Users were constantly exposed to Facebook metrics that they could consider to make decisions on their involvement in the campaign and interactions with others. In the practises of the National Commission, these metrics were not taken directly from the platform, but they were also included in campaign reports that worked as mediators (Callon, 1990; Callon et al., 2002) between the productive public on Facebook and the parties’ electoral aims and help to create a valid frame for valuations that was negotiated with other members of the party. Not only were metrics included in making decision about paying for advertisement based on the number of responses, But, metrics also interactions such as the selection of a Fan Page or Groups was sometimes based on the numbers of fans and members (Arturo, interview, 2014; Ciudadana, interview, 2014; Jorge, interview, 2014; Maria, interview, 2014; Pablo, interview, 2014). As it was described in chapter four, users may have chosen popular pages because of the higher chances of gaining the attention of more people. But, they also considered these numbers as sign of their importance for a specific public and as proof of their authenticity confirmed by presence and endorsement of a large number of users (Mariano, interview, 2014; Ciudadana, interview, 2014). Similarly, administrators such as Jimena (interview, 2014) considered the numbers of Facebook Friends already made by a user before accepting or rejecting the request to the join the Group ‘Frente Amplio, Uruguay’. She associated accounts connected with very few users with the possibility of facing a troll only created to make problems on the Group.
The users’ interactions with metrics may be understood as a form of reactivity (Campbell, 1957, p298) in which an object being measured is modified as a result of the same operation of measuring its attributes. The measurement generated by social buttons also provided contents and pages with a specific treatment that blurred the distinction between the act of observing and transforming the same observed object. “Measures elicit responses from people who intervene in the objects they measure” (Espeland and Sauder, 2007, p2), and they led to reactivity that informed and triggered further actions. These metrics were
understood as positive reactions and engagement (Gerlitz and Helmond, 2013) that could be associated with content and pages capacity to generate responses in the public (Grosser, 2014). An account unable to generate any kind of response was considered as suspicious, unpopular and disregarded as a useful space for campaigning.
Similarly, Facebook and its metrics had a performative character that allow users to visualise the public and objectified the interest on a page and certain issues materialised in content posted on Wall. Not only did indicators showed users’ responses to page or content, but they also translated, aggregated and synthesised the activity of diverse users into a number which became the representation of the public (Beer, 2016; Bessy and Chauvin, 2013; Espeland and Sauder, 2007) that could be easily included in valuation processes. Facebook metrics may be thought mediators that did not only pass information from one actor to another, but they also perform activities which modify the terms and situations of the intervening actors. The performative character of metrics also needs to be understood in relation to the capacity of users to include them into a frame for valuation that was facilitated in what can be described as an audit culture. The metrics also validated and were shared as a “cognitive scheme that organize the valuation experience” (Bessy and Chauvin, 2013, p97). The reports and metrics only worked as valid frame of action when the different members of party accepted them as a commonly shared device to understand campaign performances. The intervention of professional consultants and the creation of a systematic analysis presented in the reports helped dissipate the ambiguity around Facebook’s indicators, but metrics needed to be circulated, understood and validate by the actors who participate in the campaign. Party leaders such as Mónica Xavier or Constanza Moreira also had an agency in deciding the campaign strategy and the circulation of content (Ana, interview, 2014; Daniel, interview, 2014; Moreira, interview, 2014; Paula, interview 2014), and they published articles that were hardly questioned by party officers.
Section 3.1 – Building a public to excel in an audit culture
The National Commission team was not naïve or passive regarding the performative capacity of the metrics and actively sought to work with their agency to objectify public support. As it has previously suggested, the
use of metrics and reports may be understood as part of specific logic for action that was in line with the views and interest of this team. Facebook was considered a means for campaigning and building a growing public to support the party (Daniel, interview, 2014; Federico, interview, 2014; Gabriel, interview, 2014; Mariela, interview, 2014; Paula, interview, 2014). Not only were these indicators instrumentals to monitor the public reactions and support, but they also had a performative role in showing the campaign’s performance and justify the practices of this group of professional. They aimed at showing and increasing activity and public support in relation to a previous situation and the competition thereby paid advertisement, asking party members to re-circulate content pages to modify and try to increase the numbers displayed by those indicators. In line with Grosser (2014, p2), Facebook’s metrics were understood as part of an audit culture that recognise quantification as a valid and objective method that simplified the public reactions into a single number with which the idea of progress could be displayed as part of an industrial frame of valuation (Boltanski and Thévenot, 2006). Metrics could be shared with party’s member and the public who, based on their own experience on Facebook, could easily understand them as a quantification of a growing support that generate enthusiasm and evidence of public interest in the campaign.
