THE CHESHIRE CAT OF SOCIAL MEDIA: VALUES IN PLATFORM POLICIES

Value is fundamental for social media platforms, not only in the economic sense but also in the sense of normative principles like community and free speech. Policy documents are pivotal sites for the expression of values and present a public-facing account of the roles and responsibilities assigned to various actors, including individual users, third parties, governments and social media corporations. While prior research has examined the construction of individual values such as privacy and transparency in platform policies, there has been no holistic account of the values invoked in these documents. Combining a dictionary-based analysis with a qualitative content analysis, we present the first comprehensive study of the values presented in the policy documents of five major social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok. Our analysis reveals that policy documents invoke a large number of values that seemingly point to conflicting priorities and commitments. However, these values can be organized in four overarching principles that were consistent across platforms: community, expression, privacy, and improvement. Each principle assigns responsibility for the enactment of these values and by that allows platforms to limit their ethical responsibility for executing the values they publicly promote. Values can thus be described as the “Cheshire cat” of social media platform policies – they look magical, but once touched, may assume a different shape, pop up in an alternative location, or even disappear.

AT THE SERVICE OF THE COMMUNITY, CAUSE OR CAPITAL: alternative journalistic arrangements to the major media corporations in Santa Catarina

ABSTRACT – This paper presents the results of research on journalistic economic alternative arrangements to the major media corporations in the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil. It draws a profile of 20 arrangements identified through combined research techniques (snowball and questionnaire), characterizing them from three central axes: 1) “what is journalistic” in the journalistic arrangements (defining aspects of the type of journalism that is produced – or “markers”) and considerations about the world of work of the people in charge of these arrangements; 2) organization and production process (publication regimes, target audience, independence, and alternativeness); and 3) innovation and sustainability (if the arrangements consider themselves as entrepreneurial and innovative, what their legal status is and how they are financially sustained). The results point to three ideal types of journalistic arrangements, identified by their different bonds with the capital, their communities, or their political causes. Each ideal type corresponds to a distinct understanding of what journalism is and to distinct governance practices. Without constituting consolidated models, these types respond, each one in its way, to the structural changes that occur in the profession.RESUMO – Este artigo apresenta resultados de uma pesquisa sobre arranjos econômicos de jornalismo alternativos às grandes corporações de mídia no estado de Santa Catarina. Traça um perfil de 20 arranjos identificados por meio de técnicas combinadas de pesquisa (bola de neve e questionário), caracterizando-os a partir de três eixos centrais: 1) “o que há de jornalístico” nos arranjos jornalísticos (aspectos definidores do tipo de jornalismo produzido – ou “marcadores”) e considerações sobre o mundo do trabalho de seus e suas responsáveis; 2) organização e processo produtivo (regimes de publicação, públicos-alvo, relações de independência e alternatividade); e 3) inovação e sustentabilidade (se os arranjos consideram-se empreendedores e inovadores, quais seus status jurídicos e como se sustentam). Os resultados apontam para três tipos ideais de arranjos jornalísticos, identificados por suas diferentes conexões com o capital, as comunidades ou as causas políticas. Cada tipo ideal corresponde a um entendimento diferente do que é o jornalismo e a distintas práticas de governança. Esses tipos, sem constituírem ainda modelos consolidados, respondem, cada qual a seu modo, às mudanças estruturais do ofício.RESUMEN – Este artículo presenta los resultados de una investigación sobre proyectos económicos de periodismo alternativos a las principales corporaciones mediáticas en el estado de Santa Catarina, Brasil. Se dibuja un perfil de 20 proyectos identificados por técnicas de investigación articuladas (bola de nieve y cuestionario), caracterizándolos desde tres ejes centrales: 1) “qué hay de periodístico” en los proyectos periodísticos (aspectos definidores del tipo de periodismo producido – o “marcadores”) y consideraciones sobre el mundo laboral de sus responsables; 2) organización y proceso de producción (regímenes de publicación, públicos objetivo, relaciones de independencia y alternatividad); y 3) innovación y sostenibilidad (si los proyectos se consideran emprendedores e innovadores, cuál es su estatus legal y cómo se mantienen). Los resultados apuntan a tres tipos ideales de proyectos periodísticos, identificados por sus distintas conexiones con el capital, las comunidades o las causas políticas. Cada tipo ideal corresponde a una comprensión diferente de lo que es el periodismo y diferentes prácticas de gobernanza. Estos tipos, sin ser modelos aún consolidados, responden, cada uno a su manera, a los cambios estructurales de la profesión.

