The governance of online speech is increasingly a battleground shaped by competing social expectations. This study investigates TikTok’s content moderation in Indonesia and Pakistan, two countries with vast market potential and delicate social and moral stances. Through document analysis and in-depth interviews with government officials, industry representatives, and civil society experts, it examines

Research suggests that social media can cause users, especially young adults, to overestimate their knowledge about climate change. Knowledge overestimation may then lead users to communicate more frequently about climate change with others. We test these hypotheses with a four-wave panel survey of respondents aged 18–29 years. We find that social media exposure is positively associated with respondents’

In this multi-platform, comparative study, we analyze social media messages from political candidates ( N = 1,517) running for Congress during the 2022 U.S. Midterm election. We collect data from seven social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Truth Social, Gettr, Instagram, YouTube, and Rumble over the 4 weeks before and after election day. With this unique dataset of posts, we apply computational

Digital platforms have long been understood as important spaces where identity performance takes place with networks and interpersonal interaction forming the basis of many theoretical approaches to self. Due to TikTok’s distinctive technical structure, scholars have argued that processes of sociality and identity construction have changed, calling into question some of the founding principles of how

Digital activists play a pivotal role in fostering local democracy, civic participation, and social advocacy across sub-Saharan Africa. Using technological, social, and discursive layers of communication, these activists navigate complex socio-political environments to amplify marginalized voices and facilitate local governance dialogues. Platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook enable real-time communication

TikTok has become an important digital space for solidarity among underrepresented groups. However, it is also a space where stereotypes and offensive jokes are proliferated through unique affordances such as “Use This Sound.” For this study, I focused on Black-Asian multiracials known as “Blasians” and how they used TikTok. I analyzed 56 videos, 47 by Blasian creators and nine by non-Blasian creators

This article examines social media’s role in the “online-offline nexus,” focusing on how digital interactions translate into sustained, large-scale, right-wing protests. Using Brazil as a case study, the research combines document analysis with non-participant observation in open right-wing Telegram groups and participant observation at the largest of Brazil’s 100 protest camps. At this camp in Brasília

In the everyday context, the term “hate speech” has become increasingly politicized and emotionally charged, yet these vernacular constructions of hate speech remain under-explored. Used as both a rhetorical weapon and an object of genuine concern, various understandings of hate speech circulate within interactive everyday cultures of digital media, shaped by the digitalised media environment. With

Resilience to disinformation on social media relies on the user’s ability to critically assess disinformation and even counter it. Active users, who, with their actions, can curate the information environment of others, can play a crucial role in stopping the dissemination of disinformation. Their activities, such as correcting or reporting, in the decentralized social media environment may prove more

This article investigates how social media can enable and constrain civil society organizations’ (CSOs) discharge of accountability. Based on a comparative analysis of the Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter (X) posts of the Swedish Red Cross during 1 year ( N = 1014), we propose a framework of affordances that illustrate how platform features, practices, norms, and perceptions about audiences jointly

Grassroots activism constitutes the backbone of civil society across political regimes. While many studies explored the role of social media and digital platforms in social movements, we focus on the ways local activists use these social media platforms to organize collectively against unwanted urban development. Localized (place-based) contention differs from large-scale social movements: it is less

In developing and least developed economies, traditional and spatially bound communities play a critical role in bridging the gap when formal social welfare systems fall short in meeting essential needs. While the role of traditional communities in addressing societal issues is well recognized, research on imagined communities as agents of social welfare is a new and rapidly developing area of study

A few social media platforms have come to play a central role in civil society organizing, often functioning as organizing partners. But on whose terms? As organizing partners, commercial social media platforms shape the conditions under which civil society actors organize, also shaping organizational dynamics, visibility, and collective action. Far from being neutral partners, these platforms become

The author of this article contends that current digital research methodologies tend to extract and commodify knowledge in ways that can replicate social, cultural, racial, economic, and global inequities. This article presents an Indigenous approach to digital methodology, including examples of posts to Facebook, Instagram, and Bluesky, as well as algorithmic search results. Finally, the author discusses

This editorial introduces the Social Media + Society special issue “Comparative Approaches To Studying Privacy.” Recognizing the importance of privacy in today’s digital societies and volatile political and regulatory environments, the editorial highlights the pressing need for comparative research on the topic and describes the articles in this special issue. The special issue addresses the theoretical

Situated within the theoretical work of Giddens and others on the role of expertise in contemporary society, this article evaluates the Instagram accounts of six dating-themed influencers. We seek to understand the role and strategies of these “new experts” in presenting, evaluating, and responding to contemporary heterosexual dating harms. Our analysis is informed by the existing literature on digital

Examining how different forms of climate protest affect social media debates is critical to understanding their role within societal climate policy discourse. This study compares debates surrounding disruptive and non-disruptive movements on Twitter/X, asking to what extent they lead to ideologically and affectively polarized networks. We analyzed debates around two prominent German climate movements—Fridays

