Sculpting digital voids: The politics of forgetting on Facebook

2020 ◽  
pp. 135485652090739
Author(s):  
Benjamin N. Jacobsen
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Emotional Response ◽  
The Self ◽  
Digital Archiving ◽  
Theoretical Contribution ◽  
Memory Traces ◽  
Media Objects ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Ubiquitous Presence

In an age where modes of storing and retaining data have become a ubiquitous presence in society, the issue of forgetting is becoming increasingly problematic. This piece figures as a theoretical contribution to the issue of forgetting in relation to social media platforms by looking at the Facebook memory app, Year in Review. Drawing on Terry Eagleton’s notion of ‘sculpting voids’, it explores the conceptual implications of digital archiving on memory, forgetting and, ultimately, the self. I argue that there is an emerging politics of forgetting and invisibility on Facebook, exploring the Eric Meyer incident on Year in Review in 2014. This incident resulted in Facebook seeking to automatically and algorithmically prevent media traces that might evoke painful memories of deceased family members and ex-partners from resurfacing on users’ yearly Year in Review videos. This practice of sculpting digital voids is conceptualized as an algorithmic mode of classification, a way of sorting people’s media objects such as photos on Facebook depending on the inferred emotional response these memory traces will elicit. Because of their ‘imagined’ nature and generative force, these practices need to be understood in relation to power. Sculpting digital voids, therefore, figures as a critical and conceptual framework for better understanding of how (in)visibilities and power relations are shaped on social media platforms.

Online Identity Analysis Model

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 89-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mónica Aresta ◽  
Luís Pedro ◽  
Carlos Santos ◽  
António Moreira
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Research Study ◽  
The Self ◽  
Professional Lives ◽  
Analysis Model ◽  
Online Identity ◽  
Digital Environments ◽  
Online Environments ◽  
Digital Spaces

Social media is changing the way individuals collaborate, learn and express themselves, allowing for the construction of an identity and a reputation that encompasses over many other digital spaces. In a context where the online identity of individuals may reveal the sum of their experiences and skills, reflecting the path of their personal, academic and professional lives, this paper introduces a conceptual framework and a model developed to analyse the construction of the self in online environments. The model was used in a research study developed at University of Aveiro, Portugal, aiming to analyse how identity is built and managed in formal and informal digital environments and reveals the existence of two main online identity profiles – context driven and user-driven identity profiles.

scholarly journals The Dislocation of News Journalism: A Conceptual Framework for the Study of Epistemologies of Digital Journalism

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 259-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mats Ekström ◽  
Oscar Westlund
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
News Media ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Digital Journalism ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Truth Claims ◽  
Journalism Research ◽  
Knowledge Claims

This article focuses on news journalism, social media platforms and power, and key implications for epistemology. The conceptual framework presented is intended to inspire and guide future studies relating to the emerging sub-field of journalism research that we refer to as “Epistemologies of Digital Journalism”. The article discusses the dependencies between news media and social media platforms (non-proprietary to the news media). The authority and democratic role of news journalism pivot on claims that it regularly provides accurate and verified public knowledge. However, how are the epistemic claims of news journalism and the practices of justifications affected by news journalism’s increased dependency on social media platforms? This is the overall question discussed in this article. It focuses on the intricate power dependencies between news media and social media platforms and proceeds to discuss implications for epistemology. It presents a three-fold approach differentiating between (1) articulated knowledge and truth claims, (2) justification in the journalism practices and (3) the acceptance/rejections of knowledge claims in audience activities. This approach facilitates a systematic analysis of how diverse aspects of epistemology interrelate with, and are sometimes conditioned by, the transformations of news and social media.

scholarly journals Social Media User-Influencer Congruity

2022 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Nida Tafheem ◽  
Hatem El-Gohary ◽  
Rana Sobh
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Social Relationship ◽  
Substantial Impact ◽  
Social Media Platform ◽  
Brand Engagement ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
The Relationship

This paper explores and inspects the effect of user-influencer congruence on social media platforms para-social relationships and consumer brand engagement (COBRA). In addition, the paper inspects the influence of para-social relationships on consumers brand in addition to the influence of social media platform type in moderating the effect of personality on para-social relationships and COBRA. A conceptual framework is developed to demonstrate the proposed relationships. Data was collected using online questionnaires, with 180 valid responses. The results suggest that user-influencer personality congruence is a salient predictor of para-social relationships and COBRA and that para-social relationship(s) have a substantial impact on customer brand engagement. Nevertheless, the results also indicated that social media platform type do not influence the relationship between congruity and para-social relationships or COBRA.

