Below the Radar: Private Groups, Locked Platforms, and Ephemeral Content—Introduction to the Special Issue

This special issue of Social Media + Society originates from the first AoIR Flashpoint Symposium, entitled “Below the Radar: Private Groups, Locked Platforms and Ephemeral Content.” The aim of this conference was to investigate platform-driven changes and emerging practices of everyday-life content production occurring “below the radar” of internet research, or outside of previous standards of data visibility and accessibility on which most internet studies have been based over the last decade. In the current context, online spaces seem to be heading toward more circumscribed and unsteady forms of publicness, which contrast with the platform affordances upon which the theorization of networked publics has been built. Private groups, locked platforms, and ephemeral contents are some of the challenges that require the development of new perspectives and research tools capable of adapting to this shifting environment. In this introduction, we will illustrate how the theme of “below the radar” has evolved since the initial call thanks to the confrontation with the researchers who participated in the conference, and this special issue, and we will introduce the nine articles that make up the collection. These articles, which combine different research disciplines and techniques, provide a map of some of the most urgent theoretical, ethical, and methodological issues concerning the current transformations of the visibility regimes of online social action.

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Does context really collapse in social media interaction?

Applied Linguistics Review ◽

10.1515/applirev-2017-0119 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (2) ◽

pp. 251-279 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Malgorzata Szabla ◽

Jan Blommaert

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Social Action ◽

Social Life ◽

Social Space ◽

Normal Modes ◽

Online Communication ◽

Interactional Sociolinguistics ◽

Polish People ◽

Media Interaction ◽

Networked Publics

Abstract‘Context collapse’ (CC) refers to the phenomenon widely debated in social media research, where various audiences convene around single communicative acts in new networked publics, causing confusion and anxiety among social media users. The notion of CC is a key one in the reimagination of social life as a consequence of the mediation technologies we associate with the Web 2.0. CC is undertheorized, and in this paper we intend not to rebuke it but to explore its limits. We do so by shifting the analytical focus from “online communication” in general to specific forms of social action performed, not by predefined “group” members, but by actors engaging in emerging kinds of sharedness based on existing norms of interaction. This approach is a radical choice for action rather than actor, reaching back to symbolic interactionism and beyond to Mead, Strauss and other interactionist sociologists, and inspired by contemporary linguistic ethnography and interactional sociolinguistics, notably the work of Rampton and the Goodwins. We apply this approach to an extraordinarily complex Facebook discussion among Polish people residing in The Netherlands – a set of data that could instantly be selected as a likely site for context collapse. We shall analyze fragments in detail, showing how, in spite of the complications intrinsic to such online, profoundly mediated and oddly ‘placed’ interaction events, participants appear capable of ‘normal’ modes of interaction and participant selection. In fact, the ‘networked publics’ rarely seem to occur in practice, and contexts do not collapse but expand continuously without causing major issues for contextualization. The analysis will offer a vocabulary and methodology for addressing the complexities of the largest new social space on earth: the space of online culture.

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Introduction to the Social Media + Society Special Issue on Selfies: Me-diated Inter-faces

Social Media + Society ◽

10.1177/2056305116641344 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 2 (2) ◽

pp. 205630511664134 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Katie Warfield ◽

Carolina Cambre ◽

Crystal Abidin

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Special Issue ◽

The Social ◽

Media Society

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Populism in the era of Twitter: How social media contextualized new insights into an old phenomenon

New Media & Society ◽

10.1177/1461444819893978 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 22 (4) ◽

pp. 585-594 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Homero Gil de Zúñiga ◽

Karolina Koc Michalska ◽

Andrea Römmele

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Political Communication ◽

Data Driven ◽

The Political ◽

Political Systems ◽

Special Issue ◽

Emerging Democracies ◽

Media Society ◽

Established Democracies ◽

Political Realm

With the advent of social media, political communication scholars have systematically revised theories and empirical corollaries revolving media use and democracy at large. Interestingly, in about the same period of time, a reinvigorated political populism trend has taken place across different latitudes in the world. This widespread populist movement has expanded regardless of whether these political systems were established democracies, emerging democracies, or societies immersed in political contexts at peril. This essay serves as the introductory piece to a special issue on populism. First, it highlights the ways in which “populism,” being an old phenomenon, has further transpired into the political realm in the era of social media. Second, the essay seeks to better contextualize what populism is and how it has developed within today’s hybrid media society. Finally, this introduction also lays out the ground to six central theoretical and data-driven papers that encapsulate many of the important issues revolving the phenomenon of populism today.

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What's queer about Internet studies now?

