How Tea Shop Culture Transitioned in to Virtual Communities

Introduction

Over the past few decades, technological innovations have progressively increased connecting humans all around the world. Since the 1960s to 1990s social capital decreased due to rising technological trends with less civic engagement (Putnam 1995). But it has been replaced by social spheres where information exchange was transferred via networks. Networks constitute the new social morphology of our society, offering greater mobility; increased and linked to people rather than a physical place as argued by Castells (1996). This networks began with the telegraph, took root with the landline and boomed into complexity from satellites to television to the internet as discussed by Ling and Donner( 2009).

From early 1990s, a new type of sociality emerged called virtual communities. Virtual communities are formed when individuals interact through social media platforms, potentially crossing geographical borders and political barriers and pursue a kinship with mutual interests and goals Rheingold (1993). They are built broadly with an active larger number of ties that are not bound spatiotemporally. Green(2011) coined the term “miniaturized mobilities” which he argued were essential to the current phase of development of contemporary societies, that such mobilities facilitated an intensification of ‘life on the move’ through advances in new portable pieces of equipment. The oldest miniaturization of mobile technologies dates to 1948 when Bell telephone laboratories invented the transistor. Over the past thirty years, miniaturization has progressively increased with the expansion of new technologies. Developments in microelectronics for the portable production consumption and transfer of music and data from the late 1970s. Miniaturized mobilities are part of a continuous coordination of communications, social networks and the mobile self.

This paper will take a particular virtual community on social media network of Twitter into consideration. Social networks sites enjoy wide popularity in the cyberspace, embedded with chat technologies and various other features. Twitter represents a microblog, where you could communicate in a broadcasting medium with a limited number of words. (Chugunov et al. 2016). Rheingold (1993) argued that in the study of social relations on the internet defined the virtual community as a kind of smart mobs, as social aggregation that emerges from the internet when enough people carry on public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling to form webs of personal relationship in cyberspace.

This paper explores whether the virtual communities on Twitter are real and the various means by which a virtual community engenders and upholds relationships in milieu with Miller (2011). It is to be argued that the virtual community discussions on Twitter are an extension of the tea shop debate culture prevalent in Kerala. Through three case studies, this paper analyses how twitter helps in building small communities, how the platform helps foster specialized relationships within communities and finally the virtual space of twitter as a collective? with its own ideological/cultural convergences.

Case study 1- Building communities

The microblogging platform of Twitter is unstructured and fast, attracting attention from both specialist and lay users. One of the primary function of Twitter hashtags was to encourage aggregation of information within Twitter through a system of linkage. However, hashtags have evolved and are now serving as a “shared conversation marker”, where a user deliberately appends hashtags to their posts to join collaborative discussions (Bruns & Brugess 2012). Hence they grew companionship and retweeted the ones they liked and followed the people they wanted to connect with (Daniel 2011).

The case study of this paper explores a virtual community in Twitter with participants from different class and caste constructs who nonetheless share an ethnic identity. The participants of this community come from the Indian state of Kerala and they speak the language Malayalam and identify themselves as “Malayali’s”.

#Malayalis (Appendix b) is one such hashtag trend that emerged on Twitter to exhibit specific characteristics of this community and thereby build a virtual kinship.

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Figure 1: Image showing #Malayalis hashtag example (Twitter 2017)

Twitter purveyors use the hashtag #Malayalis (see Figure 1) to associate everything related to their ethnic identity from food to memes and slur at the government. The use of marker elicits a larger response to daily events denoted- food, films, events and the resulting virtual conversation threaded via the hashtag are carried out in a fashion that mimics a current day discussion in a Malayali tea shop.

According to Maslow’s (1968) hierarchy of needs, social connectedness is important for self-actualisation process. Thus, telephone, the internet is aiding to feel connected with outside world. It could also be considered that the individual’s aspirations may arise as goals are achieved on the one hand, but on they may experience frustration could happen when goals elude them. It could be argued that engaging in virtual communities could be an indication of frustration from real life. The participants can express a wide range of emotions from aggression to escapism and repression. Miller (2011) suggests that people who have extreme offline sociality might take refuge in an online mediated sphere. Thus, virtual community is a safety net offering support equivalent to the one lacking in real life.

