Social media engagement with organization-generated content: Role of visuals in enhancing public engagement with organizations on Facebook and Instagram

The ubiquity of social media platforms that increasingly foreground visuals over text has led to a rise in organization-generated visual content. This study addresses an underexamined question about this phenomenon: which characteristics of organization-generated visual content are associated with higher levels of public engagement in social media? Engagement is conceptualized as indicators of first level engagement such as likes and comments that represent affiliation with and support for the organization. Employing a visual social semiotic framework, a randomly selected sample of visuals posted on Instagram and Facebook by four leading airport brands in 2019 (N = 400) was coded for representational, interactive, and compositional meanings. Findings revealed that across platforms narrativity of images, and interactive features of distance and point of view enhanced engagement, while the compositional feature of framing increased engagement on Instagram. Implications of the findings for effective organization-generated visual content on social media are discussed.     

YOUTUBE,TWITTER AND THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT

Videos stored on YouTube served as a valuable set of communicative resources for publics interested in the Occupy movement. This article explores this loosely bound media ecology, focusing on how and what types of video content are shared and circulated across both YouTube and Twitter. Developing a novel data-collection methodology, a population of videos posted to YouTube with Occupy-related metadata or circulated on Twitter alongside Occupy-related keywords during the month of November 2011 was assembled. In addition to harvesting metadata related to view count and video ratings on YouTube and the number of times a video was tweeted, a probability sample of 1100 videos was hand coded, with an emphasis on classifying video genre and type, borrowed sources of content, and production quality. The novelty of the data set and the techniques adapted for analysing it allow one to take an important step beyond cataloging Occupy-related videos to examine whether and how videos are circulated on Twitter. A variety of practices were uncovered that link YouTube and Twitter together, including sharing cell phone footage as eyewitness accounts of protest (and police) activity, digging up news footage or movie clips posted months and sometimes years before the movement began; and the sharing of music videos and other entertainment content in the interest of promoting solidarity or sociability among publics created through shared hashtags. This study demonstrates both the need for, and challenge of, conducting social media research that accommodates data from multiple platforms.     

#Funeral and Instagram: death,social media,and platform vernacular

This paper presents findings from a study of Instagram use and funerary practices that analysed photographs shared on public profiles tagged with ‘#funeral’. We found that the majority of images uploaded with the hashtag #funeral often communicated a person's emotional circumstances and affective context, and allowed them to reposition their funeral experience amongst wider networks of acquaintances, friends, and family. We argue that photo-sharing through Instagram echoes broader shifts in commemorative and memorialization practices, moving away from formal and institutionalized rituals to informal and personalized, vernacular practices. Finally, we consider how Instagram's ‘platform vernacular’ unfolds in relation to traditions and contexts of death, mourning, and memorialization. This research contributes to a broader understanding of how platform vernaculars are shaped through the logics of architecture and use. This research also directly contributes to the understanding of death and digital media by examining how social media is being mobilized in relation to death, the differences that different media platforms make, and the ways social media are increasingly entwined with the places, events, and rituals of mourning.     

After the March: Using Instagram to Perform and Sustain the Women's March

The January 2017 Women's March was an example of the paradigmatic March on Washington, part of the repertoire of collective action used by social movements in the United States for decades. Similar marches were held on its first and second anniversary, in January 2018 and January 2019, respectively. One did not need to travel to the nation's capital to participate in these marches, however; activists also organized hundreds of “sister marches” across the United States and internationally. Yet, a sole focus on these one‐day, physical events misses a great deal of activity. In this article, we examine social media activity related to the Women's March on the platform Instagram that was posted well after the 2017 march was over but before the 2018 march was fully planned. We do so to gain purchase on how individuals and organizations use social media to maintain movements between large events. We analyze a systematic sample of Instagram posts from two sources: (1) individual Instagram users’ public posts with the hashtag #womensmarch and (2) posts from the official Instagram account of the Women's March. Conceptualizing these posts as political performances, we use our findings to draw implications for the study of contemporary protest.     

