scholarly journals PLATFORM SPECIFICITIES: THE PLATFORM BOOKS PANEL

Author(s):  
Natalie Ann Hendry ◽  
Katrin Tiidenberg ◽  
Crystal Abidin ◽  
D. Bondy Valdovinos Kaye ◽  
Jing Zeng ◽  
...  

Social media platforms shape our lives on micro, meso and macro levels. They have transformed our everyday practices as individuals, or social practices as small and large groups, and have multiple, entangled impacts on rituals of democracy and cultural (re)production, organization of labor and industry. This panel brings together five papers, each by authors of recently published or forthcoming platform books. Together, the papers offer an analysis of TikTok, WeChat, Tumblr, Instagram and Facebook. Because of the book-length analyses preceding the panel, we are able to distill what is distinct and recognizable about these platforms – what we call ‘platform specificities’ and demonstrate how these specificities are shaping not only the experiences of the users of those platforms, but the social media ecosystem more broadly. The panel contributes to the ongoing discussion regarding platform power, social media and ways of making sense of social media, painting in board strokes plausible future developments to keep an eye on. The extended abstract holds a panel rationale and five extended abstracts for each analyzed platform.

Author(s):  
Veronica R. Dawson

This chapter traces the concept of organizational identity in organization theory and places it in the social media context. It proposes that organizational communication theories intellectually based in the “linguistic turn” (e.g., the Montreal School Approach to how communication constitutes organizations, communicative theory of the firm) are well positioned to illuminate the constitutive capabilities of identity-bound interaction on social media. It suggest that social media is more than another organizational tool for communication with stakeholders in that it affords interactants the opportunity to negotiate foundational organizational practices: organizational identity, boundaries, and membership, in public. In this negotiative process, the organizing role of the stakeholder is emphasized and legitimized by organizational participation and engagement on social media platforms. The Montreal School Approach's conversation–text dialectic and the communicative theory of the firm's conceptualization of organizations as social, are two useful concepts when making sense of organization–stakeholder interaction in the social media context.


Author(s):  
Ze Zook ◽  
Ben Salmon

Much of the existing research in social media has been directed at examining the consequences of the interactive nature of the evolving medium and communication issues, with little to say about the impact of this medium on brands. Drawing on Fiske's relational model, this current chapter examines the interface between social media and brands, particularly on the breadth and the dimensions of the level of engagement. Social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, are revolutionising the way companies market their products. New means of interaction and dialogue are used in part because of the inherent structure and features of these social media platforms. The chapter concludes by discussing the implications of the analysis for understanding of new terminology in the evolving marketing environment.


Author(s):  
Ze Zook ◽  
Ben Salmon

Much of the existing research in social media has been directed at examining the consequences of the interactive nature of the evolving medium and communication issues, with little to say about the impact of this medium on brands. Drawing on Fiske's relational model, this current chapter examines the interface between social media and brands, particularly on the breadth and the dimensions of the level of engagement. Social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, are revolutionising the way companies market their products. New means of interaction and dialogue are used in part because of the inherent structure and features of these social media platforms. The chapter concludes by discussing the implications of the analysis for understanding of new terminology in the evolving marketing environment.


Rhetorik ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Kuhlhüser

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.


2021 ◽  
pp. 016344372110271
Author(s):  
Justin Buss ◽  
Hayden Le ◽  
Oliver L Haimson

Transgender people use social media for identity work, which takes place over time and across platforms. In this study, we interviewed 20 transgender social media users to examine transgender identity management across the social media ecosystem. We found that transgender social media users curate their social media experiences to fit their needs through creating accounts on different platforms, maintaining multiple accounts on individual platforms, and making active decisions about content they post, networks they are connected to, and content they interact with. In this way, transgender people’s social media curation is not limited to their own identity presentations, but also involves curating the content they see from others and whom they include in their networks. Together, these two types of online curation enable transgender social media users to craft social media worlds that meet their social and self-presentational needs.


Author(s):  
Fernando Van der Vlist ◽  
Anne Helmond

Social media platforms’ digital advertising revenues depend considerably on partnerships. Business partnerships are endemic and essential to the business of platforms, yet their role remains relatively underexplored in the literature on platformisation and platform power. This paper considers the significance of partnerships in the social media ecosystem to better understand how industry platforms, and the infrastructure they build, mediate and shape platform power and governance. We argue that partners contribute to ‘platformisation’ through their collective development of business-to-business platform infrastructures. Specifically, we examine how they have integrated social media platforms with what we call the audience economy – an exceptionally complex global and interconnected marketplace of intermediaries involved in the creation, commodification, analysis, and circulation of data audiences for purposes including but not limited to digital advertising and marketing. We determine which relationships exist, which are exclusive or shared, and identify key ecosystem partners. Further, we find that partners build and integrate extensive infrastructures for data-sourcing and media distribution, surfacing infrastructural and strategic sources and locations, or ‘nodes’, of power in this ecosystem. The empirical findings thus highlight the significance of partnerships and partner integrations and call attention to the powerful industry players and intermediaries that remain largely invisible to us as audiences.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 205395172110250
Author(s):  
Fernando N van der Vlist ◽  
Anne Helmond

