Facebook insists (unlike myspace) on users
operating as their true identities. Its services
have diversifi ed innovatively, with News Feed
being introduced in 2006, followed by Photos,
allowing unlimited photo-posting, Facebook
Notes, Gifts, Marketplace and Facebook
Messages. Over 150 million users access Face-
book through mobile-phone devices in sixty or
more countries.
Facebook plays on the ‘flocking’ nature of
human beings and in this it is ideologically
suited to derive synergy from consumerism.
Indeed the fi nancial success of Facebook for its
Silicon Valley masters is a triumph for consum-
erist ethics and on a global scale, a fact not
overlooked by Digital Sky Technologies which
owns 10 per cent of the company.
Despite having a hard ride in Ben Mezrich’s
book Accidental Billionaires: Th e Founding of
Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money and Betrayal
(Doubleday, 2009), and something of a drub-
bing in the fi lm based on the book, Th e Social
Network (2010), directed by David Fincher, Mark
Zuckerberg was deemed worthy of celebration
as Time magazine’s Person of the Year 2010. Th e
ruthless competitiveness illustrated in book and
fi lm was on show in May 2011 when Facebook
was revealed to have employed a PR firm to
disseminate ‘bad news’ stories in the US press
about Facebook’s rival google, with the specifi c
intention, commentators believed, to undermine
Google’s social networking tool, Social Circle.
Facework In communicative encounters we often
need to have some concern for the image or
reputation of ourselves as well as that of others;
facework strategies are commonly employed to
achieve the desired outcome. Th ere are however
cultural differences in the manner in which
facework is employed. Stella Ting-Toomey in
Communicating Across Cultures (Guidford
Press, 1999) argued that in Western cultures the
emphasis typically tends to be on protecting one’s
own ‘face’, whereas in Asian cultures the empha-
sis is on protecting the face of others, principally
by showing respect and consideration when
in conversation. As several researchers have
cautioned, assertiveness is not a universally
admired aspect of an individual’s communicative
style. See impression management.
Facial expression Th e face’s main role in provid-
ing non-verbal communication is in the expres-
sion of emotions. Michael Argyle in Bodily
Communication (Methuen, 1988) argues that the
main facial expressions are those used to display
happiness, surprise, fear, sadness, anger, disgust,
contempt and interest. Facial expressionsthe World (John Wiley & Sons Inc., 1998) notes,
for example, that whilst direct eye contact is
expected in North America, Britain, Eastern
Europe and in Jewish cultures, less direct eye
contact is expected by West Indians, Asians
and African Americans. See civil inatten-
tion; indicators; proxemics; regulators.
See also topic guide under interpersonal
communication.
▶Desmond Morris, People Watching (Vintage, 2002);
Allan and Barbara Pease, Th e Defi nitive Book of Body
Language (Orion, 2004).F
Facebook One of the outstandingly successful
social networks, with millions of subscribers,
exponentially growing, its key feature being the
gathering of ‘Friends’, facilitating not only scores
if not thousands of contacts, but encouraging
users to launch into their contacts’ contacts and
their contacts’ contacts’ contacts in an eternal
chimera of apparently opening doors. As with
most social exchange on the internet, the
dominant characteristic of exchanges is at the
level of ‘I’m not looking forward to work on
Monday’ kind of trivia; comments then prompt-
ing a response of followers, such as ‘Nor am I’.
One can ‘like’ what’s being uploaded, and add a
comment such as ‘Tuesdays are worse for me’.
On a more serious note, Facebook users have
influence. There are cases when users have
moved beyond the homespun and the domesti-
cally bizarre to unite in some cause, to pressurize
decision-makers. Campaigns are possible, but
they remain leaderless and the tide of protest
is rarely long-lived: individuals return to the
specifi cs of everyday life. For some, Facebook
may be seen as a dating agency; for others, self-
promotion; for others an opportunity to explore
online Net vistas by being something diff erent
from their real selves. What Facebook will rarely
if ever do is match real friendship.
Launched in 2004, the creation of Mark
Zuckerberg and fellow Harvard computer stud-
ies students Chris Hughes, Dustin Moskowitz
and Eduardo Saverin, Facebook became by 2009
the most used social network in the Western
world. From 2006 it was open to anyone over
the age of thirteen with an e-mail address. It has
encountered widespread blocking in a number
of countries and, as with most of the premier
online services, challenges concerning copyright
as well as raising doubts concerning issues of
privacy. It has been said that by its very nature it
is prone to cyberstalking.