Are Social Media Emancipatory or Hegemonic? Societal Effects of Mass Media Digitization in the Case of the SOPA Discourse

Abstract

Mass media digitization is an unfolding phenomenon, posing novel societal opportunities and challenges that researchers are beginning to note. We build on and extend MIS research on process digitization and digital versus traditional communication media to study how and to what extent social media-one form of digital mass media-are emancipatory (i.e., permitting widespread participation in public discourse and surfacing of diverse perspectives) versus hegemonic (i.e., contributing to ideological control by a few). While a pressing concern to activists and scholars, systematic study of this issue has been elusive, owing partially to the complexity of the emancipation and hegemony concepts. Using a case study approach, we iteratively engaged with data on the discourse surrounding the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and source literature to identify six facets of interpretive media packages (i.e., competing social constructions of an issue) as measurable constructs pertinent to emancipation and hegemony. These facets included three structural constraints (on authorship, citation, and influence) and three content restrictions (on frames, signatures, and emotion). We investigated propositions regarding effects of social versus traditional media and lean versus rich social media on these interpretive media package facets by comparing the SOPA discourse across two lean traditional and social media (newspapers and Twitter), and two rich traditional and social media (television and YouTube). Our findings paradoxically revealed social media to be emancipatory with regard to structural constraints, but hegemonic with regard to an important content restriction (i.e., frames). Lean social media mitigated structural advantages and exacerbated content problems. These findings suggest that, as with traditional media, some inevitable evils accompany the societal benefits of social media and that mass media is having a detrimental effect on public discourse. We offer practical steps by which private and public institutions may counter this effect, theoretical implications for wider consideration of the six interpretive media package facets proposed here, and encouragement to MIS researchers to increase efforts to compare different digitized processes so that a more comprehensive theory of the effects of different forms of digitized processes can be developed.

Advances in Social Media Research: Past, Present and Future

“…examine the importance of new and old media within the music industry; they find radio positively and consistently affecting sales of songs and albums, and sales displacement from free online sampling overpowering positive word of mouth on sales. Miranda et al (2016) compare traditional and social media to suggest that there are evils associated with the societal benefits of social media, and mass media has a detrimental effect on public discourse.…”

“…Only a handful of studies (five studies), particularly in 2010 and 2016, were examined the use of social media in public administration and political contexts, such as open governance and transparency (for instance, Baur 2017; Rosenberger et al 2017). Also, just about three studies Miranda et al 2016) dedicated their efforts to comparing traditional media with social media. The last set of studies (2013)(2014)(2015)(2016), around nine in total (for instance, Bharati et al 2014;Chung et al 2017), were identified as those limiting themselves to developing and testing social media constructs in relation to previously established theories and models (technology acceptance model, theory of planned behaviour, and others).…”

“…In a more relatable and simple definition, Miranda et al (2016;p304) explain social media being Bmainly conceived of as a medium wherein ordinary people in ordinary social networks (as opposed to professional journalists) can create usergenerated news.^A few other authors like Spagnoletti et al (2015) and Xu and Zhang (2013) commonly refer to social media as a set of interned-based technologies/applications, which are aimed at promoting the creation, modification, update and exchange of user-generated content, whilst establishing new links between the content creators themselves. Bharati et al (2014;p258) refer to social media as a technology Bnot focussed on transactions but on collaboration and communication across groups both inside and outside the firm.^Lastly, Tang et al (2012;p44) also identify social media as user-generated media, which is a source of Bonline information created, initiated, circulated, and used by consumers intent on educating each other about products, brands, services, personalities, and issues. ll of the aforementioned descriptions clearly regard social media as communication tools supported by internet-based technologies for dissemination of information.…”

“…Van Osch and Steinfield (2016) suggest that future researchers should explore the potential of Enterprise Social Media to gain insights into the tools that support disentanglement of team boundary spanning. Finally, researchers have Mettler and Winter (2016) Design science approach (1) Qualitative methods Miranda et al (2016); Huang et al (2015); Karoui et al (2015); Trier and Richter (2015); Kallinikos and Tempini (2014); Koch et al (2013); Koch et al (2012); Griffiths and Light (2008) Case study (8) Barrett et al (2016); Schlagwein and Hu (2016); Subramaniam and Nandhakumar (2013) Interviews (3) Dong and Wu (2015) Event study (1) Chiu and Huang (2015) Survey (1) Kreps (2010) Theoretical ( Hildebrand et al (2013) Field study (1) established that the lifecycle of information and communication technologies tend to be emancipatory in their infancy but eventually evolve into hegemonic tools. They warn social media policymakers to be wary of reproducing this pattern with digital media; the recommendation is to involve more citizens in the development of Internet governance framework, rather than resting decisions with the members of political or economic power (Miranda et al 2016).…”

Designing for Digital Transformation: Lessons for Information Systems Research from the Study of ICT and Societal Challenges

“…For example, Miranda et al (2016) show that social media affords policy advocates some ability to dominate the discourse on an issue while allowing for a democratization of discourse in other ways. Selander and Jarvenpaa describe how social media afford a social movement organization opportunities for "glocal" engagement (simultaneous pursuit of global organizational agenda and personal agendas).…”