#fernweh #wanderlust #explore: Reise- »Erzählungen« auf Instagram

Rhetorik ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Kuhlhüser
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Media Use ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
The Self ◽  
Social Media Use ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Communicative Patterns ◽  
The Way

AbstractNowadays, we live in mediatized environments, which are more and more shaped by visual means of expression. Visual social media platforms, such as Instagram, Flickr, Tumblr, Pinterest and Snapchat, are now the tools of communication and self-representation - especially for the younger generations. How users of these visual social media use hashtags and pictures in a rhetorical way to realize their personal representation is shown in this article by analyzing ›travel-narrations‹ of public accounts on Instagram. After a short theoretical approach, which includes the application of the strategic rhetorical process on the social practices on Instagram, the hashtag and the picture are characterized as rhetorical instruments. The analysis showed that there are specific practices of idealized self-representation as a certain type of traveler and rhetorical-communicative patterns, concerning the way hashtags are applied and pictures are uploaded by the users. The result is that even on a mainly visual platform, like Instagram, pictures as a form of communication are too undefined without the textual component in form of hashtags, which are essential contextgiving resources. Thus, the successful realization of the self-representation includes both communication forms, which dialectically build meaning together.

scholarly journals SME Platforms as Business Models: A User-Centric Activity-System Approach

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (64) ◽  
pp. 52-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuela Gutierrez-Leefmans ◽  
Christopher Patrick Holland
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Web 2.0 ◽  
Business Strategy ◽  
System Approach ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Value Proposition ◽  
Activity System ◽  
Theoretical Contribution ◽  
Social Media Platforms

The dramatic rise of social media platforms for individuals has attracted a lot of attention in the academic and business literature. Web 2.0 and social media technology has also been used to develop platforms for entrepreneurs and Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs), which offer relevant information content and networking opportunities. Although there has been considerable growth and use in SME platforms there is a dearth of research into their strategy and operations. We take Zott and Amit’s activity-system approach, to analyse a theoretical sample of four leading UK SME platforms and develop causal maps of their business models. The theoretical contribution is to propose a general framework that features the dynamic nature of business models by describing and explaining the complex interactions and influences between the business model elements of business strategy, value proposition, end-user and Web 2.0. The paper also makes an empirical contribution by testing the activity-system approach and demonstrating its utility and validity in a new organisational context. Results show that user acquisition and retention strategies (part of the business strategy) enable both the platform´s value proposition and the revenue model, where partnerships and Web 2.0 technology play a key role in most cases. This has important implications for Marketing managers and for strategy theorists.

scholarly journals Beyond Neutrality: Conceptualizing Platform Values

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Blake Hallinan ◽  
Rebecca Scharlach ◽  
Limor Shifman
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
User Generated Content ◽  
Policy Documents ◽  
Strategic Role ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Implicit And Explicit

Abstract Social media platforms are prominent sites where values are expressed, contested, and diffused. In this article, we present a conceptual framework for studying the communication of values on and through social media composed of two dimensions: scale (from individual users to global infrastructures) and explicitness (from the most explicit to the invisible). Utilizing the model, we compare the communication of two values—engagement and authenticity—in user-generated content and policy documents on Twitter and Instagram. We find a split between how users and platforms frame these concepts and discuss the strategic role of ambiguity in value discourse, where idealistic meanings invoked by users positively charge the instrumental applications stressed by platforms. We also show how implicit and explicit articulations of the same value can contradict each other. Finally, we reflect upon tensions within the model, as well as the power relations between the personal, cultural, and infrastructural levels of platform values.

scholarly journals Public Emotional Response on the Black Lives Matter Movement in the Summer of 2020 as Analyzed Through Twitter

