{"title":"“We Make Them Our Kin”: Australian Older Adult’s Playful Kinship Practices Through Sharing Animal Images on Social Media","authors":"Caitlin McGrane, Larissa Hjorth, Peta Murray","doi":"10.1177/20563051241306540","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051241306540","url":null,"abstract":"Pets, companion animals, and “more-than-human” kin play important roles in people’s lives. Animals are familiar and familial—they are often integral family members and can help create communities beyond the family unit. People rely on their pets for emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being. More recently, research into the role of animals in the lives of older adults has come into focus, especially through the visibilities and visualities of social media. The significance of animals in the lives of older adults in conjunction with the storification and sharing potential of social media leads us to ask: What do the practices of pet image sharing on social media reflect about ideas of aging and human and more-than-human kinship? In this article, we draw on ethnographic and interview data conducted with Australian older adults (65 years and above) about how and why they share images of their pets on social media. How do these visualities represent the feelings, care practices, and experiences of older adults and the value of the more-than-humans in their lives? This article seeks to contribute to social media literature by engaging with the under-explored lives of older adults and how their sharing practices reflect shifting relationalities between older adults and their pets.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"38 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142841983","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Affective Affordances, Networked Status Quo, and Climate Communication: An Analysis of the Mobilization of Affect on Facebook","authors":"Chamil Rathnayake, Jenifer Sunrise Winter","doi":"10.1177/20563051241308597","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051241308597","url":null,"abstract":"This study achieves two objectives: (1) define two specific affordances—affective embedding and rendering—capturing the connection between affect and social media affordances from the perspectives of designers and end-users, and (2) examine the mobilization of affective reactions with an emphasis on the intersection between affective affordances and the networked status quo. A sample of 253,489 Facebook posts that contained key terms related to climate change is analyzed using a series of log-log models to examine the mobilization of affective reactions. We argue that possibilities for rendering affect using the Facebook reaction menu are nested within affective embedding and general platform affordances. Empirical analysis examines a two-step logic where the networked status quo determines content exposure, leading to content replication. Although affective reactions are primarily driven by content reach, the analysis reveals variations among six types of Facebook pages in terms of how their prominence contributes to generate affective reactions among audiences.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142841980","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jing Niu, Bilal Mazhar, Inam Ul Haq, Fatima Maqsood
{"title":"Protecting Privacy on Social Media: Mitigating Cyberbullying and Data Heist Through Regulated Use and Detox, with a Mediating Role of Privacy Safety Motivations","authors":"Jing Niu, Bilal Mazhar, Inam Ul Haq, Fatima Maqsood","doi":"10.1177/20563051241306331","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051241306331","url":null,"abstract":"Information theft and cyberbullying pose significant threats to users’ privacy on social media. This study applies Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) to explore how online information disclosure awareness and privacy concerns influence protective actions, such as regulated social media usage and detoxification, in response to negative experiences like data heist and cyberbullying. Analyzing survey responses from 1,000 social media users in Pakistan, ranging in age from 18 years to over 50, and using the snowball sampling technique, our findings reveal that awareness of online information disclosure mediates the relationship between data theft and regulated social media use. Privacy concerns similarly mediate the relationship between cyberbullying experiences and social media detoxification, aligning with PMT. In addition, negative online experiences directly correlate with privacy safety behaviors, indicating that motivations may not always drive protective actions. This research sheds light on the intricate dynamics between privacy concerns, negative online experiences, and protective behaviors, offering insights for interventions and policies to enhance users’ digital privacy and safety. Understanding these relationships is crucial for addressing the challenges of information theft and cyberbullying in the digital landscape.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"39 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142841982","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bodies, Brands, and Bullies: Culture Jamming and the Livestreaming of Engagement","authors":"David Murphy, Joshua Jarrett","doi":"10.1177/20563051241308321","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051241308321","url":null,"abstract":"This article uses a case study of an anti-brand protest that was livestreamed on Twitch to develop a media and cultural studies framework for conceptualizing livestreaming platforms as mechanisms that extract engagement and discoverability value from cultural noise. It begins with a review of several fields of literature: branding, media activism, and culture jamming; livestreaming and affective labor; and social media platforms, affective economies, and noise. Then, it synthesizes this literature into a conceptualization of livestreaming’s cultural product and form, connecting its product to the extraction of engagement metrics from affective economies and its form to the affective labor that livestreamers are performing for the purposes of developing personal brands. Finally, it connects the record-setting viewership numbers the Hogwarts Legacy protest created for Twitch to an affective economy of joy, sadness, anger, and nostalgia, focusing specifically on how this economy became a driver of engagement and discoverability value for a transmedia brand.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142831929","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Anti-Feminism and Self-Improvement: Hegemonic Femininity in the Manosphere","authors":"Sanne Pieters, Daniel Trottier","doi":"10.1177/20563051241302154","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051241302154","url":null,"abstract":"The Red Pill adherents believe “feminist doctrines” in society deprive men and women of being their natural selves, disrupting heterosexual relationships in consequence. Research on manosphere groups generally focuses on men’s involvement, but women participate in these movements too. One such form of participation is the RedPillWomen subreddit (“r/RPW” in reddit jargon). Hegemonic femininity remains an understudied component of the manosphere. Using a qualitative critical thematic analysis, 127 texts are analyzed to establish what constitutes hegemonic femininity on the r/RPW according to moderators and how this is enacted and maintained by Subreddit members. It is found that moderator texts use discourses of evolutionary psychology, neoliberalism, and anti-feminism to construct a local postfeminist femininity that is both subordinate to men as well as highly entrepreneurial. Subreddit-member posts showed how this femininity is enacted and maintained, demonstrating the responsibility women feel in transforming both the physical and psychological. Peer-surveillance served to reach consent on group norms, correct those who deviate from these norms, and create boundaries between RedPillWomen and other women. This research demonstrated how postfeminist sensibilities in the manosphere shape the articulation of various local hegemonic femininities that both contrast and parallel each other.