First Monday ◽

10.5210/fm.v23i7.9254 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Jen Jack Gieseking ◽

Jessa Lingel ◽

Daniel Cockayne

Keyword(s):

Queer Theory ◽

Queer Studies ◽

The Internet ◽

Special Issue ◽

Internet Studies ◽

Lgbtq Studies ◽

Reading List ◽

The Past ◽

Online Spaces

Queerness owes much to the past, a past we can see playing out again and again in physical and online spaces. More than seeing the Internet as a tool for LGBTQ activism alone, our collective dialogue asks: what’s queer about the Internet? The interventions by queer theory and LGBTQ studies into Internet studies begets a new turn of phrase and a renewed queer studies in a terrain that queers have always made their own, i.e., online: Queer Internet Studies (QIS). The proceedings for the Queer Internet Studies Symposium 2 (QIS2) in Philadelphia in 2017 and the papers inspired from that gathering make up the heart of this collection. We also include a recommended reading list of sources that have inspired us in QIS. We planned the symposium and special issue without a prediction of what participants would say or do, and we were (and remain) shocked and encouraged by the excitement for making and sharing a space with, for, and about queerness. In its practice, QIS is a radical, fluid practice and project that remains porous still, even in the naming that we grant it here.

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Performances of the Online Self for Networked Audiences: An Introduction to the Special Issue

Journal of Human Values ◽

10.1177/0971685817733567 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 24 (1) ◽

pp. vii-xiii

Author(s):

Smeeta Mishra ◽

Amani Ismail

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Digital Media ◽

Meaning Making ◽

Special Issue ◽

Online Spaces ◽

Multiple Audiences ◽

Online Identities

Social media affordances enable us to construct multi-faceted online identities and personal brands that we use to engage and interact with audiences—defined and ambiguous, intended and unintended. There is a need to examine such online identities and associated micro-celebrity practices by users who appeal to multiple audiences through the strategic use of online spaces. In this special issue, we explore performances of our digital selves and the role played by active and interactive audiences in meaning-making within complex socio-political contexts while simultaneously attempting to understand varied positions of media refusal and enactments of digital media resistance.

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Twitter Campaigning Strategies in Australian Federal Elections 2013–2019

Social Media + Society ◽

10.1177/20563051211063462 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 7 (4) ◽

pp. 205630512110634

Author(s):

Axel Bruns ◽

Daniel Angus ◽

Timothy Graham

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Analytical Framework ◽

Election Campaigns ◽

Special Issue ◽

Federal Election ◽

Social Media Platforms ◽

Media Society ◽

Use Of Social Media ◽

Suitable Environment ◽

Cross National

This special issue of Social Media + Society develops a cross-national, longitudinal perspective on the use of social media in election campaigns. Australia, where leading social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter were adopted early and widely by the general population, and where federal election cycles are unusually short (often less than 3 years), provides a particularly suitable environment for observing the evolution of social media campaigning approaches. This article extends our analysis of previous federal election campaigns in Australia by examining Twitter campaigning in the 2019 election; to allow for a direct comparison with previous campaigns, it builds on a methodological and analytical framework that we have used since the 2013 election.

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Introduction: Marginality and Social Media

Social Media + Society ◽

10.1177/2056305120930413 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 6 (3) ◽

pp. 205630512093041

Author(s):

Katy E. Pearce ◽

Amy Gonzales ◽

Brooke Foucault Welles

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Special Issue ◽

Working Definition ◽

Media Society ◽

Definition Of ◽

Historical Moment

This special issue brings together 13 manuscripts and two practitioner responses that speak to the intersection of marginality and social media in a variety of contexts. Readers of Social Media + Society certainly know what social media are, but marginality may be more elusive. We introduce this special issue by noting the historical moment for studying marginality, providing a working definition of that concept, and highlighting how this special issue sustains and extends that conversation within the context of social media.

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Introduction to special issue about election reporting: Why journalism (still) matters

Journalism ◽

10.1177/1464884919845454 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 20 (8) ◽

pp. 985-993 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Stephen Cushion ◽

Daniel Jackson

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Political Parties ◽

Political Communication ◽

News Media ◽

Election Campaigns ◽

Special Issue ◽

Technological Advances ◽

Campaign Coverage ◽

Election Coverage ◽

Social Media Platforms

This introduction unpacks the eight articles that make up this Journalism special issue about election reporting. Taken together, the articles ask: How has election reporting evolved over the last century across different media? Has the relationship between journalists and candidates changed in the digital age of campaigning? How do contemporary news values influence campaign coverage? Which voices – politicians, say or journalists – are most prominent? How far do citizens inform election coverage? How is public opinion articulated in the age of social media? Are sites such as Twitter developing new and distinctive election agendas? In what ways does social media interact with legacy media? How well have scholars researched and theorised election reporting cross-nationally? How can research agendas be enhanced? Overall, we argue this Special Issue demonstrates the continued strength of news media during election campaigns. This is in spite of social media platforms increasingly disrupting and recasting the agenda setting power of legacy media, not least by political parties and candidates who are relying more heavily on sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to campaign. But while debates in recent years have centred on the technological advances in political communication and the associated role of social media platforms during election campaigns (e.g. microtargeting voters, spreading disinformation/misinformation and allowing candidates to bypass media to campaign), our collection of studies signal the enduring influence professional journalists play in selecting and framing of news. Put more simply, how elections are reported still profoundly matters in spite of political parties’ and candidates’ more sophisticated use of digital campaigning.

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