Facebook rituals: Identifying rituals of social networking sites using structural ritualization theory

Abstract

This article applies structural ritualization theory (SRT) to identify different rituals and determine their importance in the daily lives of social networking sites (SNS) users, especially Facebook users. A mixed‐methods approach of in‐depth interviews and netnography viewed through the lens of SRT allowed us to identify and analyze the types of rituals users engaged in, and how these rituals impacted users and evolved over time. During customer journeys on the SNS of Facebook, users shared daily ritual practices in distinct behavioral stages. Production and consumption of these daily rituals are important to marketers in SNS platform design for building and maintaining connectivity between users and the SNS platform.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the creative industries: A literature review and future research agenda

“…Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, musicians usually interacted with their audiences face-to-face ( Vandenberg, Berghman, and Schaap, 2020 ). The literature examined the impact of social media (e.g., Facebook, Instagram) on the music industry, for example the increase in the number of people attending online music events ( Bartholomew and Mason, 2020 , Burroughs, 2014 , Gibbs et al, 2015 , Gu et al, 2020 ). In terms of the COVID-19 pandemic, one initial response of musicians and bands was to move their performances online, as well as record them in advance and share them as screencasts.…”

The ‘lonely raver’: music livestreams during COVID-19 as a hotline to collective consciousness?

“…Recent research has argued for the capability of social networking sites to provide a 'third space', a virtual platform which not only connects people but can also generate the collective consciousness obtained from a successful ritual (Bartholomew and Manson 2020). Comments like 'lonely raver', 'raving from isolation' and 'nice, just spacing out from home' indicate that the livestreams are to a certain extent, successful in transporting the party to viewers' homes.…”

Put Your “Hand Emotes in the Air:” Twitch Concerts as Unsuccessful Large‐Scale Interaction Rituals

“…While Collins' (2004) interaction rituals model has become an increasingly popular inspiration for research on online interaction, empirical studies have predominantly used an analysis of text‐based exchange on social media sites (e.g., Dimaggio et al 2018; Jodén and Strandell 2021; Wang and Li 2020) or interviews with users (e.g., Bartholomew and Mason 2020). These methods, however, have drawbacks when analyzing the intensity of emotional energy of these interactions.…”

“…He argues that the “interaction ritual is weaker when F2F embodied co‐presence is lacking, because it is more difficult to achieve high levels of mutual focus of attention and rhythmic coordination” (Collins 2020:495–496). In recent years this has been debated, with a number of scholars adapting his model of interaction rituals to online gameplay (Burroughs 2014; Simpson et al 2018), online dating practices (Nexø and Strandell 2020), social media (Bartholomew and Mason 2020; Boyns and Loprieno 2013), and forums (Dimaggio et al 2018). However, I will argue that these studies, while using Collins's theory, do not empirically measure the level of intensity of the online interaction, due in part to methodological limitations.…”