Direcionamento da visibilidade nas mídias sociais a partir da estratégia de baralhamento / Targeting visibility on social medias from the shuffling strategy

Abstract

Our research is inserted in the context of relationship with publics in digital environments. Specifically, it is related to strategies for directing visibility in social medias, triggered when identifying risks or emerging issues (in society and/or in the media) that may go against how organizations want to be perceived (Da Silva & Baldissera, 2019). We understand that visibility, in its broadest sense, is usually indicated as the most incident desire of organizations in social media (Silva, 2020). However, studies that deal with this theme tend to disregard the fact that being in the spotlight can be negative, especially when the correlated issues and approaches are unfavorable or uninteresting. In these cases, organizations, opportunely, activate a set of strategies that try – along the dynamics of relationship and interaction with the publics – to direct visibility towards something that seems (more) opportune to them (Da Silva, 2018). The purposes of this article are reflect on the notions and practices of (in)visibility in social medias and present initiatives adopted by organizations aiming at shuffling and misunderstanding a situation, as a strategy to direct visibility in these medias. Symbolic interactionism is the epistemic foundation of research. Discussions are based on reports from professionals working in agencies affiliated to the Brazilian Association of Digital Agents, collected in depth interviews by Da Silva (2018), which evidenced such initiatives. The results reveal a set of eight possibilities from which associations seek to lead visibility to approaches that do not conflict with the positioning desires or that are less harmful in comparison with other senses seen, or with this potential. We are referring to the deviation of the focus towards positive guidelines, the generation of facts, the promotion of other approaches based on paid investment, the infiltration of organizational actors in the discussions, the “purchase of audience”, the incidence or hiring of influencers, the competitor imbalance, and the optimization of the desired visibility in search engines. Such findings signal professionalization at the sociotechnical level, since there are a number of alternatives adopted in order to preserve organizations. We observed these results with concern and problematized them from the perspective of the public interest, because there are ethical distortions that can cause significant damage to society. The practices learned show and allowed us to perceive that there are many dynamics that are part of the problem we have discussed. All these paths disturb us. In these cases, there is a certain disqualification of the place (and strength) of the subjects, who seem to be led/perceived almost like “puppets”, in a conception that organizational interventions lead to certain behaviors, which have already been predicted. An action-reaction idea prevails. It is important to emphasize that, if, on the one hand, appropriations of visibility targeting strategies can enhance the communication processes of organizations and their public presence in the sense they want, on the other hand, they can lead organizations to different levels of "omission" and/or concealment of matters of public interest, ranging from moral issues to legal commitments. This situation is enhanced, in the current context, due to the incipient initiatives that aim to observe and, in some way, monitor these (potentially) abusive practices, such as the distortion of information, the dissemination of false news and the act of spreading rumors (Henriques & Silva, 2014). Furthermore, “most of the time, surveillance initiatives end up discovering abusive practices long after the effects of those actions, which implies a research that is always focused on the past” (Henriques & Silva, 2020: 49).