Emotional communication, especially through social media platforms, has become a contemporary populist threat. While this phenomenon has been studied in for example news media and social movements, we know less about its influence on civil society organizations, despite their pluralism being a centerpiece in a vibrant democracy. More specifically, we do not know if social media make civil society organizations

New trends in online extremism are currently unsettling the typical classifications used to assess violent threats to democratic societies. While extremism is usually perceived to be a matter of extreme ideologies and methods, social media enables and shapes distinct hybridization processes by which conspiracy beliefs, personal grievances, and various ad hoc convictions are combined with ideology fragments

This article draws on the theories of Max Weber to explore how social media can redefine organization and hierarchy in the contemporary labor movement. Through a mixed-methods approach combining quantitative analysis of social media posts and in-depth interviews with key grassroots activists in Denmark, the article highlights how the personal, affective, and participatory nature of social media challenges

Using survey data from a sample of 378 women who live in the United States and self-identify as either Black or Latinx, this study explores predictors of women’s digital monitoring practices in intimate relationships in the context of intimate partner violence (IPV). We use literature about surveillance, monitoring, and IPV to frame our study. Our results show three significant instances that influence

Social media communication of government agencies should ideally be truthful and impartial to sustain public trust in government and support democratic goals. However, the politicization of agencies may harm the benefits that impartial and engaged communication brings. In this study, we provide a linguistic framework for analyzing how agency politicization is reflected in the language of government

What are the data protection policies in the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region? The developments over the last two decades on massive data collection, as well as the developments in computational power and data science methods appropriate for extracting insights from digital trace databases, have led to increased importance on the protection of the data of citizens, particularly sensitive

This study unpacks the implicit and explicit political functions nostalgia takes in incel discussions on the past on the incels.is forum. By combining a discourse theoretical approach with the theoretical framework of fantasy, the study demonstrates how an imagined ideal past is used to construct community and collective identity in an incel-specific, antagonistic way. Nostalgic fantasies articulated

While social media optimistically holds the potential to ameliorate political divides by increasing cross-cutting political talk, numerous studies suggest that social media has instead exacerbated political polarization. Yet, social media is incredibly heterogeneous and variation in platform affordances may result in markedly different democratic outcomes. In this article, we turn to the principles

Of the many solutions to address political misinformation spreading on social media, user correction holds special promise for connective democracy given its emphasis on prioritizing user autonomy and fostering communication and connections across lines of disagreement. But for the connective democratic benefits to be realized, these user corrections should ideally come from those who express strong

This article introduces the analytical approach of practice mapping , using vector embeddings of network actions and interactions to map commonalities and disjunctures in the practices of social media users, as a framework for methodological advancement beyond the limitations of conventional network analysis and visualization. In particular, the methodological framework we outline here has the potential

Conflict and disagreement are integral to healthy democracies, but the extreme polarization observed on many social media platforms poses a serious risk to the core functions of public communication. This theoretical article draws on the concept of connective democracy, further theorizing it to bridge the gap between empirical online deliberation and polarization research. It introduces and refines

Facebook groups hold civic potential as fora for connective democracy. Exploring this claim, we offer a contribution to ongoing debates concerning the democratic value of digital communication. Through a mixed-methods approach, including quantitative mapping of approximately 9,000 Danish Facebook groups, netnographic field studies of select groups, and interviews with group moderators, we investigate

In the era of digital communication, social media have often been considered a bastion of freedom of speech, both at national and global levels. However, in Myanmar, the military government has imposed strict control over social media since its coup in 2021, while using them to disseminate authoritarian propaganda. Civilians who have voiced opposition against the regime have been arrested, and foreign

TikTok and the associated technologies for recording and editing short-form video constitute a large and growing portion of online communication. Previous modalities of social media, including static images and especially text, engendered significant attention to the facticity of the communication: was a statement true or false? Did an event actually take place? For a certain genre of stylized, highly

This paper examines how aspirational content creators (ACCs) on the r/NewTubers subreddit forum understand and discuss YouTube’s algorithm. This study employs thematic analysis of 144 r/NewTubers posts that explicitly mentioned algorithms. The analysis reveals four main themes: mythologizing and anthropomorphism, demystification of the algorithm, platform gossip, and community backlash. NewTubers often

Political influencers use YouTube to share political media, a practice that has proven integral in the curation of alternative influence networks among the political right. This study examines how Black conservative influencers express Black conservative thought within the broader conservative ecosystem, examining their topics of discussion and comparing these narratives to those of other conservatives

Hate speech is widespread in digital media, and such incidents can harm individuals and fuel hostile discourses. Therefore, understanding the factors that shape bystander intervention is crucial. Despite frequent calls for more research, there is a need for greater understanding of how perceived political and digital media literacy are related to the frequency of various forms of online bystander intervention