To consider metrics as part of the definition of Account Centred Value (ACV) dynamic (see the last section of chapter four) is relevant to observe the influence of Facebook’s indicators in a process that encourages the creation of asymmetries in the capacities of gathering public support around an account. The idea of asymmetries in the popularity of candidates is already included in the notion of an electoral race in which participants compete and aim to defeat other parties (Scammell, 2014). Social buttons may be understood as common equivalent to measure campaign performance in relation to the possibility of attracting users and Facebook was thought as an open and free medium, where everyone had the same opportunities to participate (Daniel, interview, 2014; Federico, interview, 2014; Gabriel, interview, 2014; Nicolas, interview, 2014). This allowed campaigners to conduct comparative exercise based on the idea of the users’ equal capacity to show their support for parties.
However, the capacity of gathering a public around an account was not the direct result of users’ independent and free agency to interact with parties’ pages, but it was mediated by Facebook policy of
content distribution. Facebook managed and controlled the circulation of content that was directly associated to the possibility of increase the number of responses used by campaigner to show progress in an audit culture based on metrics. Facebook created a business model that promoted and allowed skewing those metrics that served well the interests of a professional practices based on the auditing of the public’s responses. This business was partially built on algorithms that limited and dosed the circulation of content but could be altered by paying advertisement. By doing so, a perfect circle was generated between a payment that increase content reach and provide a fast increase in the number of users’ reactions that campaign managers needed to show progress in the campaign and justify their professional activities. By restraining the circulation of content and selling the capacity to increase the reach of that content, Facebook set it up a system in which the number displayed by metrics was not only the result of the users’ ability to catch attention of others, but it was also related to their capacity to buy it. As previously commented in in the section 2.2 of chapter four, campaigners considered that paying for advertisement was a requirement of being competitive on Facebook where other parties were doing the same (Daniel, interview, 2014; Nicolas, interview, 2014; Pablo, interview, 2014). Political parties cannot be separated from the
productive public to whom the campaign is targeted and the circulation of content among users, and the use of advertisement and the coordination of campaign teams with the aim of modifying those indicators was directly related to the interests in gathering a public around their own accounts. As a result, asymmetries were part of different capacities to influence metrics via suggestions of content and pages that was manipulate by parties and Facebook business model. And, metrics were included in a dynamic that encourage the possibility of modifying the situation on which a progress in the indicator of public support could be shown.
The production of asymmetries between accounts on Facebook was also reinforced by what Federico (interview, 2014) and Daniel (interview, 2014) considered as the privilege positions of institutional accounts for catching the public’s attention. As it was mentioned in the first section of chapter 4, the FA’s Fan Page was followed by journalists who could quote and refer to content posted on this site as official statements. Similarly, users understood official page as the online representation of the party on Facebook and followed
it as a form to show their public support and interacted on the pages to ask questions about the campaign events. By being recognised as an official page validated by the Facebook authentication process, they were more likely to obtain more attention from users.
Similarly, the authentication of a page needs to be considered as part of the ACV dynamic in the production of value and it is related to the possibility of establishing differences between and the FA official site and other pages competing for same public’s attention. If the value of page can be thought as the ability to concentrate the public interest, other pages could also be thought as a threat to the capacity of catching that attention. The termination of the Fan Page called Tabaré 201494 reported to the Facebook’s client service team as a fake page by members of the FA can be understood as part of this competition for the embodiment and representation of the party on Facebook. This page had been able to gather thousands of users to support the presidential candidate. However, the National Commission considered that the page could interfere and compete with the official FA Fan Page as the real and legitimate source of information (Daniel, interview, 2014). The team could not trust pages managed from users outside the party and decided to report it as a misuse of the candidate identity who was not on Facebook and did not intend to have a Fan Page. Facebook had a role in creating an order in which some pages were authenticated as valid place to gather users interested in a party or candidate and others were removed as illegitimate competitors. By doing so, Facebook contribute to establish boundaries for organisations that separate their actions and identity from others who did not have the authority to communicate information on behalf of the party.
