethnography. More importantly, her availability to read and comment on my chapters, and her enthusiasm for the potential of the research, transmitted much needed support during the writing process.

Dr Rosana Pinheiro-Machado offered 20 very rich pages of commentary after reading an initial draft of this monograph. She has also given me informally, during the opportunities we had to meet, insightful guidance regarding my work, as well as about anthropology in Brazil and in general.

Several friends and colleagues offered comments and support that contributed with the completion of this work: André Avorio, Andrea Reis, Aoife Bennet, Asuka Sawa, Bea Aragon, Dr Carlos Toledo, Cosimo Lupo, Dinorah Paiva, Dr David Jeevendrampillai, Edmilson Filho, Fábio Souza, James Matarazzo, Dr Joseph Bristley, Dr Koldo Bizkarguenaga, Louise de Faria, Dr Maria Luiza Gatto, Laura Poutney, Luciana Costa, Dr Martin Fotta, Manoel Fernandes, Dr Matan Shapiro, Dr Matilda Marshall, Dr Pwyll ap Stifin, Rafael Pereira, Dr Samentha Goethals, Dr Scott Thacker, Dr Shireen Walton, Susanna Inzoli, Toca Feliciano, Dr Tomoko Hayakawa, Vaguinaldo Marinheiro, Vanessa Ribeiro, Dr Yenn Lee and Dr William Matthews. I would also like to thank the friendship and support of the following families: Almeida Prado, Garzarelli, O'Byrne, Pisano and Westman.

I am grateful for the convenors of the seminar series for PhD students at UCL’s Department of Anthropology, the academic staff of the digital anthropology programme at UCL and the organisers of the Oxford Digital Ethnography Group (OxDEG) for the opportunities to present parts of this work, receive feedback and interact with other researchers.

Professors Joao de Pina-Cabral and Luiz Fernando Dias Duarte kindly shared digital versions of their work published in Brazil that otherwise I could not have read.

A generous grant from the European Research Council (grant 2011-AdG-295486 Socnet) enabled the ‘Why We Post’ project, and consequently this book, to happen.

A big thank you also goes to the administrative teams at UCL Anthropology, the European Research Council at UCL and Oxford’s Saint Benet’s Hall for the continuous support during this research. I thank particularly Chris Hagisavva, Chris Russell, Keiko Homewood, Martin O’Connor and Paul Carter-Bowman from UCL, Pascale Searle from the ERC and Steve Rumford from Saint Benet’s Hall.

During the last six years of constant travelling, Thais and I have received loads of support from our families, especially Ana Maria, Marcos and Florencia, Walter and Flavia, Astério and Zete, Iracema, Thiago and Charles, and our adopted English family Caroline and Daniel.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thais, my love, none of this would have been possible without your presence, your sunshine, the joy and excitement you bring to life and the inspiration it is to see you participating and giving your best to those around us. It is encouraging and it is sheltering. Thank you.

Hopefully this book will repay part of my debt. Needless to say, all errors and shortcomings are my responsibility.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xi