Using African Technocultural Feminist Theory (ATFT), this study explored how Nigerian Igbo women fashion designers use Instagram to perform digital identities. While there is extensive literature on self-presentation on social media, there is limited research on African women’s self-presentation from a feminist perspective. The Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis (CTDA) of Instagram posts and

In October 2019, widespread protests began in Chile after the government announced an increase in transport fare, which gave way to several social demands. A month later, politicians from different sectors reached an understanding that would open the possibility of writing a new Constitution. Two clear sides emerged: those in favor (Approve) and those against (Reject) the new constitutional project

The use of social media by terrorists for live broadcasts can orchestrate a disruptive media event. The conceptualization of viewing as a ritual reveals its social functions. This study examines the emotional reception of the Jewish majority and Arab-Palestinian minority in Israel to the documented Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. Data were collected via a questionnaire distributed to 432 participants

This article uses the dashboard camera (commonly, dashcam) to consider platformed logics of injury. Installed in cars, dashcams are often purposed to arbitrate accidents. In Singapore, however, dashcams have fostered huge communities on social media, who regularly post and comment on dashcam footage. Furthermore, due to the nature of their work, food delivery riders also constitute common subjects

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This article examines the construction of the ideal influencer across two sites of articulation within the influencer ecology: influencer coaches and platforms. It seeks to make visible the normative model that underpins and regulates influencer identities, practices and monetization, which is tied to the interests and values of different actors. Drawing on a sample of 70 TikTok videos and Instagram

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

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

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

Social media are becoming a growing presence in our cities, filtering our experience of urban place and enabling locations to “go viral.” This article examines the downstream consequences of this new reality, examining how the urban actors who shape the city consider social media in their work. Drawing on ethnographic research and interviews with elite investors in São Paulo’s gentrifying Centro neighborhood

Online platforms have enacted various policies to maintain a safe and trustworthy advertising environment. However, the extent to which these policies are adhered to and enforced remains a subject of interest and concern. In this work, we present a large-scale audit of adult advertising on Twitter (now X), specifically focusing on compliance with its adult (sexual) content advertising policy. Twitter

Generative chatbots based on artificial intelligence technology have become an essential channel for people to obtain health information. They provide not only comprehensive health information but also real-time virtual companionship. However, the health information provided by AI may not be completely accurate. Employing a 3 × 2 × 2 experimental design, the research examines the effects of interaction

Public and vocal calls by Algerian feminist groups to revise restrictive laws about women during the 2019 Hirak (“protest” in Arabic) were met with physical and online violence from both pro-government and reformist groups. Theories considering the role of public spaces in advancing democratic efforts differ on strategy and method for inclusion of marginalized voices. Through structured open-ended

Research on the beauty influencer economy highlights the role that racism plays in platform labor, as race is a prominent determinant in the hierarchy of influencers. While the literature on beauty influencers reveals the multi-faceted labor necessary for success in the genre, less attention is given to the ways that skin tone discrimination—or colorism—defines one’s subject position as a beauty influencer

Transborder data flows offer opportunities, such as health data sharing, but they also bring risk. Research has explored the tensions between transnational and regional linkages, striving to understand when transborder flows of data bring benefits or drawbacks. By viewing global data flows as a social change process, this commentary strives to complement existing perspectives. It advocates embedding

Digital media allow users the ability to engage in and be exposed to trolling. Although many people may enjoy the occasional opportunity to witness others being trolled, a relative minority directly troll others, those whom we can label overt trolls. Nevertheless, features afforded on social media and online communities (e.g., likes, upvotes) make it accessible for people to positively react to and

The #StopAsianHate hashtag movement emerged as a challenge to the rising tide of racism in the United States during the coronavirus pandemic and contributed to the legislation of the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act. Our research brings together concepts from social movement studies as well as network science and celebrity-fandom studies to examine a corpus of tweets about the movement. We employ a mixed-methods

Emotionality is a well-established strategy for boosting audience engagement on social media. While fact-checking is positioned to provide objective information, fact-checking posts on social media often involve heightened emotionality. How much emotionality is present and how emotionality influences audience engagement and public sentiment toward fact-checked targets remain largely understudied. Informed

Social media has enhanced culturally grounded debates and ethnicity-based exclusionism during Kenya’s WhatsApp group deliberations. These practices are often more pronounced during elections when WhatsApp becomes a social media platform of choice for various groups. Exclusionism takes at least two vectors. On the one hand, tensions and confrontations emerge as electoral deliberations proceed. On the

Drawing on figured worlds and geographies of selves frameworks, we use critical ethnographic methods to explore three Latina teenagers’ experiences and ideas about social media and identity that were expressed throughout a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) project. While their discussions show a clear awareness that these sites are often inaccurate and biased, teenagers still admit to comparing