Social media corporations as actors of counter-terrorism

This article discusses the role of giant social media corporations Facebook, Google (YouTube), and Twitter in counter-terrorism and countering violent extremisms (CT/CVEs). Based on a qualitative investigation mobilizing corporate communications as well as a collection of interviews with European stakeholders, it argues that these firms have become actors in this policy area of what is traditionally considered high politics, through their fundamental role in establishing and enforcing the nascent global governance regime on terrorist communications. Since the emergence of the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the studied firms have displayed agency and creativity in their appropriation of this new responsibility, effectively going beyond what was legally required of them. After contextualizing and questioning their involvement, motivated by terrorist exploitation of their services, reputational pressure and the threat of legislation, the article provides an analysis of the firms’ self-regulated commitment to CT/CVE through policymaking, content moderation, human resources, and private multilateralism.

SIGNIFICANCE OF NEUROECONOMICS IN MEDIA CORPORATIONS SURVIVAL IN THE AGE OF DIGITALIZATION

The three concepts of neuroeconomics, behavioral economics and media economics were briefly examined, as relates to media corporations in the age of digitization and found to be closely related to human behavior mostly at individual level. The three concepts are also theoretically related because they all are concerned with human behavior and choices. There are varieties of theories in studying media economics, a few were examined and found to be relevant to Neuroeconomics, they include Theory of The Firm, The Consumer Theory, Theory of Ruinous Competition and Broadcast Media Concentration. The age of digitization has brought with it proliferation of especially electronic media, especially social media. This implies the traditional understanding of how media corporations operate have changed. It was found that consumption of digital media is rapidly increasing and becoming more personalized to individual behaviors and preferences, therefore neuroeconomics can help explain psychological mechanisms that lead to individual economic decision-making and understanding of media economics. Neuroeconomics , by leveraging on neuroscience, can contribute to understanding consumer habits, social networking and possibly predict choices of media consumers and/or detect consumers or groups that are likely to exhibit problematic behaviors. By using neuroeconomics models, media corporations can understand demand and consumer information, thereby tailoring media products in a way that will increase its value and utility to the consumers and ultimately profitability of the media corporations.

Mainstream Media Recirculation of Trust-Reducing Social Media Messages

Citizens need to trust in the integrity of news reporting for the free press to fulfill its role as a democratic institution that enables citizens to hold representatives accountable. Growing research has shown that increased use of social media erodes trust in legacy news. However, trust-reducing social media messages are not contained to social media platforms; they are widely recirculated by the mainstream media. We argue that mainstream media corporations select social media messages to recirculate precisely because of their trust-reducing features in order to respond to short-term competitive market incentives. We turn to Donald Trump’s Twitter posts as examples of trust-reducing messages and show that the media cites more trust-reducing messages more quickly and more frequently than less trust-reducing messages. These findings implicate mainstream media corporations alongside social media platforms in the systematic and ongoing degradation of trust in legacy news reporting.

25. Criminal justice policies and practices

This chapter studies criminal justice policies, practices, and the people who work within the system. It begins by tracing the origins and influences of criminal justice policies. Criminal justice policies predominantly come from the government, but other organisations and individuals such as academics, the media, corporations, and lobbyists can influence them. The motivations behind these policy influencers may vary, but they all share the ultimate aim of ensuring that their preferred strategy is implemented in practice. The chapter then considers the significant impact that ‘penal populism’ can exert on policy, and how government policy is shaping the ways in which the ‘adversarial-lite’ principle is implemented. It assesses use of both of those policies in practice in the courtroom and the community to see how key principles can play out in reality. Finally, the chapter reflects on the effects of all the components upon the people who work in the criminal justice system.

