The recent attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona has caused many attempts at blame from all corners of the media and political spectrum. Here at the Big Bad Blog, we decided to avoid the political minefield of attempting to blame one person’s irrational actions on people we do not like — this post at BoingBoing (and its 9/11 precursor) best describes what we have heard in the media over the past few weeks.

This article, which we read today, is more of the same. It argues along the lines of “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” … and then goes on to analyze why Americans do more killing. Unsurprisingly, it then focuses in on American childhood and the popularity of gun-related toys and entertainment.

In this it is interesting to us, in that it strikes a chord with your intrepid blogger. A central tenet of the argument, as presented, is that early immersion in the world of play guns (for American children) leads to an adult culture of gun violence.

Growing up in Canada, your blogger was not allowed to own toy guns. But this parental directive did not extend to other children, or prevent me from playing with their toys. It also, apparently, did not extend to lego. Bombarded with the same media, playing with the same toys (toy guns, elastic-band guns, air rifles, water guns), yet Canada has notably less gun violence than the US. In fact, we grow up to sing/appreciate songs such as this one.

American culture, it must be noted, is its greatest export.

And, for the record, we think that Giffords probably wouldn’t be shot if there were rules preventing the sale of guns to crazy people.

Photo is from Make My Mood. Origin unknown.
Webcomic is Something of that Ilk by Ty Devries.

One of the worst things about paying attention to changes in technology and their impact on society is the frequency with which the media confuses the role of the medium through which communication is routed, and the message within that medium. And yes, McLuhan might have claimed that the medium is the message but to take that to extremes is bunk. Mediums and messages may have symbiotic relationships, but that does not mean that the role that each plays in the relationship cannot be examined, nor that the line separating the two needs to be blurred.

A recent example that provides an illustration is the case of “snoopers” on Facebook. According to the Telegraph, men “snoop” on their partners using Facebook. Snoop. Defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “investigate or look around furtively in an attempt to find something.” For those of you who need to know, furtive means “characterized by guilty or evasive secrecy.”

The study was conducted by the Alibi channel, which shows wall-to-wall crime dramas, and given the other questions in the survey — about keying cars and opinions on being vengeful towards an ex — leads one down the road to thinking that Facebook is a gateway to stalking. That was probably its intent, and the results should have been treated skeptically at best. This did not stop a reputedly reputable news organisation from treating it like iron-clad fact.

The Telegraph getting bothered about this is one thing but — surprisingly — Mashable bought the story as well, asking readers if their partner might be “stalking” them on Facebook. Mashable appears to have been goaded along by recent studies showing that Facebook causes an increase in jealousy (what would appear to be a real medium-induced effect), whereas the Telegraph by a recent online-harassment case (where harassment was occurring, and the Internet was merely a tool).

The question which has gone unasked is: Can you snoop on somebody using Facebook?

To answer this, we need to look at Facebook’s purpose: To share information with a specified group (or groups) of people. Users create a profile, decide who can see it, and populate it with whatever information they would like to share with those people.

If somebody has chosen to share information with you, is viewing that information snooping? Is viewing it something that must be done furtively? Involving guilt, secrecy and evasiveness? Probably not. If those feelings are present, they are most likely misplaced.

Can it be stalking, as suggested by the good folks at Mashable? No. Stalking is a criminal activity. If my ex-girlfriend calls me to tell me something, it might be possible to be furtive about it, I suppose — but it would be a stretch to call that snooping, let alone stalking.

As someone permitted to view a Facebook profile, the implications are similar. Viewing that profile is quite simply not an act of stalking, no more than visiting any other webpage legally. Facebook’s rules need to be bent (if not broken) in order for snooping or stalking to occur — logging in as somebody else, or creating a false identity.

It behooves the media to recognize where the line between the medium and the message lies. What is the medium doing? What is the message?

For Facebook, one thing the medium does is share photos with a group of friends. Being part of that group and viewing the photos is simply receiving the message. It’s little different than sending the photos to everybody through the post, it’s just easier. The photos are a message. Opening your own mail as the receiver of the message is neither snooping nor stalking; it’s simply normal (and expected behaviour).

Another thing Facebook does is allow people to inform their friends what they are doing or thinking in that instant. The message receivers might become obsessed with these, worried that their loved ones are lying to them, et cetera. It can raise an expectation of knowing what your loved one is up to at all times, and feelings of jealousy. Here the medium is at fault — the existence of the medium is raising the expectations.

For whatever reason, we like to see the decline of society in our own progression. Those reporting on the subject need to separate unique behaviours caused (or facilitated) by new technology from those which are merely moving from one medium to the next.

Photo: Horst Ehricht