Beyond Neutrality: Conceptualizing Platform Values

IF 4.7 1区文学 Q1 COMMUNICATION

Communication Theory Pub Date : 2021-08-01 DOI:10.1093/ct/qtab008

Blake Hallinan, Rebecca Scharlach, L. Shifman

引用次数: 13

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.

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超越中立：平台价值观的概念化

社交媒体平台是价值观表达、竞争和传播的重要场所。在这篇文章中，我们提出了一个研究价值观在社交媒体上和通过社交媒体传播的概念框架，该框架由两个维度组成：规模（从个人用户到全球基础设施）和明确性（从最明确到不可见）。利用该模型，我们比较了Twitter和Instagram上用户生成的内容和政策文件中的两种价值观——参与度和真实性。我们发现，用户和平台如何构建这些概念存在分歧，并讨论了模糊性在价值话语中的战略作用，用户所援引的理想主义含义正向着平台所强调的工具应用收费。我们还展示了同一价值观的内隐和外显表达是如何相互矛盾的。最后，我们反思了模式内部的紧张关系，以及平台价值观的个人、文化和基础设施层面之间的权力关系。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Communication Theory COMMUNICATION-

CiteScore

9.00

自引率

2.70%

发文量

期刊介绍： Communication Theory is an international forum publishing high quality, original research into the theoretical development of communication from across a wide array of disciplines, such as communication studies, sociology, psychology, political science, cultural and gender studies, philosophy, linguistics, and literature. A journal of the International Communication Association, Communication Theory especially welcomes work in the following areas of research, all of them components of ICA: Communication and Technology, Communication Law and Policy, Ethnicity and Race in Communication, Feminist Scholarship, Global Communication and Social Change, Health Communication, Information Systems, Instructional/Developmental Communication, Intercultural Communication, Interpersonal Communication, Journalism Studies, Language and Social Interaction, Mass Communication, Organizational Communication, Philosophy of Communication, Political Communication, Popular Communication, Public Relations, Visual Communication Studies, Children, Adolescents and the Media, Communication History, Game Studies, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies, and Intergroup Communication. The journal aims to be inclusive in theoretical approaches insofar as these pertain to communication theory.