Participants reported very mixed experiences of scaffolding interventions, particularly commenting on the impact of public correction. Ray, Vicky and Maggie all note discomfort with the potential for loss of face or reputation:
Ray: It’s ok as long as you are not criticising people in public. Just stating points of view and facts is ok.
Vicky: I try and do it gently - more of a 'hey have you seen this link' rather than a direct 'you are wrong' particularly on a public wall.
Research Questionnaire: Have you ever been corrected in a social media space? How was it?
Maggie: Embarrassing - the same way that being corrected in a meeting or in a classroom would be
These responses sit within the context of participants describing social media as relatively permanent and scrutinised spaces. The increasing newsworthiness of apparently trivial social-media stories (e.g. Bloxham 2012, BBC 2012a, etc.) that elevate the content of individual tweets or blog posts to national news items may be reinforcing this perception that social media is a permanent and high stakes space for participation.
Discomfort with public correction is clearly not limited to concerns around permanence or surveillance. A number of participants reported their own steering and correction behaviours in ways that indicated the empathetic nature of concerns around public correction. For instance James describes his provocations to test the mood and expertise of his network of peers:
James: Actually sometimes I pose questions or assumptions I know are wrong just to see how the crowdsource reaction goes. But it can be a occasionally a bit alarming to be told you're wrong, especially if the teller is lacking in charm and diplomacy
Despite encouraging debate and disagreement James also voices his discomfort with public correction. This is also reflected in Abby’s response to being asked if she had ever offered advice to steer or correct a peer:
Abby: yes, I did, and they indicated agreement - but I felt badly and wondered if they felt i was being mean
This thread of empathetic concern for reputation of both the individual and their organisation was strongly and repeatedly voiced. Many participants reported that their solution to avoiding damaging a peer’s reputation, standing, or pride, was to provide a correction or steer, related to a public comment, in a private space such as an email or a Direct Message[1].
Acts of private correction are a sensitive solution to the risk of loss of face or reputation, but they do create challenging issues. If misunderstandings or errors are made in public but corrections or steers are being made in private then, whilst a constructive learning experience does take place for the individuals privy to the private exchange, there is a risk that others present in the public space may not benefit from that steer or correction. This is particularly problematic as many participants in this research – and indeed many privacy campaigners - see social media as a relatively permanent medium. This means that traces of learning exchanges and discussions may remain public and accessible for the long term but the version of record may be left in an inaccurate or problematic state due to the absence of additional private steers, correction or advice that informed the original exchanges.
Social media has a reputation, although disputed (e.g. Gladwell 2010), as a more transparent and democratised space for discourse but fears of being publicly corrected – whether at the time of posting or at a later date – and the practice of private correction denies much of the potential for vicarious learning, for further peer support or for peer review of the information shared. Whilst a publicly posted comment may be responded to or debated a private response cannot be scrutinised in the same way.
[1] Direct Messages are private exchanges between Twitter users: https://support.twitter.com/groups/31-twitter-basics/topics/109-tweets-messages/articles/14606-how-to-post-and-delete-direct-messages-dms
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