| 1. |
- Abidin, Crystal
(författare)
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#Familygoals : Family influencers, calibrated amateurism, and justifying young digital labor
- 2017
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Ingår i: Social Media and Society. - : Sage Publications. - 2056-3051. ; 3:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Following in the celebrity trajectory of mommy bloggers, global micro-microcelebrities, and reality TV families, family Influencers on social media are one genre of microcelebrity for whom the “anchor” content in which they demonstrate their creative talents, such as producing musical covers or comedy sketches, is a highly profitable endeavor. Yet, this commerce is sustained by an undercurrent of “filler” content wherein everyday routines of domestic life are shared with followers as a form of “calibrated amateurism.” Calibrated amateurism is a practice and aesthetic in which actors in an attention economy labor specifically over crafting contrived authenticity that portrays the raw aesthetic of an amateur, whether or not they really are amateurs by status or practice, by relying on the performance ecology of appropriate platforms, affordances, tools, cultural vernacular, and social capital. In this article, I consider the anatomy of calibrated amateurism, and how this practice relates to follower engagement and responses. While some follower responses have highlighted concerns over the children’s well-being, a vast majority overtly signal their love, support, and even envy toward such parenting. I draw on ethnographically informed content analysis of two group of family Influencers on social media to illustrate the enactment and value of calibrated amateurism in an increasingly saturated ecology and, investigate how such parents justify the digital labor in which their children partake to produce viable narratives of domestic life.
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| 2. |
- Almgren, Susanne, 1967-, et al.
(författare)
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‘Let’s Get Them Involved’ . . . to Some Extent : Analyzing Online News Participation
- 2015
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Ingår i: Social Media + Society. - : Sage Publications. - 2056-3051. ; 1:2, s. 1-11
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The development of social media applications, such as blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, has offered new participatory opportunities for everyday media users. This article contributes to research by looking into one specific aspect of the increasingly more participatory media ecology—the news comment feature. Drawing on a quantitative content analysis of 1,100 news pieces, as well as spaces for user comments, the article reveals both how this emerging public space is shaped by the media company and, later, appropriated by their participating users. Our analysis reveals, for instance, that the online newspaper prefers to allow users to comment on lightweight news such as sports and entertainment. The users, however, prefer to post comments on news covering changes in proximity space, politics, and health care, while also clearly ignoring the most available news pieces (sport and entertainment). In the concluding section, the discrepancy in preferences is discussed.
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| 3. |
- Bastos, Marco, et al.
(författare)
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“Donald Trump Is My President!” : The Internet Research Agency Propaganda Machine
- 2019
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Ingår i: Social Media + Society. - : Sage Publications. - 2056-3051. ; 5:3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article presents a typological study of the Twitter accounts operated by the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a company specialized in online influence operations based in St. Petersburg, Russia. Drawing on concepts from 20th-century propaganda theory, we modeled the IRA operations along propaganda classes and campaign targets. The study relies on two historical databases and data from the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to retrieve 826 user profiles and 6,377 tweets posted by the agency between 2012 and 2017. We manually coded the source as identifiable, obfuscated, or impersonated and classified the campaign target of IRA operations using an inductive typology based on profile descriptions, images, location, language, and tweeted content. The qualitative variables were analyzed as relative frequencies to test the extent to which the IRA’s black, gray, and white propaganda are deployed with clearly defined targets for short-, medium-, and long-term propaganda strategies. The results show that source classification from propaganda theory remains a valid framework to understand IRA’s propaganda machine and that the agency operates a composite of different user accounts tailored to perform specific tasks, including openly pro-Russian profiles, local American and German news sources, pro-Trump conservatives, and Black Lives Matter activists.
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| 4. |
- Bengtsson, Stina, 1971-, et al.
