The third desire
It is said that the three ruling passions in human life are the desire for property, the desire for power and the desire for prestige or status or esteem (Brennan & Pettit, 2004a). In their book The Economy of Esteem, Geoffrey Brennan and Philip Pettit, depart with the idea that our desire for esteem is one of the driving forces of every human being. It is our intrinsic desire to have our fellow man think well of us (Cowen, 2005; Franck, 2007). They portray esteem as an object of desire and people are in a position to rationally demand and supply esteem. Esteem involves an attitude, not an action, and that it may, or may not be expressed in praise or criticism.
A minimalist version of the basic esteem relationship involves just two individuals: an actor A, and an observer, B. The actor undertakes some action, or exhibits some disposition, that is observed by B. The observation of this action/disposition induces in B an immediate and spontaneous evaluative attitude. That attitude can be either positive (esteem) or negative (disesteem) (Brennan & Pettit, 2004b).
Esteem is scarce and cannot be given away or traded in the ordinary manner, for there is no way that I can buy the good opinion of another or sell to others my good opinion about them. However the fact that esteem cannot be provided intentionally does not mean that people are incapable of voluntarily providing services that will facilitate the appearance of esteem (Brennan & Pettit, 2004a).
Three types of services are suggested that facilitate the exchange of esteem: attention, testimony and association. These three services seem to resemble activities distinguished within social media. Could social media act as a marketplace for esteem?
Social media a marketplace for esteem?
Let’s consider the following: one could publish content on e.g. YouTube, Flickr or Twitter to make an active demand for esteem. I may choose to give attention to that content by viewing it and supplying esteem or disteem to the person who published that particular piece of content. On top of that I may choose to express my opinion in the form of a comment, adding it to my favorites or giving it five-star rating and thus supplying esteem or disteem.
The latter form of supplying esteem or disteem seems altruistic however, by commenting I too make an active demand for esteem. My comment could get noticeable attention and people will form an opinion about my small contribution. I’m also in the running for some additional esteem. Since I publicly associated myself with the content in a certain way, I too could get a share of the esteem generated. The esteem generated by the publisher could bestow upon me. Could the latter be the reason why people publicly identify themselves with A-list celebrities or politicians on e.g. Twitter?
It seems that social media could act as a marketplace for esteem yet its interdependence must be further researched. And though it would seem that esteem is a key value, it would be shortsighted to claim it is the only value generated using social media. AWT (2007) suggest there are other value systems active within the world being: economical, societal, cultural and democratic. Can the marketplace for esteem generate other values?
Esmée Denters, an 18-year-old girl from the Netherlands is a good example of someone starting out with an active demand for esteem and eventually ending up with economical value. By posting homemade videos of herself singing, she generated a lot of esteem within the YouTube-community. After nine months record companies noticed her popularity. This led to a singing contract in August 2006. Another example is the usage of social media by Dutch politicians during the 2010 election campaigns. Twitter was the weapon of choice for online political debate and esteem and disteem was generously demanded and supplied through the esteem services attention, testimony or association. Apart from esteem, democratic value was created since these political debates are publicly visible and others are able to join them (AWT, 2007).
Other values can be created by using the Internet without esteem as a starting point. Amazon.com, for example, successfully digitized the physical activity of selling material goods and thus creating economical value. In comparison, the music industry was less successful in creating economical value by digitizing their assets. It seems that esteem, economical, societal, cultural and democratic values do exist within the social media domain. However it is unclear if these were indeed the intended–instead of accidental–values for using or creating [social media] services. It appears there is no certainty about the expected value creation before the creation or usage of a [social media] service. Instead there is value creation during the usage of that particular service (Soete & Weehuizen, 2001).
Conclusion
The Internet matured into more than solely a one-way mass communication medium. Its social and economical implications however are still unclear and, while many observers allege that the Internet is changing society there is little agreement about what those changes are (DiMaggio, 2001). It is undeniable that in the recent years social media attracted a lot of attention yet there is little consensus about what social media precisely is, and what its characteristics are. Brennan and Pettit (2004a) give an analytical framework for the economy of esteem and there is reason to believe that it is indeed present within social media. Its interdependence still needs to be further researched. It would seem that esteem could be a starting point towards the creation of other values. Are these values intended and if so, can this be formalized in the form of e.g. business models? Solid scientific research within this domain is in order instead of merely guesswork. The Internet [and social media’s] rapid growth offers an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for scholars to test theories of technology diffusion and media effects during the early stages of a new medium’s diffusion and institutionalization (DiMaggio, 2001).
References
