[{"id":118,"title":"The spontaneous order of social media","sha":"ba46ce488fdcdeac8a56de99530c5fbc","user_id":481,"state":"published","body":"Social media is a spontaneous order. Or, rather, various social orders cultivated on social media platforms—patterns of interaction, virtual communities, co-creation and user-generated content—constitute their own spontaneous orders. Social media spontaneous orders emerge and evolve in an orderly yet unplanned way due to shared rules of procedure, simplified feedback mechanisms, freedom of entry and exit, and equality of status among participants[[1]](https://cosmosandtaxis.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/ct_1_1_dizerega.pdf). Most studies of spontaneous orders have focused on markets[[2]](http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/L/bo3621679.html)[[3]](http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/L/bo5970048.html), science[[4]]( http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1026591624255), and democracy[[5]](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08913818908459563?journalCode=rcri20)[[6]](https://cosmosandtaxis.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/sieo_5_2012_andersson.pdf). Recent extensions have explored the spontaneous order of religion[[7]](https://cosmosandtaxis.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/sieo_3_2010_andersson.pdf), art[[8]](https://cosmosandtaxis.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/sieo_3_2010_camplin.pdf), innovation[[9]](https://cosmosandtaxis.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/j_potts.pdf), and cities[[10]](http://au.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1557866988.html)[[11]](https://cosmosandtaxis.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/ct_1_1_palmberg.pdf); but social media life in an open society—the *social media cosmos*—is also such an order.\r\n\r\nLike other *cosmos*, social media spontaneous orders are complex discovery procedures that coordinate the distributed knowledge of participants. Yet social media spontaneous orders are distinct from others because they privileges a different systemic resource and rely on unique feedback mechanisms. Social media participants do not use profits (e.g. markets) or priority of discovery (e.g. science) or votes (e.g. democracy) to assess performance; nor do they use price signals to coordinate plans and activities. The systemic resource of social media is attention: “focused mental engagement on a particular item of information”[[12]](http://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Attention_Economy.html?id=j6z-MiUKgosC). Participants look to connectivity/interactivity ratios and many social media analytics as coordinative feedback mechanisms.","created_at":"2015-03-14T10:56:09.207Z","updated_at":"2015-03-15T06:00:19.534Z","zenodo_id":24619,"doi":"http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16051","subject":null,"tags":["social media","spontaneous order","self-organisation","economy","science","culture"],"vote_count":0,"view_count":1,"score":0.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":true,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":119,"title":"The social media spontaneous order is a ‘constellaxy’","sha":"2e9e15b6adb3e76e44f4cf2a9f8f9a01","user_id":481,"state":"published","body":"Social media is a spontaneous order. It is distinct from others because of its systemic resource—attention—and unique feedback mechanisms—social media analytics[[1]](http://beta.briefideas.org/ideas/ba46ce488fdcdeac8a56de99530c5fbc). Attention consists connectivity and interactivity of social media *networking* (i.e., immediacy, accessibility, ‘findability’) and credibility and impression of social media *signaling* (i.e., personalisation, interpretation, and authenticity)[[2]](http://edge.org/3rd_culture/kelly08/kelly08_index.html).\r\n\r\nChanneling F.A. Hayek’s designation of market order as ‘catallaxy,’[[3]](http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/L/bo3621679.html)[[4]](http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/L/bo5970048.html) social media order is designated as ‘constellaxy.’ Constellaxy is a neologism combining ‘catallaxy’ and ‘constellation.’ Catallaxy is derived from Greek *katalatto*, with meanings: “to exchange” and “to admit into the community.” Constellation is derived from Latin *constellatio*, with meaning: “set with stars” (*con*- \"with\" and *stellare* “to shine”). Constellaxy therefore captures the character of the attention economy of social media: attention is networking (“with”) and signaling (“to shine”) in a constellation, hence *constell*-; and economy is coordination (“exchange”) and cooperation (“community”) in a catallaxy, hence -*axy*.\r\n\r\nParaphrasing Hayek, we define constellaxy as *the order brought about by the mutual adjustment of many individual participants in a social media network*. It refers to a pattern of mutually beneficial social media interactions—networking, signalling, coordination, and cooperation—not requiring that participants share the same goals. The emergent properties of social media—analytics, trending topics, clustering, filter bubbling, network scale, and hierarchy—are the outcomes of free pursuit of diverse and disparate goals of social media participants and networks.","created_at":"2015-03-14T11:20:35.579Z","updated_at":"2015-03-15T06:00:19.531Z","zenodo_id":24620,"doi":"http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16052","subject":null,"tags":["social media","spontaneous order","self-organisation","catallaxy","constellaxy"],"vote_count":0,"view_count":1,"score":0.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":true,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null}]