THE UNFRIENDING PERFORMANCE: THE LOGIC OF DISCONNECTIVE ACTION IN CRISES

Abstract

This research examines the concept of "disconnective action" during crises, positing it as a necessary counterpart to "connective action" (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012). While digital media is typically lauded for fostering connectivity during socio-political controversies, it also presents affordances for disconnectivity, such as unfriending, unfollowing, and banning. This project aims to understand the dynamics and implications of digital disconnection, particularly during crises that serve as catalysts for revealing divergent opinions among social network users (Sibona, 2014; John & Dvir-Gvirsman, 2015; John & Gal, 2018). The theoretical backdrop of this study involves "disconnective power" (Light & Cassidy, 2014), which refers to the ability of dominant actors to employ digital media as tools for political, cultural, and social fragmentation. The research proposes that this form of power is particularly evident in the strategic use of digital technologies to isolate political systems and promote societal disintegration. Accordingly, the new forms of propaganda utilize disconnective affordances to undermine cross-conflict horizontal networks. By framing disconnection as a performative "speech act" (Austin,1962; Butler, 1990) and examining the role of social media as both a unifying and divisive force, this study contributes to a nuanced understanding of digital interaction in times of socio-political unrest. Over five years, data on public unfriending announcements were collected, particularly from Russian-speaking Facebook users during the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war. The research reveals the dominant logics behind publicized disconnective actions and the influence of individual users in initiating broader disconnective trends.

Full text

Selected Papers of #AoIR2024:
The 25th Annual Conference of the
Association of Internet Researchers
Sheffield, UK / 30 Oct - 2 Nov 2024
Suggested Citation (APA): Asmolov, G., & Logunova, O. (2024, October). The Unfriending
Performance: The Logic of Disconnective Action in Crises presented at AoIR2024: The 25th Annual
Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers. Sheffield, UK: AoIR. Retrieved from
http://spir.aoir.org.
THE UNFRIENDING PERFROMANCE: THE LOGIC OF
DISCONNECTIVE ACTION IN CRISES
Gregory Asmolov
King’s College London
Olga Logunova
King’s College London
Introduction:
A broad literature addresses the role of crises as times of increasing connectivity and
triggers for manifestations of "connective action" (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012), where
digital media serve as organizing agents. However, crisis situations can also be seen as
times for escalation of disconnectivity, relying on affordances that facilitate severing of
social ties (e.g., unfriending, unfollowing, or banning). Therefore, alongside the logic of
connective action, there is a need to explore the logic of disconnective action as a
process of social untying where digital media serve as disorganizing agents. This
analysis should be seen in the context of the rise of disconnective power (Light &
Cassidy, 2014), as the capacity of hegemonic actors to rely on disconnective
affordances to advance their political goals through the facilitation of fragmentation. In
this light, an analysis of the logic of disconnective action aims to understand the role of
social media in crises within the context of the tension between connectivity and
disconnectivity.
Conceptual framework:
Crisis situations can be considered explosions of hidden social heterogeneity, where
people discover unknown opinions of their "friends" about specific situations (Schwarz &
Shani, 2016, p. 416). Increasing attention has been given to the phenomenon of
disconnectivity in the context of conflicts (John & Dvir-Gvirsman, 2015; John & Gal,
2018). However, there is a challenge in exploring disconnection since disconnective
action is often hidden by social networking platforms (John & Nissenbaum, 2019).
Therefore, research on unfriending has mainly relied on data collection through
interviews and surveys of users, allowing analysis of the motivations behind unfriending