The community which is to be analysed in this essay, the Kerala society met at tea shops(Appendix A) in every corner, to get involved in exuberant political/socio-cultural debates in the past decades. The culture could be similar Salons in 16th century Italy as discovered by Horace to “either to please or to educate” about current affairs and therefore gathering were often followed by discussions. Tea shops served as an intermix of different sectors of people belonging to different religions and castes and sharing their ideologies and principles. Jeffrey (1992) notes that these tea shop discussions were noisily promiscuous and sites were contents of a newspaper was dissected along with a cup of tea.

Fernback (1997 cited by Jones 1998) has also argued that cyberspace is a reconceived arena for the public to engage in social political and economic actions. The culture of internet thrives on the free and open usage of technological creativity aiming at reinventing society. It is within this context that I contend for s virtual “tea shop community” of Twitter users of Malayali identity. This is also crucial when large-scale labour-related migration from Kerala to the middle east and other foreign countries occurred in the 60s (Thomas 2017).

Since the 1990s, interpersonal communities have significantly developed, and the “person has become the portal”, where a person manoeuvred ties, such that a personalised connection is sustained (Wellman et al. 1991) and people control distant connections essentially called weak ties, connecting individuals to outside world. (Elliot and urry 2010). Thus, when most young citizens became immigrants and the only way to be connected back home was through the internet (Thomas 2017).

In compliance to this Turkle (2006) argues, that “we expect more from technology and less from each other”. A connection does not inherently make a community and she further examines and points out that” Our bonds are less meaningful and less easy”. While further remarks out that humans are missing out the raw human part of being with each other and that we are very lonely.

In contrast to this Granovetter (1973) points out that “there is strength in weak ties”.

“The strength of a tie is a combination of the amount of time, the emotional intensity, the intimacy and the reciprocal services which characterise of that time” (Granovetter, p. 1361).”

These weak ties provide a bridge other than the close-knitted relationships towards the outside world. It could be a reason to grow fondness with the strangers or “weak ties”. Digital technologies also facilitate the mobilization of feelings and affect, memories and desires dreams and anxieties as proposed by (Green 2011). They can extend a person’s network beyond normal reach. Thus, for a community separated by their homeland, these online networks provided personal support to them (DasGupta 2005).

The question remains: how does the community work together as an entity? Ling and donner (2009) notes that when a new technology is introduced it reforms the society around it. The interaction between two interlocutors has the capability to put forward the content in order to contribute to a conversation.

This is how Twitter came in to play, Twitter allowed a group of people to talk about anything they wanted. (Chugunov et al. 2011) largely, the link connecting the users to one another and their emotions presence online is their language. Twitter is also a place for rants and trolls, debate and exclusive for spreading breaking news (Brems et al. 2016). These interactions are no doubt also influence by their habitus, growing up in a tea shop culture, where they could share exuberant exchange of dialogues (Jeffrey 1992). However, their reformed sphere within urban India or abroad does not physically allow them to interact in the same manner or voice their concerns about day to day affairs in the intimate ways afforded by tea shop banter.

Case study 2- Twitter in building relationships

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Figure 2: Newspaper story when a Twitter couple got married (The New Indian Express 2016).

This case study explores Twitter as a virtual community that fosters real-life relationships. A couple who met each other on Twitter and got married in the year 2016 (see Figure 2), Their wedding was celebrated within the Malayali twitter community in real and virtual spheres, with many of their online friends attending and witnessing their special day first hand. since It was the first of many marriages and many tweeps attended the wedding. The wedding was further live tweeted from the location.

This was the first of many weddings that evolved out of Twitter’s Malayali community. Yet, how does a virtual community generate the intimacies that can translate to a real Institution like marriage? I argue that the act of chatting with strangers with shared interest is key to the generation of emotional intimacies within the Malayali Twitter community. (Cairncross 1997).

Why is talking to stranger’s cathartic? Perhaps our fondness for confiding secrets to strangers are due to “strength in weak ties” (Granovetter 1973). It could be relatively easy to talk to a stranger than a close friend or family (Burkeman 2015). The human capability to be connected could be analysed from network sociology. As argued by (Wellman et al. 1996) new media systems require a considerable switch from close-knit groups to loosely bounded social networks of relations, which he termed as” networked individualism”. Networked individualism presumes that the people who share common interest form a specialised relationship. The new media offer individuals the freedom to connect and pick the fellow group members. (Dijck &Poell 2013)

These specialized relations were changing the way; relationships have seen even thou, it all or experienced and what is started in virtual sphere finding ways of transference in the real world.

Case study 3- Twitter as a virtual community

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Figure 3: Image showing TL (TimeLine) Publishers (Twitter 2017).

