Facebook Live as a Recordmaking Technology

  • Rebecka Sheffield

Abstract

Facebook Live allows any registered user of the Facebook social networking platform to stream videos using a mobile phone camera over WiFi or cellular networks without any additional hardware or software. For social movement participants, the technology not only captures collective actions in real time, but also communicates larger movement goals in ways previously unimaginable. Despite advantages, however, the long-term viability of video recordings created with Facebook Live and even the mid-term prognosis about their future use, preservation, and reuse within and outside of Facebook remain to be seen. In other words, using Facebook Live might constitute a new form of communicating or recordmaking, but this practice does not necessarily translate into recordkeeping. Drawing from archival theory, social movement theory, and communications studies, this paper uses the case of Facebook Live to explore some theoretical or methodological implications arising from the disruptive nature of Facebook Live as a recordmaking technology. It also explores the distinction between making records and recordkeeping practices.

RÉSUMÉ

Facebook Live permet à tout usager inscrit à la plateforme de réseau social Facebook de diffuser des vidéos en direct sur des réseaux wifi ou cellulaires, à partir de l’appareil-photo de leur téléphone portable, sans le recours à d’autre matériel informatique ou logiciel. Pour les acteurs de mouvements sociaux, non seulement la technologie capte-t-elle des actions collectives en temps réel, mais elle diffuse aussi les grands objectifs de ces mouvements de façon auparavant inimaginable. Malgré ses avantages, cependant, la viabilité à long-terme des enregistrements vidéos créés sur Facebook Live, et même le pronostic à moyenterme de son utilisation future, de sa préservation et de sa réutilisation dans Facebook ou à l’extérieur, reste à voir. En d’autres mots, se servir de Facebook Live peut représenter une nouvelle forme de communication ou de création de documents, mais cette pratique ne se traduit pas nécessairement en conservation de documents. En se basant sur la théorie archivistique, la théorie des mouvements sociaux et des études en communication, ce texte se sert du cas de Facebook Live pour explorer quelques conséquences théoriques ou méthodologiques possibles qui découlent de la nature perturbatrice de Facebook Live comme technologie de création de document. Il explore aussi la distinction entre les pratiques de création de documents et les pratiques de gestion de documents.

Author Biography

Rebecka Sheffield

Rebecka Sheffield is an archival educator and researcher based in Hamilton, Ontario. She holds a graduate degree in archives and records management, and completed a PhD at the University of Toronto’s iSchool in collaboration with the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies. Rebecka is currently appointed as a senior lecturer at the Simmons School of Library and Information Science, Boston, where she has taught records management, digital stewardship, outreach and advocacy, and archival methods and services. She has previously served as Executive Director of the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, where she began as a volunteer archivist in 2007.

Archivaria 85 cover
Published
2018-05-04
How to Cite
Sheffield, Rebecka. 2018. “Facebook Live As a Recordmaking Technology”. Archivaria 85 (May), 96-121. https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/13632.
Issue
Archivaria 85 (Spring 2018)
Section
Articles

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