Theorizing the lesbian hashtag: Identity,community, and the technological imperative to name the sexual self

This analysis integrates poststructuralist and symbolic interactionist approaches to the self by incorporating the insights of science and technology studies regarding categorization processes. While the advent of the Internet has freed many individuals from geographical constraints on community formation, the architectures of online platforms produce a technological imperative to name aspects of the self with words. Using sexual identity hashtags on Instagram (e.g., #lesbian) thus performs paradoxical functions: the hashtag both enables the construction of a sexual identity within an affirming community and also reinforces the power relations that compel individuals to name and account for their sexual selves. By illustrating one way sexual identities function in the online lives of young women, this research complicates other scholars' findings that the salience of sexual identity categories is decreasing.     

People with disability and new disaster communications: access and the social media mash-up

This article explores how a lack of access to increasingly complex and overlapping digital communications platforms in times of disaster for people with disabilities has the potential to make already life-threatening situations considerably more dangerous. As we are increasingly coming to rely on a social media mash-up of digital platforms to assist in communications during disaster situations, the issue of accessibility for people with disabilities is as dire as if it was high ground during a tsunami or transport during a typhoon. The contemporary social media environment is characterised by a complex and overlapping network of complementary platforms, populated by user-generated content, where people communicate and exchange ideas. In this environment, YouTube videos are posted to Facebook and embedded in blogs, and Twitter is used to link to these other sites and is itself embedded in other platforms. These networks are increasingly supplementing and supplanting more traditional communication platforms, such as the television and radio, particularly in times of disaster. The concern of this paper is that the elements from which this mash-up of communications channels is made are not always accessible to people with disabilities. This evolving network of social media-based communication exposes the limits of existing Internet-based universal design.     

The ‘proper’ way to spread ideas through social media: exploring the affordances and constraints of different social media platforms as perceived by Italian activists

Social media have become a relevant arena for different forms of civic engagement and activism. This article focuses on the affordances and constraints of different social media platforms as they are perceived by Italian activists. Instead of focusing on single protest movements, or on single platforms, we adopt a media ecological approach and consider a variety of environments where people can choose to express protest‐related content. Our main goal is to explore whether, and how, the affordances and constraints of different social media platforms are perceived by users, and how such perceived differences are integrated in everyday social media activities. To this end, we combined in‐depth interviews with an adapted version of the cognitive walkthrough and thinking aloud techniques. Respondents reported that they act on social media platforms according to specific representations of what each platform ‘is’, and how it works. Such perceptions affect users’ protest‐related social media practices. Although they perceive major social media platforms filtering strategies and are aware, to different extents, of their commodified nature, they report continuing to use them for activism‐related communication, often adopting an instrumental approach.     

The discursive construction of gay teenagers in times of mediatization: youth's reflections on intimate storytelling,queer shame and realness in popular social media places

New media applications such as social networking sites are understood as important evolutions for queer youth. These media and communication technologies allow teenagers to transgress their everyday life places and connect with other queer teens. Moreover, social media websites could also be used for real political activism such as publicly sharing coming out videos on YouTube. Despite these increased opportunities for self-reflexive storytelling on digital media platforms, their everyday use and popularity also bring particular complexities in the everyday lives of young people. Talking to 51 youngsters between 13 and 19 years old in focus groups, this paper inquires how young audiences discursively constructed meanings on intimate storytelling practices such as interpreting intimate stories, reflecting on their own and other peers' intimate storytelling practices. Specifically focusing on how they relate to intimate storytelling practices of gay peers, this paper identified particular challenges for queer youth who transgress the heteronormative when being active on popular social media. The increasing mediatization of intimate youth cultures brings challenges for queer teenagers, which relate to authenticity, (self-) surveillance and fear of imagined audiences.     

Transition,Connection, Disconnection,and Social Media: Examining the Digital Lived Experiences of Transgender Individuals

In light of persistent discrimination, many individuals who are transgender lack a safe space to connect with others. Social media has become a platform for establishing social ties, receiving education, and sharing of resources that may not otherwise be available to individuals on the margins of society. Yet little is understood about the role of social media in the lives of individuals who are transgender. In this qualitative study, the researchers examined the experiences of adults who are transgender (N = 5) who use social media. The current study also explored possible benefits and hindrances of social media for individuals who are transgender. Two main themes emerged: social media as a resource and a path to self and authenticity. The researchers encourage counselors to become familiar with various social networking sites and their privacy settings, and propose using a theoretical framework to guide counseling work with individuals who are transgender to reflect on social media connections and disconnections.     

