My gut instinct is not to apply the same frameworks to the product and social worlds, however. There is a double contingency in social interaction: that one actor knows the other has a choice. Social interaction systems are built around this negotiation.

That said, social media are designed, and use designs that evoke, interest, surprise and so on. It’s entirely possible that some users see through the design to the person at the other end; that other users take what they see at face value.

The degree of interaction or communication would then supply some of the content of the emotional experience/exchange…

Regs,
Pieter

bingo — one might frame “concerns” as values in action, or as the expression of impressions.

I like to use the term “interests.” It’s got a long-standing position in philosophy (human interests), and it gets around “reasons,” which are to me too close to “rationality.” Reasons can be brought to bear on interests, can be used in defense of claims. Including claims to truth, or other values. But interests also capture psychologically motivated “concerns.”

And the term has a nice kind of forward-leaning sound to it. Like “inclination.” Since our main interest is user contributions, these are all good. (It’s hard to measure/witness a user who has withdrawn her interest.)

I have a couple slideshows here that cover the relation between interest and competencies. Look for the Psychology of Social Media, and Competencies of Users slidehows:

http://www.slideshare.net/gravity7

After reading everything above, I’m surprised that the subjects ‘concerns’ (as in ‘Regard for or interest in something’) aren’t mentioned more. Concerns are much more detectable and actionable than values.

People have many concerns that may be stable or rapidly changing. Matching concerns and offerings between people make for the best online interaction and (eventually) relationships. For instance: “I want to have fun, and that what we have, together.”
It’s a trade, really.

That is an interesting approach. Although I still think that human values are of a major (albeit most of he time implicit) influence on peoples activities, we can now overcome this in your model. Yes, I would enjoy to see such a social value system in a social media platform.

So, I am thankful for these learnings, it really helps my thinking on value and meaning in the digital age.

I don’t think we should lose “values” from design disciplines and social media, even if there’s an endless debate around whether values are subjective, intersubjective, or objective! Without some system of capturing value and re-presenting value, long tails wouldn’t exist, and Netflix would be a little less intelligent in its movie recommendations.

I propose this as a compromise.

At the end of the day, social interaction design claims a) that all social media content starts with user contributions and b) therefore we start from user centricity. C) Users make free, self-interested, and (psychologically) motivated choices d) based on what they think is going on (how the site works, what for, what other people are doing there, etc. E) What users produce takes some form of communication: symbolic, gestural, or linguistic acts, as well as actions involving media forms (videos, games, etc). So f) values can be seen in what users leave behind, as well as in aggregations of user activity (tag clouds).

Theoretically, we can have meanings and values, both, and an interaction model that facilitates their production.

1. Values are held by people
2. Values do not express themselves. People express themselves.
3. Values are assigned, through meaningful acts, to things, choices, other people
4. Values are attributed through these acts but are separate from the motivation behind the user’s actions
5. In content forms produced by social media, values are expressed as attributions to these content forms
6. At which point a system can use hierarchies (ratings, rankings, other relations) and other ordering systems to render social systems

These social value systems can serve as ways of organizing content (lists), of social navigation (tag clouds), as rankings of people (popularity), and so on.

Would that work?