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 69
Author(s):  
Laura Patnaude ◽  
Carolina Vásquez Lomakina ◽  
Akshat Patel ◽  
Gulhan Bizel
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Mobile Technology ◽  
Rapid Growth ◽  
Emotional Response ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Key Terms

The rapid growth of social media platforms and mobile technology presents the opportunity to analyze the sentiments Tweets express. For this paper, Twitter will be the focus of study related to Black Lives Matter throughout the summer of 2020. In addition, the language and sentiment at that particular time are evaluated to uncover public opinion and track how it changed throughout a season. Although a tweet may be classified as positive or negative, there are key terms and tones used with both classifications. By understanding what makes a tweet positive or negative, the root of public opinion can be identified.

scholarly journals ‘THE GREAT YOUTUBE PURGE OF WRONGTHINK’: ALTRIGHT ADAPTATIONS IN A CHANGING PLATFORM ECOLOGY

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Burnett ◽  
Fotini P. Moura Trancoso
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
The Self ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Specific Approach ◽  
Technologies Of The Self ◽  
The Third ◽  
Online Spaces ◽  
Social Media Platforms

Social media platforms are under increasing pressure to counter racist and other extremist discourses online. The perceived "independence" of platforms such as YouTube has attracted AltRight "micro-celebrities" (Lewis, 2020) that build alternative networks of influence. This paper examines how the discourses of one online AltRight "manfluencer" responds to tightening controls over allowable speech. We present analysis of the YouTube channel of the Swedish far right bodybuilder and motivational speaker Marcus Follin, or "The Golden One". His specific approach to politics includes fitspiration, motivational speaking, and other kinds of neoliberal technologies of the self that in his ideology come together as a call to defend white motherlands and join hands between European nations to fight against globalism and multiculturalism. Through conducting post-foundational discourse analysis of a corpus of 40 videos, we identify three prominent strategies that he uses to respond to increased control of online spaces. The first is to increase cultural encryption, constructing social media as territories in a “metapolitical” war will be won culturally. The second is partial articulation, where he stays focused on positive messages, and his ideology is explained as being about love, not hate. The third is migration, diversification, and new platform-specific foci, through which he finds new and ‘independent’ online spaces and builds new audiences. We conclude that we need more nuanced understandings of how far right ideologies might thrive and build resilience in response to pressure on their speech.

Brand yourself, design your future: Portfolio-building in the social media age

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (9) ◽  
pp. 1891-1909 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leah Scolere
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Graphic Design ◽  
Creative Industries ◽  
Media Ecology ◽  
The Self ◽  
Creative Work ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
Depth Interviews

While the portfolio-building narrative has long been established as central to work in the creative industries, the evolving form of the creative portfolio as a key component of the self-brand and the implications on creative work in the age of social media have been comparatively underexplored. This empirical project draws on a year-long qualitative study composed of in-depth interviews of 56 graphic design professionals about their use of social media platforms that cater to creative professionals. This study identifies the social media logics of the design portfolio as multi-platformed, connected, and temporally dynamic, suggesting a new pace, constancy, and subjectivity of what it means for cultural producers to build, maintain, and distribute their portfolio of projects to sustain their creative careers. As the portfolio becomes digitally distributed across a social media ecology, the labor of portfolio production for creative aspirants becomes never-ending and requires an intensified performative of “always designing.”

scholarly journals Media forensics on social media platforms: a survey

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecilia Pasquini ◽  
Irene Amerini ◽  
Giulia Boato
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Open Systems ◽  
Forensic Analysis ◽  
Provenance Analysis ◽  
Multimedia Forensics ◽  
Media Forensics ◽  
Media Objects ◽  
Social Media Platforms

AbstractThe dependability of visual information on the web and the authenticity of digital media appearing virally in social media platforms has been raising unprecedented concerns. As a result, in the last years the multimedia forensics research community pursued the ambition to scale the forensic analysis to real-world web-based open systems. This survey aims at describing the work done so far on the analysis of shared data, covering three main aspects: forensics techniques performing source identification and integrity verification on media uploaded on social networks, platform provenance analysis allowing to identify sharing platforms, and multimedia verification algorithms assessing the credibility of media objects in relation to its associated textual information. The achieved results are highlighted together with current open issues and research challenges to be addressed in order to advance the field in the next future.

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