This case study discusses TL publishers (see Figure 3), a publishing group that was borne out of Malayali Twitter Its origins led the entrepreneurs it to call it Timeline (TL)Publishers Their debut book was released in 2017 featuring the stories of bloggers on Twitter.

The name of the book is “നീല ചുമര് (Blue wall), a literal and symbolic metaphor for the Twitter Timeline which is also originally blue. Twitter was essential in connecting these aspiring writers together and publishers. The platform allowed for TL group everyone to not only voice their opinions but to start building a group together with a tangible physical product as an outcome even thou the two main personnel lived 500 miles apart from each other.

Castell (1996) argues that computer-mediated communication(CMC) will not be instrumental as a medium for communication in the foreseeable future. However, Castells has noted this in 1996 prior to the mobile communication revolution. In contrast, CMC post-1990s are swiftly developing and the members are linked together via information gathering and seeking companionship, unhindered by spatial distance (Wellmann et al. 1996). Communities of interest, groups of people perhaps scattered all around the world, may have more in common than the people they interact daily. It is easier and less expensive for individuals to communicate with each other electronically (Cairncross 1997). In milieu with Miller (1993), Twitter provides an alternative buffer for self-conscious people to socially interact with each other. The data provided in social networks are easily accessed and Twitter enables people to research the person’s profile and tweets and this could be done anonymously, without the person knowing that they are being viewed upon.

In his, work Wellman remarks, “Communities are networks of interpersonal ties that provide sociability, support, information, a sense of belonging and social identity” (Wellmann 1996).

Does this definition of the community hold true for Malayali Twitter community? It can be argued that the community requires a physical space, to participate in any sociable event. But since this is a network with people coming from different and different social segment if life. While the network in question is one with people coming from diverse social segments of life, I contend that they do create a cyber version of a real community through their selective diversity. But unlike physical communities, virtual communities do not come together around a shared identity as proposed by Bennett and Segerberg (2011) but a shared cause. Anderson (1983) imagined a possibility of a community where the convergence of capitalism and print technology in diverse languages produced an “imagined community”, This new form of community is imagined because the smallest nation will not identify its smallest member but an image of the member will be fabricated in their minds. This suggests that media can be perpetuated through vernacular towards a mass audience. Hence, it could bring the community closer since they share the same ethnic identity.

The virtual community forms a kind of youth solidarity which is referring to a kinship among individuals to social networks and the standard of reciprocity and trustworthiness arises from them (Putnam 2001). This solidarity could be seen with the young users of Malayalam Twitter. The unity of views encourages them to conduct tweetups, (meeting Twitter users in real life). And to pursue relationships. (Chugnov et al. 2011).

Conclusion

Even thou not limited by physical proximity this community brought together a wide segment of people from different social strata. People sought social companionship with a sense of belonging through the social networks even though they hardly knew each other (Wellman et al. 1996).

Malayalam Twitter community is both collective and personal. The tweeps messages are reachable to a wide public, much like it engaged in debates prevalent in the tea shops (Appendix A). They conducted tweetups in virtual space and engaged this community collectively in socio-political and cultural spheres of Kerala in the absentia. They shared recipes, discussed movies and even used the portal as a dating app. The evidence from the cases studies suggests that the boundaries became permeable between the virtual and real spheres. Hence, these networks have a very higher degree of interdependence and reciprocity and are very real and active.

Do these virtual communities pose a threat to existing real communities? As argued by Mosco (2004) existing communities are strengthened by virtual communities. The inflow of information through computer-mediated networks created the way to gather new information therefore giving access to varied circles of people and thus expanding the probability of finding necessary sources who can solve problems.

This paper sides with Miller’s (2011) view on Malayalam Twitter Community helping grow a community in an online sphere by facilitating and organizing offline events. They exchanged ideas, gave support through replies and retweets. Indeed making the weak ties become stronger, holding the sentiments of Granovetter’s (1973) concept “Strength in weak ties”. Twitter turns out to be an instrument to cross-connectivity between social users with a pivotal aspect to solidarity in the modern era.

Appendixes

Appendix A: A tea shop in Kerala

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Figure 4: A cultural hub where debates about socio political cultural happened with a cup of tea Muttayath(2009).

Appendix B: A tweet highlighting #Malayalis

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Figure 5: Search result of #Malayalis (Twitter 2017)

Appendix C: Newspaper article about the TL publishers

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Figure 6: Story about independent publishing house from Malayalam Twitter Community (Twitter 2017)

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