The rhythms of social movement memories: the mobilization of Silvio Meier’s activist remembrance across platforms

ABSTRACT

This article presents a temporal analysis of the activist remembrance of Silvio Meier, a prominent member of Berlin’s radical left scene, who was stabbed to death in 1992. It asks: when has Meier’s activist remembrance occurred and been remediated, with what rhythms, and how has it been influenced by different platforms? To answer these questions, the article draws on the literature dedicated to the interface between social movements and collective and connective memory, and applies Lefebvre’s rhythmanalysis approach. Within this approach a diverse set of material is used to visualise the timing of the digital and non-digital remediation and mobilisation of Meier’s remembrance across different platforms of memory including commemorative events, newspapers, websites and social media. Thereafter the various temporalities of use associated with these platforms and how they can influence the mobilisation of remembrance by social movements is discussed using Lefebvre’s concepts of polyrhythmia, arrhythmia, isorhythmia, eurhythmia and with respect to, firstly, a fifteen-year period between 2002 and 2017 and secondly, a fifteen-day period between 15 November and 30 November 2012 around the twentieth anniversary of Meier’s death. The article concludes by introducing another Lefebvrian concept – dressage – in order to consider which rhythms of activist remembrance might most benefit social movements and their goals. Overall, by demonstrating the importance of attending to the when and not only the what, who, where and how of social movement memories and by highlighting the need to consider the temporal influence of the different digital and non-digital platforms that activists use, as well as, by indicating the broader potential of applying rhythmanalysis approaches to instances of activism, the article has broader relevance for the further study of social movements, their use of different media and their mobilization of memory.     

Generalizing from social media data: a formal theory approach

ABSTRACT

Researchers increasingly draw on social media data to answer big questions about social patterns and dynamics. However, as with any data source, social media data present both opportunities and significant challenges. One major critique of social media data is that the data are not generalizable outside of the platforms from which the data originate. Problems of generalizability stem from non-universal participation rates on various platforms, demographically biased samples, as well as limited access to data based on infrastructural constraints and/or user privacy practices. We suggest that instead of empirical generalizability, social media data are theoretically generalizable in the formal theory tradition. Through a case example in which we use YouTube comments to test and extend a key tenet of identity theory, we show how social media data can instantiate theoretical variables and thus generalize to theoretical propositions. Mediated through formal theory, social media data maintain the capacity to address broad social questions while upholding methodological integrity.     

#IAmNotAfraidToSayIt: stories of sexual violence as everyday political speech on Facebook

ABSTRACT

The debate about the power and influence of networked publics often focuses on large-scale political events, activist campaigns and protest activity – the more visible forms of political engagement. On the other hand, digitally mediated activism is often questioned and sometimes derided as a lesser form of dissent, as it is easier to engage in, highly affective, and offers few assurances of sustainability of the change it calls for. But what about everyday political speech online, where social media platforms can contribute to a personalisation of politics? Can social media users express their views online and make a difference? This paper analyses around 3500 Facebook posts stemming from the #ЯНеБоюсьСказати (Ukrainian for #IAmNotAfraidToSayIt) online campaign that was started in the Ukrainian segment of Facebook in July 2016 by a local activist to raise awareness of how widespread sexual violence and sexual harassment are in the Ukrainian society. The paper argues that networked conversations about everyday rights and affective stories about shared experiences of injustice, underpinned by the affordances of social media platforms for sharing and discussing information and participating in everyday politics, can emerge as viable forms of networked feminist activism and can have real impact on the discursive status quo of an issue, both in the digital sphere and beyond it.     