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"30 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142831950","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Right-Wing Safe Space” Versus “Comrade Major”: Media Ideologies of Far-Right Russian Social Media Users","authors":"Petr Oskolkov, Eyal Lewin, Sabina Lissitsa","doi":"10.1177/20563051241306833","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051241306833","url":null,"abstract":"A significant part of far-right activities worldwide take place within the media ecosystem formed by accounts and communities on social media platforms. Drawing on the media ideology approach, this study investigates how far-right Russian internet users perceive various social media platforms and how their sociopolitical beliefs affect these perceptions. Based on a series of in-depth semi-structured interviews, we argue that far-right users assess social media platforms according to the criteria of security, meaning privacy and non-cooperation with law enforcement agencies; freedom from moderation; and functionality, including informational, communicational, recreational, and self-expressional roles. The results demonstrate that, for a sociopolitically stigmatized user cohort, media ideology becomes a tool for adaptation and survival, stressing the factors of privacy protection and ideological proximity.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"62 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142823161","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Torrential Twitter? Measuring the Severity of Harassment When Canadian Female Politicians Tweet About Climate Change","authors":"Inessa De Angelis","doi":"10.1177/20563051241304493","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051241304493","url":null,"abstract":"The online harassment of female politicians who focus on climate change and environmental policy has become a major problem in Canada and other democratic nations. Despite growing awareness of the problem, there is little agreement among scholars on how to measure these nuanced forms of harassment. This study develops an original seven-point scale to measure the severity of harassment three Canadian female politicians receive when Tweeting about climate change and a six-point schema to categorize the types of accounts behind the replies. My results reveal that 86% of replies contained some form of harassment, most often name-calling or questioning the authority of the female politicians, and come from users with spam or anonymous accounts. Further results from my Bayesian hierarchical model suggest that despite differences in status and political affiliation across the three politicians, they are almost equally impacted by harassment when Tweeting about climate change. These findings contribute to understanding the intersection between climate change denialism and the gendered nature of online harassment. This article contains language and themes that some readers may find offensive.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"61 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142804734","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Where is the Global South? Northern Visibilities in Digital Activism Research","authors":"Suay M. Özkula, Paul J. Reilly","doi":"10.1177/20563051241299835","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051241299835","url":null,"abstract":"The seemingly global nature of English-language hashtags often obscures activism from outside the Global North (GN). This systematic review explores geographic representation in this field ( N = 315 articles) through an investigation of case study location, author affiliation, methods of data collection and analysis, and researched social media platforms. The results show a preponderance of GN/Majority cases and non-region-specific social media groupings such as hashtag publics, particularly in research employing digital methods. As such, extant research in the field has disproportionately produced what we term Northern Visibilities—groups and movements based in GN countries (above all the United States) and platforms popular within them. We use the findings of the review to critically interrogate notions of the Global South in digital social research and provide recommendations for rectifying geopolitical underrepresentation and promoting more inclusive research practice.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142789878","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Andreas T. Hirblinger, Sara Kallis, Hasini A. Haputhanthri
{"title":"DIY-Online Reconciliation? The Role of Memes in Navigating Inter-Group Boundaries in the Context of Sri Lanka’s 2022 Political Crisis","authors":"Andreas T. Hirblinger, Sara Kallis, Hasini A. Haputhanthri","doi":"10.1177/20563051241303362","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051241303362","url":null,"abstract":"Social media is increasingly viewed as a venue for organized peacebuilding efforts. However, current research has paid little attention to the vast array of everyday, self-organized social media interactions that could help overcome societal divisions. This article analyses the role of online memes in everyday online reconciliation, using Sri Lanka’s 2022 political crisis as a case study. We argue that memes contribute to a DIY-approach to dealing with the past, helping to renegotiate inter-group boundaries in the aftermath of conflict. Memes articulate grievances, but they also engage with inter-group relations in a playful manner, thus enabling both a “sincere” and a “subjunctive” approach to group relations by describing them both as they “are” as well as how they “could be.” In combination, they can be used as a “weapon of the weak,” through which vulnerable social media users may communicate in ways that transcend dominant perspectives on group relations.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"60 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142789876","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Impact of Social Norms on Adolescents’ Self-Presentation Practices on Social Media","authors":"Arne Freya Zillich, Annika Wunderlich","doi":"10.1177/20563051241299829","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051241299829","url":null,"abstract":"Social media platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat offer adolescents many opportunities to control how other users see and perceive them. By observing their peers’ self-presentations and receiving feedback on their own self-presentations from them, adolescents learn what is typical (descriptive norms) and appropriate (injunctive norms) on different social media platforms. Based on computer-assisted face-to-face surveys with German Instagram and/or Snapchat users aged between 14 and 16 years ( N = 1,002), we examined the impact of descriptive and injunctive norms on adolescents’ self-presentation practices on social media. Drawing on the theory of normative social behavior and the affordances approach, we also considered the norm-moderating factors of outcome expectations, group identity, platform differences, and perceived content persistence. We provide evidence that both descriptive and injunctive peer norms influence adolescents’ staged self-presentations, authentic self-presentations, and presentations of everyday life, although none of the moderating factors reached practical significance.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"202 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2024-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142756111","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}