(författare)
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The Meanings of Social Media Use in Everyday Life : Filling Empty Slots, Everyday Transformations, and Mood Management
- 2022
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Ingår i: Social Media + Society. - : Sage Publications. - 2056-3051. ; 8:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Since their emergence in the early 2000s, social media have continued to increase in popularity, particularly among adolescents and young adults. Even though they have been studied in relation to a wide range of topics, including their role in politics, social relationships, activism, identity construction, and youth cultures, the rise of social media is also connected to a number of less dramatic, yet pervasive, shifts relating to their integration into the mundane practices of day-to-day life. In this article, we explore the uses of social media as part of everyday life, a perspective that has gained less attention in research about social media. We take an interest in how young adults create meaning around their daily practices, involving many different social media platforms. Doing so, we draw on in-depth individual and small group interviews with 67 young adults, aged 18–26, conducted in Sweden during 2019–2021. We approach social media as a joint environment, consisting of a wide range of different platforms traversed by the user. The empirical analysis identifies three significant meanings of social media: filling empty slots, everyday transformations, and mood management. These three different meanings are shaped by different temporal, spatial, and technological characteristics and emphasize the importance of social media use in the lives of the young adults.
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| 5. |
- Blomberg, Helena, 1970-, et al.
(författare)
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Flashback as a rhetorical online battleground : Debating the (dis)guise of the Nordic Resistance Movement
- 2019
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Ingår i: Social Media + Society. - : SAGE Publications. - 2056-3051. ; 5:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The right-wing Swedish Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM) is increasingly active on social media. Using discursive psychology, this text explores the rhetorical organization of text and rhetorical resources used on the Swedish online forum Flashback. The aim is to reveal and problematize truth claims about NRM made by antagonists and protagonists. Questions are (1) how and what do NRM antagonists and protagonists convey in Flashback posts about NRM, and its ideology and members? (2) how do NRM antagonists and protagonists make truth claims about NRM in Flashback posts? The empirical material consisting of 1546 Flashback posts analyzed to identify typical discussions on “NMR’s true nature”; accomplished social actions stemming from the posts. Findings show that the Flashback thread can be understood as being a rhetorical battle that concerns the “truth” about NRM, where a variety of rhetorical resources are used to render statements credibility and those involved legitimacy.
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| 6. |
- Bossetta, Michael
(författare)
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Scandalous Design : How Social Media Platforms’ Responses to Scandal Impacts Campaigns and Elections
- 2020
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Ingår i: Social Media + Society. - : SAGE Publications. - 2056-3051. ; 6:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Given the role of social media in the modern election, scholars should not only study how platforms function for political actors; we should also study how platforms function as political actors. This essay therefore introduces the concept of scandalous design, which refers to programmatic changes in how social media operate in response to scandal. On the one hand, scandals can encourage changes in the architectural design of social media as products—that is, how platform providers introduce or manipulate features to mitigate the consequences of scandal. On the other, the concept of scandalous designrecognizes the agency of these platforms as companies, who alter their organizational protocols in pursuit of furthering their business interests and generating goodwill with governments. The essay’s main argument is that deconstructing platforms’ responses to scandal can provide an empirical glimpse into how social media companies position themselves as political actors. I break down scandalous design into four typological groups: the introduction and manipulation of platform features, and changes to platforms’ analog and digital protocols. The typology is buttressed by recent empirical examples fromelections in the United States, European Union, India, Brazil, and China. Without cognizance of how platforms’ operation—both digitally as products and politically as actors—evolves in response to scandal, scholars risk overlooking a key mechanism that contextualizes social media’s role in contemporary elections.
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| 7. |
- Daume, Stefan, 1970-, et al.
(författare)
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Automated Framing of Climate Change? The Role of Social Bots in the Twitter Climate Change Discourse During the 2019/2020 Australia Bushfires
- 2023
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Ingår i: Social Media + Society. - 2056-3051. ; 9:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Extreme weather-related events like wildfires have been increasing in frequency and severity due to climate change. Public online conversations that reflect on these events as climate emergencies can create awareness and build support for climate action but are also used to spread misinformation and climate change denial. To what extent automated social media accounts—“social bots”—amplify different perspectives of such events and influence climate change discourses, remains unknown, however. We use Twitter and the 2019/2020 Australia bushfires as a case study to explore this issue. Utilizing more than 1 million Tweets, we identify how climate change is framed in the context of those fires, and to what extent social bots affect specific climate change frames, including the spread of misinformation. Our results show that climate change represents a substantial part of online conversations about fires. The bushfires are primarily framed as a climate change issue including its measurable impacts and political perspectives. Climate denial represents a small share of this conversation and receives limited amplification. Social bots seemingly contribute to the climate change conversation, both through frames that support and oppose climate action, and amplify to larger degree frames appealing to emotions, such as sympathy or humor. We also find that Twitter discussions about the role of social bots in spreading climate denial are amplified more than actual climate-critical frames propagated by bots. A complex interplay between social bots, Twitter conversations, and online news media is emerging, which shapes discussions about climate change and wildfires.