decisions. A phenomenon neglected as an object of investigation has been the public
announcement of cases of unfriending.
Conceptualizing disconnection as an online "speech act" (Austin, 1962) that exercises
"sovereignty over one’s personal public sphere" (John & Gal, 2018, p. 2971) and as a
performative act (Butler, 1990) that sets social boundaries in crises offers an opportunity
for a quantitative turn in exploring disconnection. This research is focused on a
disconnective act as a performative act that both offers and implements a structure of
social categorization based on an attitude/position toward the crisis. Disconnective acts
include online posts that engage publicly with disconnective practices. The performance
of disconnection can be considered as a performative boundary-management practice,
while crisis offers a stage for disconnective action. The analysis of disconnective
performance allows to explore how disconnective power operates. The research seeks
to identify the dominant forms, functions and drivers of disconnective action in a context
of crisis.
Methods
To consider the role of disconnective power in authoritarian environments, the data
collection focused on public posts addressing unfriending practices gathered in the
Russian-speaking segment of Facebook. The Russia Internet presented a
methodological opportunity to explore disconnection in networks with a high level of
political heterogeneity related to several factors including the political transformation of
Russia toward increasingly authoritarian state and a war, where a significant number of
users from both sides of the conflict speak the same language and use the same
platforms. Relying on social media listening methodology (Reid & Duffy, 2018) the data
collection focused on mentions with disconnectivity wording from Facebook public posts
for the given period. The data collection relied on two phases:
1. Attitudes towards Covid-19 pandemic and vaccination
2. Disconnection following Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine
The first phase of this project identified variables that assist in detecting disconnective
waves during crises. It also allowed to identify viral disconnective effect when a chain of
disconnective acts triggered by one post and discuss the role of disconnective leaders
that play a role in shaping the logic of disconnection a strategic behaviour. This phase
also allowed to identify the resources of online heterogeneity including classmates,
neighbors, acquaintance from dating apps and family members.
The second phase illustrated the framework's value based on the analysis of 78,512
public posts collected from Facebook starting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine in
February 2022. The analysis detected several waves of disconnection after the Russian
invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, related to the start of military aggression, the
celebration of Victory Day in WWII, and the large-scale military mobilization of Russian
citizens in Autumn 2022. The celebration of Victory Day in WWII was chosen as the
empirical case that allows to identify the logics of publicized disconnective acts.
Empirical case:
Scholars highlight the dialectical nature of memory as a continuous conflict about the
history between “a spectrum of official and other narratives” that takes place in the
public sphere (Blacker et al., 2013). An escalating clash between competing memory
narratives is observed in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war (Bernstein, 2016;
Gauffman, 2015; Makhortykh, 2017; Zavadski and Toepfl, 2019). Scholars highlight how

the past becomes a resource for propaganda, using historical events to introduce
interpretative frameworks for describing current events. With the connective turn
(Hoskins, 2011), the contest between history-related narratives increasingly rely on
digital mediation (Fridman, 2022). To delve into the nature of the disconnective turn, this
explores disconnection related to the celebration of May 9th (Victory Day in Russia).
Drawing on data collected from Russian-speaking Facebook during the first two weeks
of May 2021, 2022 and 2023, the analysis identifies a dataset of posts that present a
performative case of disconnection within the context of the Victory Day. The
disconnection takes place in the context of the contest between hegemonic vs. critical
narratives of memory namely unfriending due to someone’s refusal to celebrate May 9th
and unfriending due to celebration of May 9th. The Victory Day is seen as an opportunity
to "clean" the feed", while others report numerous unfriending instances. In addition the
analysis identifies a set of symbolic triggers of unfriending including flags and George’s
Ribbon (the Russian symbol of celebration) on personal profile photos. The analysis
identifies several logics of disconnective acts that constitute the repertoire of
disconnective action :
• “Unfriended”: A public announcement of a specific case of unfriending as a
sanction for a specific opinion
• An “unfriending warning” that anyone supporting a specific opinion will be
unfriended
• “Unfriend me”: a call to action from any friends supporting a particular
opinion/person
• “You may unfriend me”: recognizing that a statement about controversial issue
may lead to unfriending by others
The data also indicates how disconnection is linked to digital vigilantism as a form of
participatory regulation and surveillance (Loveluck, 2019). A call to action to unfriend
someone due to celebrating/ignoring the Victory Day can be seen as a manifestation of
the disconnective surveillance.
Conclusion
Digitalization is often associated with reconfigurations of global politics, emphasizing the
increasing role of networks (Castells, 1996) and networked individuals (Rosenau, 2007).
Yet, these technologies also enable a reversal of global political transformations.
Autocratic regimes leverage digital mechanisms to advance fragmentation in their quest
to preserve political legitimacy. The rise of disconnective politics relies on disconnective
affordance as a major element in the technology of power. The new forms of digital
authoritarianism harness the affordances of disconnection to transform network society
into disconnective society that relies on the application of disconnective power. That
is the power of disintegration and untying in different spheres of lives, starting from
economic relationships and ending with personal interactions.
The discussion of how memory operates by leveraging the affordance of disconnection
allows to examine the manifestation of disconnective power in the context of "memory
wars". The disconnective memory plays a substantial role in shaping individual and
collective identities by offering new forms of categorization and shaping social
boundaries in conflicts. The disconnective turn can be seen in the context of the
increasing capacity of the institutional actor to rely on digital affordance to achieve their
political interests through interreference within horizontal structures and restructuring
the relationships between individual users.

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