Hevostalli.net´s Seniors and the Use of Power

In Hevostalli.net´s (EN: Horse stable) Senior-column you can see interesting writings, even in the mediapedagogy´s point of view. But who gets his/hers voice heard, what kind of writings get responses and to what writers appeal when they want to underline the truthfulness of their writings? I´ve got interested in uses of power in mass medium and decided to study how this power is adopted in Senior-column. This analysis is based on my own observations of the topics written to the column and the people who write to it.

Internet is a mass medium on my opinion. Or to be precise, Internet forms a mass and masses tend to communicate. It really does involve different forms of communication. In the Internet the traditional source-message-receiver model is seen. The source can be one person or a group-list. The message can be almost anything, an email, writing on a homepage, chat conversation etc. The receiver can again be just one person or millions of people, depending on where the message is, in an email, homepage or other. Mass communication research should regard Internet´s potential, or I´ll have to agree with Christine Ogan when she writes in her article that the "theories about communication will become less useful".

When speaking of the power of mass medium the most straight outlook is that simply some people have power in society and some don´t (Kunelius 2004, 212). Meaning how the public chooses from what is popular on the opinion of the financial power at that moment. In the Senior-column there is no direction which would serve subjects which are under writers observation, the subjects are born from the interest of the writers. From this you can though lead to that some subjects are more popular than others. So some subjects have power and some don´t.

Some subjects get very popular and there are multiple topics about them and some other subjects don´t create any conversation. That´s called the Spiral of Silence which belongs to the traditions of impact study (an example of one). (Kunelius 2004, 143). The Spiral of Silence is about how public strengthens some subjects and those subjects which don´t get public that much just disappear. The point of this theory is according to it´s creator Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann that people change their opinions and ways they act to respond to the socially accepted opinion and way of act. In the Senior-column you can see this through the fact that anyone can start a topic but if it doesn’t interest others it will drop and be forgotten. The faster the less there are people to comment the subject.

Also Agenda Setting Theory raised from the ruins of the MCR-tradition (Mass Communication Research) defines the column well since it is a very good place where to find the subjects which interest the people who are interested in horses. (Nieminen & Pantti 2004, 157). The subjects aren´t all about horses, there are lots of topics for example about the days politics and of course about the personal life´s mysteries of the writers. The community plays the role of the chairman of the column, it decides what people talk about. To get answers to the topic started, the writer has to have power.

So who has the power? Some of the power comes from the community, since the community has for example created some own words to the users. For example “lapikasta” (“lapikas” is a kind of a shoe, “lapikasta” would be like a verb to it) is said if somebody tells about violent or cheating mate. They urge him/her to get rid of such. Also “porvoo” is a very popular word. It is actually a city in Finland, but it´s also a modification of “provo”. Provo means a non-true or over exaggerated thing, which with you just want to tease and make others angry or to write to you lot´s of replies. From this “porvoo” word is made jokes by asking “again is this stuff happening in porvoo?”. The one who knows how to use for example these words is obviously an insider. And what an insider writes is not so easily questioned. If you need to explain these words to someone he/she is marked as an outsider and he/she might get a bit more negative and mistrusting comments at the beginning. There are so many people writing just to annoy others. But you really have to be active in the column to know who are the insiders and who are not.

In the column is also seen the term “julkiso” (in Finnish we have only one word for English words public and audience, “julkiso” is our audience). This term is created by citizen journalism and it means an active mass of people participating some event for example. (Nieminen & Pantti 2004, 147). Seniors write approximately 4500 messages every day. That´s why I think they are active, they say their opinions to multiple topics while they visit the column.

Power in practice is another view of the power in mass medium. It´s based on that power just isn´t something with somebody somewhere but it is also used (Kunelius 2004, 221). This theory includes ideological subject who against some of the writers rebel, meaning that the roles that are on offer are not the ones writers would like to take, they rather try different roles and ways to respond to topics (an example article: "Postmodernism and the Death of the Subject" ). There are certain basic roles which are taken easily, for example womens take the feminine role and men the male one. The topics invite to take a certain role and even submit to it. The easiest way to see this are these well made teasers, "provos". For example if someone calls names or something about a certain horse breed there are immediately comments against such ugly words. The writers take the role that the starter of the topic wanted to. That is until somebody gets the idea and writes “porvoo” and the topic is forgotten or written full of different modifications of “porvoo” and the starter is recommended to get a life.