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| 8. |
- Ekman, Mattias, 1974-
(författare)
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Anti-refugee Mobilization in Social Media : The Case of Soldiers of Odin
- 2018
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Ingår i: Social Media + Society. - : Sage Publications. - 2056-3051. ; 4:1, s. 1-11
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In the wake of the international refugee crisis, racist attitudes are becoming more publicly evident across the European Union. Propelled by the attacks in Köln on New Year’s Eve 2015 and harsher public sentiments on immigration, vigilante gangs have emerged in various European cities. These gangs mobilize through social media networks and claim to protect citizens from alleged violent and sexual attacks by refugees. This article analyzes how racist actors use social media to mobilize and organize street politics targeting refugees/immigrants. The aim is to explore the relation between social media and anti-refugee mobilization in a time of perceived insecurity and forced migration. The study uses the vigilante network Soldiers of Odin as a specific case, looking at (1) how they communicate through social media, (2) how they are represented in the large “alternative” space of right-wing online sites, and (3) how they are represented in traditional mainstream news. Using a critical adaption of Cammaerts’ theory of “mediation opportunity structure,” the article explicates the (inverted) rationale of racist online networks. Using quantitative and qualitative content analysis, both social media content and traditional news media are examined. The results show that although racist actors succeed in utilizing many of the opportunities embedded in social media communication and protest logic, they are also subject to constraints, such as a lack of public support and negative framing in news media. The article calls for more research on the (critical) relationship between uncivil engagement and social media networks.
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| 9. |
- Eriksson Krutrök, Moa
(författare)
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Algorithmic Closeness in Mourning : Vernaculars of the Hashtag #grief on TikTok
- 2021
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Ingår i: Social Media + Society. - : Sage Publications. - 2056-3051. ; 7:3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study looks at how mourning is expressed using the hashtag #grief on the social media app TikTok using qualitative content analysis. In a dataset of 100 TikTok videos, this article explores how the TikTok ranking algorithms, which orders content based on previous user engagements, may connect people in mourning across the platform and how these platform-enabled interactions may shape grief expressions. The study shows how grief was narrated on TikTok, which sociotechnical templates (such as duets, stitches, and audios) were incorporated into such expressions, and how these expressions of grief challenged societal mourning norms. This article ends with a discussion about how different subcultural norms on TikTok are linked to the way in which ranking algorithms create social connections across the platform. This study proposes that the "algorithmic closeness" of TikTok users in grief allows them to challenge societal mourning norms in imagined safe spaces, shaped by the algorithmic ranking systems on the platform.
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| 10. |
- Eriksson Krutrök, Moa, et al.
(författare)
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Continued contexts of terror : analyzing temporal patterns of hashtag co-occurrence as discursive articulations
- 2018
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Ingår i: Social Media + Society. - : Sage Publications. - 2056-3051. ; 4:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study looks at how terror attacks are rendered discursively meaningful on social media through the concurrent use and reiteration of terror hashtags, which were created following previous incidents of terror. The article focuses on 12 terror attacks in Europe in 2015-2017 and their relating hashtags on Twitter, to see how various combinations of these were reused and co-articulated in tweets posted in relation to subsequent attacks. Through social network analysis of co-occurring hashtags in about 3 million tweets, in combination with close readings of a smaller sample, this study aims to analyze both the networks of hashtags in relation to terror attacks as well as the discursive process of hashtag co-articulation. The study shows that the patterns by which attack hashtags are reused and co-articulated depend on both temporal and contextual differences.
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