Social Media + Society最新文献

{"title":"Platformization’s Elsewheres: Japanese Convenience Stores and the Platform Economy","authors":"Marc Steinberg","doi":"10.1177/20563051251328096","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251328096","url":null,"abstract":"Platformization’s elsewheres refers to other locations and places where platformization as a process takes place. This article focuses on the franchised Japanese convenience store as a particularly salient site from which to understand platformization in Japan. It is also crucial for thinking the platform economy historically and regionally within Asia where Japanese-style convenience stores abound, as well as globally given how Japan’s convenience stores were a model of the internet-connected mobile phone that in turn becomes a model for iPhone and Android smartphones. Focusing on the convenience store and its Japanese trajectory of development allows us to see the process of platformization of the franchised, networked, logistically-enabled convenience store from the 1970s to the present. The convenience store is, I argue, a crucial, if overlooked, site for platformization in Asia and beyond. It is also a key site for rethinking the most central of feelings to the platform economy: convenience.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143712927","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":"Platform Imperialism Theory From the Asian Perspectives","authors":"Dal Yong Jin","doi":"10.1177/20563051251329692","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251329692","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines how digital platforms construct imperialism in the Asian cultural markets. It discusses the increasing role of global digital platforms in cultural production, referring to the production and circulation of cultural content in Asia. It articulates how global digital platforms in the audio-visual sector, including broadcasting, film, and popular music, have expanded their market shares in Asian cultural markets to determine the similarities and differences between East Asia and other regions in the construction of platform imperialism. Finally, it examines whether Western digital platforms perpetuate a vicious circle in the local cultural sphere, despite the growth of local digital platforms in Asia, while contemplating its broader implications for global cultural markets.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143702751","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":"Connective Democracy: A New Approach to Fighting Political Divisiveness","authors":"Gina M. Masullo, Martin J. Riedl","doi":"10.1177/20563051251330390","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251330390","url":null,"abstract":"This special issue explores connective democracy, a new theoretical approach to fighting and understanding political polarization and divisiveness online. Connective democracy asks scholars to think about solutions that bridge societal and political divides, particularly on social media. Our collection of six articles theorizes connective democracy and applies the theoretical concept to global situations, such as nurturing freedom of speech in Myanmar (Burma) and discussions of a new constitution in Chile. The articles in this special issue also consider how connective democracy is useful for understanding current problems related to polarization, such as misinformation and online vitriol, as well as how social media affordances support connective democracy. This body of work contributes to our understanding of how to deal with one of the most challenging problems facing democracy today, rampant polarization and divisiveness online.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143695358","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":"Visual Identities in Troll Farms: The Twitter Moderation Research Consortium","authors":"Marco Bastos","doi":"10.1177/20563051251323652","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251323652","url":null,"abstract":"The Twitter Moderation Research Consortium is a database of network propaganda and influence operations that includes 115,474 unique Twitter accounts, millions of tweets, and over one terabyte of media removed from the platform between 2017 and 2022. We probe this database using Google’s Vision API and Keras with TensorFlow to test whether foreign influence operations can be identified based on the visual presentation of fake user profiles emphasizing gender, race, camera angle, sensuality, and emotion. Our results show that sensuality is a variable associated with operations that replicate the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency campaign, being particularly prevalent in influence operations that targeted communities in North and South America, but also in Indonesia, Turkey, and Pakistan. Our results also show that the visual identities of fake social media profiles are predictive of influence operations given their reliance on selfies, sensual young women, K-pop aesthetics, or alternatively nationalistic iconography overlaid with text to convey ideological positioning.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"64 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143695354","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":"Connecting Social Media Use With Education- and Race-Based Gaps in Factual and Perceived Knowledge Across Wicked Science Issues","authors":"Shiyu Yang, Dominique Brossard, Dietram A. Scheufele, Michael A. Xenos, Todd P. Newman","doi":"10.1177/20563051251325592","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251325592","url":null,"abstract":"Using three U.S. public opinion survey datasets, this study examines whether use of specific social media platforms affects the gaps in factual and perceived knowledge of three wicked science issues among Americans with different racial and socioeconomic makeup. Less-educated Americans are less likely to gain factual knowledge but more likely to gain perceived knowledge from increased social media use than more-educated Americans. Racial minorities are more likely to gain both factual and perceived science knowledge than White Americans with increased social media use. Furthermore, social media use was linked to wider education-based gaps in factual knowledge and narrower education-based gaps in perceived knowledge among racial minorities than among Whites. Theoretical and practical implications for equitable science communication are discussed.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"93 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143665840","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":"Men in Beauty Work and Feminization of Digital Labor Platforms","authors":"Sai Amulya Komarraju, Manisha Pathak-Shelat, Payal Arora, Usha Raman","doi":"10.1177/20563051251326665","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251326665","url":null,"abstract":"Extant research on the gendered dynamics on digital labor platforms and care work is divided in terms of focus: (migrant) men involved in supposedly “masculine” work such as driving and delivery, and home-based repair work, and the feminized invisible work performed by women in home-based care-work such as domestic work and beauty work. While such scholarship has merit, it completely dismisses the particularities of the South Asian context where beauty work, considered to be ritually impure work, has historically been performed by men from the marginalized Nai caste. Foregrounding the views of men in beauty work, particularly Nai-barbers (on and off platform), our findings reveal that Nai-barbers find the relocation of work from <jats:italic>barbershop to customer’s home</jats:italic> by platforms particularly humiliating. The transition from being entrepreneurs, in charge of their barbershops, to mere workers supervised by both platforms and customers, evokes memories of the servitude their ancestors endured. The humiliation and degradation of work they experience are rooted in caste and colonial histories. Our findings underscore the need to go beyond the immediate temporal context to identify the conditions of work that workers find degrading, and situate the feminization of platform economy within the context of coloniality and casticization of power, thus bringing a necessary intersectionality that recognizes but goes beyond gender.