Social media platforms’ digital advertising revenues depend considerably on partnerships. Business partnerships are endemic and essential to the business of platforms, yet their role remains relatively underexplored in the literature on platformisation and platform power. This article considers the significance of partnerships in the social media ecosystem to better understand how industry platforms, and the infrastructure they build, mediate and shape platform power and governance. We argue that partners contribute to ‘platformisation’ through their collective development of business-to-business platform infrastructures. Specifically, we examine how partners have integrated social media platforms with what we call the audience economy – an exceptionally complex global and interconnected marketplace of intermediaries involved in the creation, commodification, analysis, and circulation of data audiences for purposes including but not limited to digital advertising and marketing. We determined which relationships are involved, which are exclusive or shared, and identified key ecosystem partners. Further, we found that partners build and integrate extensive infrastructures for data-sourcing and media distribution, surfacing infrastructural and strategic sources and locations, or ‘nodes’, of power in this ecosystem. The empirical findings thus highlight the significance of partnerships and partner integrations and draw attention to the powerful industry players and intermediaries that remain largely invisible.


Author(s):  
Veronica R. Dawson

This chapter traces the concept of organizational identity in organization theory and places it in the social media context. It proposes that organizational communication theories intellectually based in the “linguistic turn” (e.g., the Montreal School Approach to how communication constitutes organizations, communicative theory of the firm) are well positioned to illuminate the constitutive capabilities of identity-bound interaction on social media. It suggest that social media is more than another organizational tool for communication with stakeholders in that it affords interactants the opportunity to negotiate foundational organizational practices: organizational identity, boundaries, and membership, in public. In this negotiative process, the organizing role of the stakeholder is emphasized and legitimized by organizational participation and engagement on social media platforms. The Montreal School Approach's conversation–text dialectic and the communicative theory of the firm's conceptualization of organizations as social, are two useful concepts when making sense of organization–stakeholder interaction in the social media context.


Koneksi ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 338
Author(s):  
Faiz Zulia Maharany ◽  
Ahmad Junaidi

'Nightmare' is the title of a video clip belonging to a singer and singer called Halsey, in which the video clip is explained about the figure of women who struggle against patriarchal culture which has been a barrier wall for women to get their rights, welfare and the equality needed they get. This research uses descriptive qualitative research methods. Data collection techniques are done through documentation, observation and study of literature. Then, analyzed using Charles Sanders Peirce's semiotics technique. The results of this study show the fact that signs, symbols or messages representing feminism in the video, 'Nightmare' clips are presented through scenes that present women's actions in opposing domination over men and sarcastic sentences contained in the lyrics of the song to discuss with patriarchy. Youtube as one of the social media platforms where the 'Nightmare' video clip is uploaded is very effective for mass communication and for conveying the message contained in the video clip to the viewing public.‘Nightmare’ adalah judul video klip milik musisi sekaligus penyanyi yang bernama Halsey, dimana pada Video klipnya tersebut menceritakan tentang figur perempuan-perempuan yang berusaha melawan budaya patriarki yang selama ini telah menjadi dinding penghalang bagi perempuan untuk mendapatkan hak-haknya, keadilan dan kesetaraan yang seharusnya mereka dapatkan. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode penelitian kualitatif deskriptif. Teknik pengumpulan data dilakukan melalui dokumentasi, observasi dan studi kepustakaan. Kemudian, dianalisis menggunakan teknik semiotika milik Charles Sanders Peirce. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukan bahwa terdapat tanda-tanda, simbol atau pesan yang merepresentasikan feminisme di dalam video klip ‘Nightmare’ yang dihadirkan melalui adegan-adegan yang menyajikan aksi perempuan dalam menolak dominasi atas laki-laki dan kalimat-kalimat sarkas yang terkandung dalam lirik lagunya untuk ditujukan kepada patriarki. Youtube sebagai salah satu platform media sosial dimana video klip ‘Nightmare’ diunggah sangat efektif untuk melakukan komunikasi massa dan untuk menyampaikan pesan yang terkandung di dalam video klip tersebut kepada masyarakat yang menonton.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nabil Bouizegarene ◽  
maxwell ramstead ◽  
Axel Constant ◽  
Karl Friston ◽  
Laurence Kirmayer

The ubiquity and importance of narratives in human adaptation has been recognized by many scholars. Research has identified several functions of narratives that are conducive to individuals’ well-being and adaptation as well as to coordinated social practices and enculturation. In this paper, we characterize the social and cognitive functions of narratives in terms of the framework of active inference. Active inference depicts the fundamental tendency of living organisms to adapt by creating, updating, and maintaining inferences about their environment. We review the literature on the functions of narratives in identity, event segmentation, episodic memory, future projection, storytelling practices, and enculturation. We then re-cast these functions of narratives in terms of active inference, outlining a parsimonious model that can guide future developments in narrative theory, research, and clinical applications.


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