Towards a Theory of Digital Well-Being: Reimagining Online Life After Lockdown

Global lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic have offered many people first-hand experience of how their daily online activities threaten their digital well-being. This article begins by critically evaluating the current approaches to digital well-being offered by ethicists of technology, NGOs, and social media corporations. My aim is to explain why digital well-being needs to be reimagined within a new conceptual paradigm. After this, I lay the foundations for such an alternative approach, one that shows how current digital well-being initiatives can be designed in more insightful ways. This new conceptual framework aims to transform how philosophers of technology think about this topic, as well as offering social media corporations practical ways to design their technologies in ways that will improve the digital well-being of users.

Foreign powers will use media for Balkan influence

Significance Western media have been present in the Balkans for decades through the likes of the BBC and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). Large media corporations in Russia, China and Turkey are also looking to expand, in a region where the information sphere is still largely underdeveloped. Impacts Hungarian media investments in Slovenia and North Macedonia appear to be profit-making although their content reflects Fidesz’s values. Privately owned media can be financially robust although owners sometimes threaten editorial independence. Media with a state-backed agenda are unlikely to encourage the investigative journalism that calls power to account.

Socjologia wiedzy społeczeństwa cyfrowego – „praca cyfrowa” a ideologia mediów społecznościowych

The article presents the evolution of social media through the prism of the sociological theories of Joseph Schumpeter and Karl Mannheim. The methodology of the sociology of knowledge, which was described in the first part of the work, was used for the analysis. According to Mannheim and Schumpeter, innovation plays a key role in the evolution of human consciousness. Consciousness influences the shape of social existence – relations of production and division of labour. Innovation appears in history as a mental product, but it is used to reform the economic relations prevailing in a given period. The article combines the analysis of ideological content related to social media with the concept of creative destruction presented by Schumpeter. From an ideological perspective, we have seen a transformation from utopia to ideology in the history of social media. According to Mannheim’s historical dialectic scheme, utopian slogans, such as the demand for democracy, gratuity and fun, could not be realized under market conditions. They have become ideological postulates disguising the actual activities of media corporations. The economic innovation of ‘audience labour’ prevent them from being implemented. The theory of ‘digital labour’, which was formulated by Christian Fuchs, is based on the concept of ‘audience labour’: prosumers create data which is then ‘sold’ to advertisers. It is unpaid and voluntary work that is ‘monetized’ by targeted advertising. This new system determines, on the one hand, the success of such giants as Facebook, whose business model is based on advertisements, and, on the other hand, the destruction of more traditional types of the advertising, especially advertising in newspapers and magazines.

Globalization and Geoblocking: Sustaining Nationally Bound Economic and Political Practices of Media Distribution and Access on the Internet

Where we access the internet dictates what we see or, more importantly, do not see online. Access to online media content and information on the internet is controlled worldwide by a process called geoblocking. The term geoblocking refers to the process whereby a website blocks a user's access to digital media content or other information based on their geographic location. While it is possible that openness can exist on the internet, this dissertation asserts that the internet is not a completely free and open space as it continues to be shaped and bordered by media corporations, governments, and audiences. This dissertation further argues that geoblocking media content is an economic, political, and social reaction against the perceived danger of digital permeability of national borders through the internet. This dissertation examines how traditional, older models of media distribution and exhibition based on national borders, persist when the internet allows for global media access. Because of globalization, media corporations, governments, and the audience are in a connected loop where each are negotiating the real and virtual positive and negative effects of economic, political, cultural, and technological globalization. This dissertation finds that media corporations, governments, and the audience are responsible for using geoblocking to serve their varying motivations for maintaining control over accessibility of content and information. Examining geoblocking from the perspectives of media corporations and governments and the audience gives us further insight into the larger whole of the digital and real infrastructure of the internet -- where it is located, who has power over it, and who has access or not and why. By analyzing the relationships between media corporations, and motivations this study shows an uneven power distribution exists with media corporations and governments maintaining most of the control with the ability to dictate audience behaviors online to match their expectations and offline model. It is determined that what is at stake when geoblocking borders off the world by censoring content on the internet is: balance or power, access, and freedom.