Facebook Posts for University of Arizona's Wallyball Club

A university club is a small community that holds students with similar interests together. Just like any other community, harmonization between members is essential for the success of the community. Thus, club members try to find a convenient way to communicate with each other to make sure work goes as best as possible. For the wallyball club at the University of Arizona, Facebook post is the way they chose to be their way of communication.

"It's that time of the week yall!!!," "weee Xoxo gossip girl," "come at 7:30 k kewlllllll.

.." These sentences might be meaningless and not understandable in the English language, but in social media they make a lot of sense. Since the wallyball club at The University of Arizona uses Facebook to communicate, which is a popular social network, this kind of language is used in their posts.

Students tend to intentionally use wrong grammar and made-up words. They exaggerate with using punctuation and they use upper case letters too often.

Get quality help now

Bella Hamilton

Verified writer

Proficient in: Communication

5 (234)

“ Very organized ,I enjoyed and Loved every bit of our professional interaction ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

This use of informal kind of language adds a strong voice to the post and make the author's personality stands out more while formal language has a uniform voice and a lot of limitations. Therefore, students can learn more about the author's personality which helps break the ice and build an informal relationship between members, and that's most probably why the club members decided to choice Facebook posts as a communication tool.

The wallyball club members have their own private page on Facebook so students can have the freedom to write their thoughts without worrying about other people judging them, which made Facebook posts easier and more comfortable to write as members don't need to filter the words storm in their head before posting them on the Facebook page.

They're formed as short paragraphs, usually don't exceed four lines. This property of the Facebook posts serves well for students, because they're usually busy and don't have time to read nor to write long paragraphs.

The samples that I've studied were all written by the leader of the club. They all took the rule of announcements to the upcoming meeting time. The leader starts her posts by reminding them of how much the club should be important to them, for example, "by now you have realized that Wally is more important than studying and partying and eating and sleeping.

So come at 7:30 k," "not prepared for my accounting test but I am prepared for Wally." Location is never mentioned because it is firmed. Leaders usually feel the pressure of having the responsibility of keeping the club active and creating a one-family atmosphere between club members. This feeling can be seen in the announcements the club leader posts. The way she starts her posts makes members feel the need to show up during meeting time in order to show their loyalty by meeting her expectations from loyal members.

The announcement is then followed by a persuasive expression. She convince them to come to the meeting by guaranteeing them that they will have so much fun and that the game is going to be exceptionally enjoyable. The words she uses to describe the fun they will have are always extreme, and they are most of the time followed by multiple examination marks. This enthusiasm and great spirit she includes in her posts have a huge impact on the members as they get inflected by them to share the leader the same feelings. It is obvious that the author is intentionally using emotions to reach her goal and make sure members don't miss a meeting and enjoy their time spent on them.

Most of the samples I studied don't go any farther. So, this genre contain two main elements only, which is not surprising since Facebook posts are short. However, the author sometimes wants to add more information to the post. Each time she does that she starts a new line and write any additional announcements.

The club's Facebook page is private with exactly 14 members, who are the wallyball club members including their leader. Although everyone is welcome share their ideas on the page, club members prefer not to. Unless the leader is waiting for a response, members don't write anything on their Facebook page. This could be a result of the fact that they are so close together that they don't need the page to communicate regarding personal reasons.

The insistence of the club members to create a family-like relationship between them had resulted in having more personal tools of communication. Members get in touch with each other via phone calls and text messages. Facebook posts are only used for important announces regarding the club despite that this was not the intentional purpose of creating the Facebook page. The leader has become the official author in Facebook, and all of her posts are far away from personal.

Even though the Facebook posts are not serving the community the way it was planned to, but this came with a benefit. Because posts are shared with all members, side talks can get somewhat annoying. Members who are not involved with the talk will receive notifications about someone posting on their page, and having to check every time whether the post holds important information can get overwhelming. With the way the page is used now, every time a member receives a notification they know it is something related to the club, and reading it is not a waste of their precious time.