Investigating Programmed Sociality: Friendship Assemblage Discussion

This discussion board post analyzes Taina Bucher's concept of the 'Friendship Assemblage' in the context of Facebook. The post explores how social networking sites have become the primary way of socializing online, and how this shift necessitates a re-evaluation of friendship. It examines how software and algorithms on platforms like Facebook influence the formation and maintenance of friendships. The author argues that traditional notions of friendship, which emphasize equality and freedom from constraints, do not fully apply to the digital realm. Instead, the post highlights how software assists users in making choices about who to befriend, and how the platform itself creates new modalities of friendship. The post references Bucher's article and explores the sociotechnical processes involved in online friendships. The author discusses how Facebook facilitates both the maintenance of existing friendships and the formation of new ones, emphasizing that friendship is a socio-technical term shaped by digital platforms.

Running head: COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY
COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY
Table of Contents
References..................................................................................................................................3

2COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY
In reference to the age of Social Networking sites that have become the most
preferred way of socializing with the people existing globally through the online process
having raised the question of how to think upon the facts related to the contours of friendship
as well as through the mediated spaces that have become all the more important. On the
contrary, referring to the carried out research upon the friendships existing online, this article
takes an approach that is software-sensitive (Bucher, 2012). Having a close reading of the
sociotechnical processes within which the friendship has been becoming activated on
Facebook.
This article again puts the fact forward that the friendships made online need to have
an understanding regarding the gathering of heterogeneous elements that has the inclusion of
both humans as well as non-humans. In addition to this, the article also aims at showing how
the traditionally existing notion belonging to friendship creates equals as well as free
constraints structure, which does not apply to the specific realm of the social networking
platforms (Ngai, Tao & Moon, 2015). In here, the software particularly assist the individual
users to engulf certain choices in relation to the fact of choosing whom to make friends with
and whom to not.
Social networking websites specifically have the primary aim of making friendships.
However, in accordance to the article, Facebook does not only facilitate friendship that have
been always existing, but also provisions with a separate platform meant for making newer
friends worldwide. Hence, Friendship is only understood as a socio-technical term.

3COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY
References
Bucher, T. (2012). The Friendship Assemblage. Television & New Media, 14(6), 479-493.
doi: 10.1177/1527476412452800.
Ngai, E. W., Tao, S. S., & Moon, K. K. (2015). Social media research: Theories, constructs,
and conceptual frameworks. International journal of information management, 35(1), 33-44.