Conclusions
Chapter five focused on the practices of campaigners working at the National Commission and the inclusion of Facebook metrics as part of professional frame for action that required evidence and auditing the public. The focus on metrics and the affordances of Facebook to objectify value may be considered as a necessary complementary approach to chapter four, in which the metrics remained in the background of an analysis
mostly concerned in describing the enactment of diverse forms of values. To understand how metrics could be included in valuation processes, chapter five considered the performative effects of metrics on the pages, content and users, and it also described the importance of the users’ culture, perspectives and goals in a specific scenario in these processes. Metrics were re-adjusted and re-signified in relation to certain frames for action that provided meaning to the public’s participation and direction to the campaign.
The first section of this chapter unsettled the value of indicators to observe how their use in valuation process involved the re-signification and re-construction of meaning as part of specific frames and contexts. Facebook metrics constantly tracked the public’s response to specific contents posted and pages, but they become useful for campaigners in specific frames that need to be understood as part of context, culture and personal interests. These practices fit well with Dewey’s (1939) description of valuation as a calculation process between means and ends which are aimed at achieving a goal in specific contexts. For the teams involved with the National Commission, a process was created whereby the production of reports in which the comparisons between several Facebook accounts across time help to delimit a scenario and Facebook indicators became meaningful for understanding and explaining campaign activities and the FA’s position in the electoral competition. Facebook’s metrics could be open to multiple interpretations, but the numbers of Likes and Share were generally understood by users as indicators of people´s support for a message associated with certain accounts and topics. The acknowledgment and acceptance of platform’s metrics as indicators of success or lack of success allowed campaigners to analyse their actions and generate responses based on these metrics. They were used to encourage followers and spread enthusiasm associated with the idea of progress in the campaign of an increasing public support to the FA. Similarly, metrics were also included in valuation of content and pages and suggested the need of further action such as the use of paid advertisement.
The counting of Likes allowed the quantification of the public involvement with a specific content or page and provided a general equivalent that facilitated valuation processes (Arvidsson and Peitersen, 2013; Gerlitz and Helmond, 2013). Comparison between different pages and their relocation into other contexts such the reports used by campaign members allowed to settle down tensions around the value of actions
aimed at achieving results. Similarly, the use of Facebook’s metrics for valuation processes was possible thanks to the existence of a shared cognitive frame in which the general users, consultants and the FA online campaign and politicians accepted and were able to share with others. The use of these metrics in reports helped to generate a convention around the value of specific content and the possibility of establishing their worth related to gain public support and reaching more users in an ACV dynamic. Metrics were included in valuation practices that created a frame for action involving several actors and could be used to show progress made on the campaign and justify the practices carried out by the campaign team. In line with Boltanski and Thévenot’s (2006) theory of the justification of practices, the second section understood the reports provided by consultants as fundamental for the creation of that frame embedded in a professional culture of audit.
For the National Commission, the co-creation of value by productive public was the result of the entanglement of actors’ multiple interventions on Facebook. The possibility of recognising value for the FA’s official campaign can be thought of as part of relational activities and demarcation of different agencies and ownership on specific parts of that process. In line with the idea of ACV, value was recognised as a result of valuations on the capacity of an account to catch the attention of a network of users. Their participation and responses to the content and a political proposal on a page were at the centre of value production. This was objectified by the metrics provided by Facebook, but, their recognition as useful component for valuations was the result of multiple entangled agencies that involved a professional group who re-signified and re-constructed those indicators. The National Commission team was in charge of the party central campaign and claimed the responsibility and credit for their achievements in the campaign. Successful and unsuccessful posts were partially attributed to their capacity to select the appropriate content. They required Facebook metrics and an analytical frame provided by consultants to legitimate their valuation of posts and pages. This process was not exempt from frictions, but part of a negotiation among users, Facebook as platform with multiple devices and frames that allow modifying those metrics.
These valuation processes were based on the three main components described in the conceptualisation of ACV. The first component was related to Facebook’sembedded metrics that allowed the objectification
of the public reactions and provided the materiality for a general equivalent with which valuation on different contents and accounts (Arvidsson and Peitersen, 2013). The second component was related to the creation of a shared cognitive frame that could be personalised according to the users’ interests and goals related to specific Facebook’s pages. This framework was based on the recognition of Facebook as a massive medium for communication and the professional campaigners’ validation of the platform’s metrics to measure political communication performances. The third component was related to the possibility of gathering public support provided by the network of Facebook users.