Negotiated participation : Social media logics and the orientation, conversation, and resistance of participation

Abstract

Over the last twenty years, social media have grown into prominent information and communication platforms. Scholars have provided great insight into these platforms’ role to people’s participation. Theories about the logics of these platforms have furthermore emerged to understand how their ‘rules’ impact production, distribution, and consumption. Few studies have, however, investigated the relationship between participation and social media logics. This dissertation investigates how social media logics influence participation, showing how social media logics theory serves to explore tensions between people and platforms further. It mobilizes three qualitative studies for this purpose, each representing one form of participation: orientation, conversation, and resistance. The studies investigate people’s usage and perceptions of social media as societal spaces; rhetorical genres in public issue conversations; and counter-public formations through personalized content feeds. I use these studies to discuss how participation is negotiated and moulded against social media logics as people avoid, adapt to, and utilize such logics. Certain kinds of participation may also be invited by social media logics. One such kind is orientation, which may be a pivotal form of participation while also representing a challenge to participation as a concept. Social media logics may further contribute to the mainstreaming of anti-democratic and radical voices which aim to counter the claims and legitimacy of democratic counter-publics, and invite non-reciprocity in online conversations.