This means that also discourse is strongly fulfilled in the column. Discourse says that there is always an assumption in a text of the way the reader will read it. Meaning the texts always offer us certain roles and they direct the action. (Kunelius 2004, 223.) Discourses are shown in the column also through the fact that who has the right to speak. According to the rank order the one has the right to speak who has the most amount of knowledge about the topic and who is in the highest rank at that moment. With discourses you can play with the power since it is a way to define what is true and normal. (Kunelius 2004, 225). This is easily seen in the column though it´s also rebelled against. There are always some people who want to say that there are also different options of doing things “the right way”. Still every time some of the points of view takes the highest place and the others a put down. The writer appeal to experience and sometimes to age when they want to enhance the truthfulness of their words.

In the topics it is also important how many there are speaking and the one who speaks with his/hers own name and shows his/hers email is the most reliable. Others are said to be “yelling just anonymously” and are not to be considered powerful. There are a lot of so called regular writers who write daily and use the same nick all the time. They are widely known in the community. Topics they start get more replies than others.

There are more of the writers who write anonymously than with a recognizable nick. Some days it even happens that if there are enough anonymous they can unite and get a regular writer questioned. But this means that the anonymous writers must write adult-like, with correct spelling and good argumentation and of course that the anonymous are to be recognized as different persons. Usually people have their own way of expressing themselves so it can be seen when somebody tries to write as a different person, the text gets fumble and not so fluent.

Through this way articulation is also important, meaning that something is said out loud but it is also connected to some other thing too. (Kunelius 2004, 232.) The phenomenon raised from the discourse is connected to another phenomenon which makes sure that the thing gets understood from the wanted point of view. This is used widely, for example when somebody recommends some saddle he/she says also who of the celebrity riders also use the same trademark.

The writers try to figure out the truthfulness of the topic starts by using some criterion. For example is the start text possible in time, place or even with common sense. Other writers make statements and questions. The topic starters can show their power through that their writing can´t be questioned. The less there is doubt the more there is credibility and power. Topic starts which are unreliable are asked to be argued and proven by pictures etc. In some way at least some of the writers demand for certain kind of rules and routines, which can be compared to for example to news criterion of journalists or to the quality criterion of journalism. (Nieminen & Pantti 2004, 106-107, 140-143.)

There is also a third point of view about the power in mass medium. It highlights that power is a relation where the ones who dominate and the ones who are dominated influence the form of the relation. Through this the roles should offer something important to the people. The power and ideology should reach the experience of the subjects which tough includes that a big part of the people who are dominated have the experiences of being dominated. (Kunelius 2004, 234-235). I do believe that writers in the Senior-column get something to themselves, attention, acceptance..

Through this point of view of power are also the meanings of the messages interesting. Do people really read the meanings from the texts that the writer has in coded? One challenge of writing to the Internet must be that everyone reads the texts based on their own experience and local cultural codes. On the other hand if the writer´s and the reader´s social experience is common, there might even be a transfer of influence. If the writer´s discourses differ from the reader´s experiences can the reader read the text from his/hers own point of view considering his/hers experience. (Kunelius 2004, 236-237). Through this builds also the connection to others who read the text in the same way. In a column this strengthens the community and considering the individual the feeling of belonging to a group.

On my opinion this point view of power binds well to Stuart Hall´s views of building the identity. The fact that how people interpret different texts and how many things affect to that interpretation. In the Internet's forums these problems in interpreting are easily seen. Of course there are situations when people misunderstand the texts on purpose but very often you can see how people lack the skill of reading what is said, they lack also patience, understanding, emphatic etc. Sometimes the topics are filled with awful fights and crashing of the points of view by others.

All of this shows that power is used widely in the Hevostalli.net´s Senior-column. There are always some who have more power, the power depends on the writing skills and argumentation. Regular writers are usually respected but of course there are some who are almost hated. And still they keep on writing because they have good skills in writing and argumentation and they do get others to respond. Every day the Seniors build the agenda of the day, choose the things which are interesting. The topics bind a complex net which include certain regular subjects and some parts are magnified and others silenced. Seniors take eagerly different roles but act in those sometimes differently. From these roles they definitely get something to themselves, who gets what and what kind of pleasure.

Sources:

Kunelius, R. (2004), Viestinnän vallassa, Helsinki: WSOY.

Nieminen, H. & Pantti, M. (2004), Media markkinoilla, Helsinki: Loki-Kirjat.