Data craft: a theory/methods package for critical internet studies

ABSTRACT

Disinformation campaigns continue to thrive online, despite social media companies’ efforts at identifying and culling manipulation on their platforms. Framing these manipulation tactics as ‘coordinated inauthentic behavior,’ major platforms have banned culprits and deleted the evidence of their actions from social activity streams, making independent assessment and auditing impossible. While researchers, journalists, and civil society groups use multiple methods for discovering and tracking disinformation, platforms began to publish highly curated data archives of disinformation in 2016. When platform companies reframe manipulation campaigns, however, they downplay the importance of their products in spreading disinformation. We propose to treat social media metadata as a boundary object that supports research across platforms and use metadata as an entry point for investigating manipulation campaigns.

We illustrate how platform companies’ responses to disinformation campaigns are at odds with the interests of researchers, civil society, policy-makers, and journalists, limiting the capacity to audit the role that platforms play in political discourse. To show how platforms’ data archives of ‘coordinated inauthentic behavior’ prevent researchers from examining the contexts of manipulation, we present two case studies of disinformation campaigns related to the Black Lives Matter Movement. We demonstrate how data craft – the exploitation of metrics, metadata, and recommendation engines – played a prominent role attracting audiences to these disinformation campaigns. Additionally, we offer some investigative techniques for researchers to employ data craft in their own research of the disinformation. We conclude by proposing new avenues for research for the field of Critical Internet Studies.     

‘Joy is resistance’: cross-platform resilience and (re)invention of Black oral culture online

ABSTRACT

Existing research has affirmed that Black people historically mastered oral communication strategies to resist subjugation and oppression by dominant groups, and have emerged as leaders in technological innovation. This article takes seriously Black users’ social media engagement and focuses particularly on Black joy online. We analyze a rich collection of discourse spanning both Twitter and Vine through which Black users utilize the affordances of both platforms to challenge dominant narratives that demean and dehumanize Black people. We argue that Black users seize upon the interplay of the applications to not only express and foster joy, but to extend historic legacies of Black oral culture and further cultivate contemporary strategies that leverage – but also transcend – the affordances of each platform.     

‘Social media logic’ meets professional norms: Twitter hashtags usage by journalists and politicians

Social media is characterized by a set of principles defined as ‘social media logic’ [van Dijck, J., & Poell, T. (2013). Understanding social media logic. Media and Communication, 1, 2–14. doi:10.12924/mac2013.01010002], derived from the theory of ‘media logic’ developed in the era of mass media [Altheide, D. L., & Snow, R. P. (1979). Media logic. London: Sage.]. This article explores how ‘social media logic’ impacts on two interconnected but yet distinct professions, journalism and politics, by analysing one of the key principles of social media logics, namely ‘connectivity’, an advanced strategy of algorithmically connecting users to content and other users in social media [van Dijck, J., & Poell, T. (2013). Understanding social media logic. Media and Communication, 1, 2–14. doi:10.12924/mac2013.01010002]. The operationalization of connectedness in this study is the Twitter hashtag, as it is the most common feature for users to connect and relate to within a larger networked discourse [Bruns, A., & Burgess, J. (2015). Twitter hashtags from ad hoc to calculated publics. In N. Rambukkana (Ed.), Hashtag publics: The power and politics of discursive networks (pp. 13–27). New York, NY: Peter Lang.]. The empirical material consists of tweets posted by 10 Norwegian politicians and 10 journalists, selected on their level of activity on Twitter. The tweets are analysed with the emphasis on the frequency and content of the hashtags, and the methodological design is comparative between the journalists and the politicians. A key finding is that there are significant differences between how journalists and politicians use hashtags, but that they both use mass media hashtags to reach outside their follower networks. Consequently, this demonstrates that journalists’ and politicians’ use of social media is closely connected to their professional norms, and that the ‘social media logic’ is still related to the ‘media logic’ of mainstream and broadcast media.     