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143631324","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":"Journalists, Emotions, and the Introduction of Generative AI Chatbots: A Large-Scale Analysis of Tweets Before and After the Launch of ChatGPT","authors":"Seth C. Lewis, David M. Markowitz, Jon Benedik A. Bunquin","doi":"10.1177/20563051251325597","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251325597","url":null,"abstract":"As part of a broader look at the impact of generative AI, this study investigated the emotional responses of journalists to the release of ChatGPT at the time of its launch. By analyzing nearly 1 million Tweets from journalists at major US news outlets, we tracked changes in emotion, tone, and sentiment before and after the introduction of ChatGPT in November 2022. Using various computational and natural language processing techniques to measure emotional shifts in response to ChatGPT’s release, we found an increase in positive emotion and a more favorable tone post-launch, suggesting initial optimism toward AI’s potential. This research underscores the pivotal role of journalists as interpreters of technological innovation and disruption, highlighting how their emotional reactions may shape public narratives around emerging technologies. The study contributes to understanding the intersection of journalism, emotion, and AI, offering insights into the broader societal impact of generative AI tools.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"89 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143635677","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":"Beyond Cheap and Biased: Informal Volunteering on Social Media During the COVID-19 Crisis","authors":"Hjalmar Bang Carlsen, Jonas Toubøl","doi":"10.1177/20563051241304613","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051241304613","url":null,"abstract":"The ability of informal social media networks to facilitate civic participation is a major topic of political and scholarly debate. Some studies find that social media networks support little, low-cost, periodic, and demographically biased civic participation, while others find the opposite. We argue that many studies do not have an adequate point of comparison to determine the contribution of social media networks relative to other organizational forms, such as formal volunteering. Using an original population survey on volunteering during the COVID crisis, we compare social media networks to other types of organizations in terms of the relative volume of participation, the type of participation, the persistence of the volunteer, and volunteers’ socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. We do not find that social media networks contribution is comparatively trivial, low cost, and biased when compared to other organizational forms. Volunteers organized on social media are, however, less persistent when compared to volunteers in formal civil society organizations.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"56 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143607857","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":"More-Than-Human, More-Than-Digital: Postdigital Intimacies as a Theoretical Framework","authors":"Adrienne Evans, Jessica Ringrose","doi":"10.1177/20563051251317779","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251317779","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, we extend the concept of “postdigital intimacies” by developing its more-than-human and more-than-digital capacities. We argue that while we have witnessed a gradual flattening out of the digital and non-digital, our institutions, regulations, laws, ethics, and policies still make distinctions between digital experiences and “real life.” This demands a refinement of critical understandings of intimacy. We locate postdigital intimacies in accounts that situate <jats:italic>intimacy</jats:italic> as ambivalent, and draw on posthuman and new feminist materialism to argue for the interdependencies between human and non-human agencies, making intimacy something always more-than-human. In turn, we develop accounts of the <jats:italic>postdigital</jats:italic> that suggest a more-than-digital by highlighting experiences of an entangled digital and non-digital, and the practical implications of this for how we advocate approaching health, safety, well-being, and anti-harassment. We bring these two bodies of work together through two distinct examples: one of the intimate therapeutics of AI chatbots and the other in how young people navigate technology-facilitated sexual violence in schools. We argue that a theory of postdigital intimacies demonstrates the importance of thinking through the more-than-human and more-than-digital of intimacy in relation to regulation, policy, and research pertaining to harms, risk, and vulnerability.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143607836","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":"Mobilization and Latency Dynamics in the #StopLine3 Discourse","authors":"Adina Gitomer, Erika Melder, Brooke Foucault Welles","doi":"10.1177/20563051251322254","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251322254","url":null,"abstract":"After the Canadian oil corporation Enbridge proposed replacing its Line 3 pipeline in 2014, activists began protesting against its environmental risks and violations of Indigenous rights, among other concerns. As the pipeline’s construction progressed and resistance intensified, a parallel discourse emerged online under the hashtag #StopLine3. This study explores the temporal evolution of that discourse and its alignment with on-the-ground developments. Specifically, we assess whether the discourse conforms to a phasic model of collective action inspired by Melucci, which contends that social movements oscillate between phases of visibility and latency. This oscillation is mediated by key mobilizing events, which drive activists to focus their energy toward fighting a target. Once a resolution is reached (positive or negative), the movement progresses into a latent phase, where participants regroup, reflect, and build unity. The ideas behind this model were developed before the digital turn. Given how social media complicates temporality, it remains unclear how well the model explains discursive resistance online. We use #StopLine3 as a case study to test the phasic model, examining all tweets with the hashtag posted between 2016 and 2023. We break up the data into temporal segments based on peaks and lulls in overall activity and explore how both tweet content and forms of engagement shift from segment to segment. In line with the model, we find that the shifts between segments are mediated by key events; however, we also find that the Twitter discourse consistently favors mobilization-oriented forms of engagement and content over latency. Our results suggest that Twitter primarily facilitates mobilization work, and call into question the importance of latency work, what it looks like, and where it takes place on platforms such as Twitter. We argue that Twitter may not be an effective venue for latency processes, or alternatively, may alter how those processes manifest. Overall, we trouble the application of the phasic model to #StopLine3 and other similar public-facing discourses.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"73 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143607859","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}