‘My anorexia story’: girls constructing narratives of identity on YouTube

The phenomenon of pro-anorexia (‘pro-ana’) communities has attracted extensive academic attention over the last 15 years, with feminist scholars fascinated by the political complexities of such cultures. But the internet has also enabled a range of eating disorder recovery cultures to emerge – whether organized around blogs, Facebook, Instagram or YouTube – and such spaces have been largely ignored by feminist scholarship which has fetishized the apparently more resistant and controversial discourses of pro-ana. As such, this article explores a set of videos posted on YouTube under the title of ‘My anorexia story’ which present narratives of recovery, or efforts to recover, from anorexia. Primarily produced by white, Western, teenage girls, these videos are effectively slide shows made up of written text and photographs, with selfies of the body sitting at their core. The conceptual and political significance of self-representation has been seen as central to the construction of subjectivity within the digital media landscape, with particular attention paid to the ways in which such practices compare, speak back to, or challenge the existing representational discourses of ‘dominant’ media and wider relations of social power. In this regard, this article explores questions of agency in gendered self-representation, examining what kinds of self-narratives the girls are producing about anorexia. In doing so, it examines how the stories seek to ‘author’ and regulate the meanings of the anorexic body; how these constructions intersect with dominant constructions of anorexia (such as those offered by medical discourse and the media); as well as the implications of the aesthetic strategies they employ. In considering how the narratives visualize, display and ‘expose’ the anorexic body, I draw upon a growing area of work which examines the selfie in relation discourses of surveillance, visibility and selfhood.     

Hashtagging girlhood: #IAmMalala, #BringBackOurGirls and gendering representations of global politics

This article explores how gendered, racial and youth-ed concepts of girlhood shape the way conflict, violence and the lived experiences of girls in conflict-affected environments are understood globally. In particular, it examines the broader context and effect of social media campaigns that specifically invoke a concept of “girlhood” in their responses to crisis or tragedy. It focuses on two hashtags and their associated social media campaigns: #IAmMalala, started in response to the attempted killing of Pakistani education activist Malala Yousafzai in 2012 by Taliban gunmen, and #BringBackOurGirls, started by Nigerians and adopted globally in response to the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls by terrorist group Boko Haram. In both instances, understandings of the broader political context are shaped by the focus on girls. Both hashtags also appropriate an experience: claiming to be Malala and claiming the Nigerian girls as ours. Through this exploration, I argue that particular ideals of girlhood are coded within these campaigns, and that these girls’ experiences are appropriated. I critique the limited representations of girlhood that circulate in these discussions, and how these limited representations demonstrate the problematic narrowness of dominant conceptions of girlhood.     

Engagement across three social media platforms: An exploratory study of a cause-related PR campaign

This study analyzed a social media campaign promoting child welfare to explore the associations among people's social media use, their engagement with different social media platforms (blog, Facebook page, Twitter account), and three intended behavioral outcomes (social media behavior, offline communication behavior, and helping behavior). An online survey of 73 participants shows that people's use of each social media platform was significantly related to their engagement with it at a bivariate level (when the other control variables were not considered). Social media use was also related to all three behavioral outcomes. Additionally, users’ engagement played a significant mediating role in the relationship between their social media use and their offline communication behavior.     

Hybrid social and news media protest events: from #MarchinMarch to #BusttheBudget in Australia

Public protest events are now both social media and news media events. They are deeply entangled, with news media actors – such as journalists or news organisations – directly participating in the protest by tweeting about the event using the protest hashtag; and social media actors sharing news items published online by professional news agencies. Protesters have always deployed tactics to engage the media and use news media agencies’ resources to amplify their reach, with the dual aim of mobilising new supporters and adding their voice to public, mediatised debate. When protest moves between a physical space and a virtual space, the interactions between protesters and media stop being asynchronous or post hoc and turn instantaneous. In this new media-protest ecosystem, traditional media are still relevant sources of information and legitimacy, yet this dynamic is increasingly underpinned by a hybrid interdependency between traditional news and social media sources. In this paper we focus on an anti-austerity government movement that arose in Australia in early 2014 and was mobilised as a series of social media driven, connective action protest events. We show that there is a complex symbiotic interdependency between the movement and the traditional media for recognition and amplification of initial protest events, but that over time as media interest wanes, the movements’ network becomes disconnected and momentum is lost. This suggests that the active role traditional media play in protest events is being underestimated in the current research agenda on connective action.