Pub Date : 2025-01-13DOI: 10.1177/20563051241311962
Fabienne Darling-Wolf
Common to scholarly analyses of the “digital revolution” is their inclination to deploy technology—the platforms, their affordances, the virtual spaces they create—as the main entry into evaluations of digital media’s impact on socio-cultural organization. While certainly useful in helping us understand the dynamics of digital practices and spaces, these narratives often fail to provide a fuller portrait of individuals’ broader relationship to the technological world shaped not (only) by their digital media use (or lack thereof) but also by their mere awareness of the existence of digital tools. Drawing from 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork in as small rural community in France, this project starts sketching such a portrait. Inspired by theories of mediation that encourage us to “rediscover” people as a methodological starting point by moving our focus from object (media) to process (mediation), it explores how residents experience, enjoy, resist, and negotiate the impact of digital and social media on the community’s culture, identity, and social organization.
{"title":"Digital (Dis)connection, Agency, and Imagination in a French Rural Community","authors":"Fabienne Darling-Wolf","doi":"10.1177/20563051241311962","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051241311962","url":null,"abstract":"Common to scholarly analyses of the “digital revolution” is their inclination to deploy technology—the platforms, their affordances, the virtual spaces they create—as the main entry into evaluations of digital media’s impact on socio-cultural organization. While certainly useful in helping us understand the dynamics of digital practices and spaces, these narratives often fail to provide a fuller portrait of individuals’ broader relationship to the technological world shaped not (only) by their digital media use (or lack thereof) but also by their mere awareness of the existence of digital tools. Drawing from 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork in as small rural community in France, this project starts sketching such a portrait. Inspired by theories of mediation that encourage us to “rediscover” people as a methodological starting point by moving our focus from object (media) to process (mediation), it explores how residents experience, enjoy, resist, and negotiate the impact of digital and social media on the community’s culture, identity, and social organization.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142974726","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}
Pub Date : 2024-12-23DOI: 10.1177/20563051241308323
Jamie A. Theophilos
In early 2023, Meta announced that its new microblogging platform, Threads, would join the Fediverse, a network of free, open-source social media platforms. This decision created a rift within the Fediverse, with some users supporting Meta’s integration while others strongly opposing it. This research explores the practices and discourses of the latter group—users, developers, and server administrators—who aim to build a safer and more autonomous “free Fediverse.” By framing the Free Fediverse as a digital counterpublic, this article introduces the concept of “strategic closure” to illustrate how these actors resist corporate capture and maintain a safer online environment. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of sociomateriality and the politics of openness, my analysis highlights the entanglement between discursive and material aspects of these counterpublic practices. This study contributes to the broader discourse on alternative social media politics, emphasizing the ongoing negotiations between openness, safety, and technological design, and offers insights from Science and Technology Studies (STS) for understanding counterpublics in the age of Big Tech.
{"title":"Closing the Door to Remain Open: The Politics of Openness and the Practices of Strategic Closure in the Fediverse","authors":"Jamie A. Theophilos","doi":"10.1177/20563051241308323","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051241308323","url":null,"abstract":"In early 2023, Meta announced that its new microblogging platform, Threads, would join the Fediverse, a network of free, open-source social media platforms. This decision created a rift within the Fediverse, with some users supporting Meta’s integration while others strongly opposing it. This research explores the practices and discourses of the latter group—users, developers, and server administrators—who aim to build a safer and more autonomous “free Fediverse.” By framing the Free Fediverse as a digital counterpublic, this article introduces the concept of “strategic closure” to illustrate how these actors resist corporate capture and maintain a safer online environment. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of sociomateriality and the politics of openness, my analysis highlights the entanglement between discursive and material aspects of these counterpublic practices. This study contributes to the broader discourse on alternative social media politics, emphasizing the ongoing negotiations between openness, safety, and technological design, and offers insights from Science and Technology Studies (STS) for understanding counterpublics in the age of Big Tech.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"94 37 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142879632","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}
Pub Date : 2024-12-20DOI: 10.1177/20563051241301203
Roy Aulie Jacobsen, Anders Olof Larsson
Social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (now X), play a crucial role in facilitating connections between politicians and citizens, particularly during a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic. This article examines the characteristics of viral social media posts in Norway and Sweden during the initial wave of the pandemic. Despite their geographical proximity and cultural similarities, Norway and Sweden adopted different approaches to the pandemic, providing a compelling basis for comparative analysis. Employing a visual computational approach, this study maps viral posts by analyzing engagement metrics such as likes, reactions, shares, and comments. A close reading of popular posts investigates the communication strategies employed across platforms and national contexts. The findings reveal that political criticism on Twitter attracted substantial engagement, while Instagram posts leaned toward self-promotion. On Facebook, popular posts exhibited a more varied use of communication strategies, reflecting a nuanced approach to engagement across different social media environments.
{"title":"Business as Usual? Assessing Amplified Political Posts Across Social Media Platforms During the COVID-19 Pandemic","authors":"Roy Aulie Jacobsen, Anders Olof Larsson","doi":"10.1177/20563051241301203","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051241301203","url":null,"abstract":"Social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (now X), play a crucial role in facilitating connections between politicians and citizens, particularly during a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic. This article examines the characteristics of viral social media posts in Norway and Sweden during the initial wave of the pandemic. Despite their geographical proximity and cultural similarities, Norway and Sweden adopted different approaches to the pandemic, providing a compelling basis for comparative analysis. Employing a visual computational approach, this study maps viral posts by analyzing engagement metrics such as likes, reactions, shares, and comments. A close reading of popular posts investigates the communication strategies employed across platforms and national contexts. The findings reveal that political criticism on Twitter attracted substantial engagement, while Instagram posts leaned toward self-promotion. On Facebook, popular posts exhibited a more varied use of communication strategies, reflecting a nuanced approach to engagement across different social media environments.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142869907","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}
Pub Date : 2024-12-19DOI: 10.1177/20563051241308330
Robin K. Crigler
Gender and humor have always been intimately related. In many societies, comedy is traditionally understood as a masculine pursuit, and women’s existence in comedic spaces has been subject to intense scrutiny by male commentators. Africa’s burgeoning stand-up comedy scene is an important site of contestation in this regard, but in recent years social media has afforded opportunities for African women to bypass traditional industry gatekeepers. In online spaces like Instagram, TikTok, and X (Twitter), African women creators have built massive audiences that cross national and continental boundaries. In this project, I draw on interviews with three prominent female comedy creators—Stella Dlangalala, Thenjiwe Mosely, and Beverly Adaeze—and use their work to shed light on how female comedians negotiate their position(s) in digital spaces rooted in Nigeria, South Africa, the United States, the United Kingdom, and beyond. While social media affords autonomy to performers, success as a comedian-influencer demands more from women than jokes. Feminism, Afropolitanism, and commodification intertwine in the stories of these performers. The gendered body, viewed through the lens of parasocial intimacy that short-form video facilitates, emerges as a site of great significance. In addition, I argue for greater critical attention to what I call “algorithmic mystery”—the influence of opaque social media algorithms in promoting, maintaining, and severing digital connections.
{"title":"Afropolitan Influence: Gender, Comedy, and Social Media in Global Africa","authors":"Robin K. Crigler","doi":"10.1177/20563051241308330","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051241308330","url":null,"abstract":"Gender and humor have always been intimately related. In many societies, comedy is traditionally understood as a masculine pursuit, and women’s existence in comedic spaces has been subject to intense scrutiny by male commentators. Africa’s burgeoning stand-up comedy scene is an important site of contestation in this regard, but in recent years social media has afforded opportunities for African women to bypass traditional industry gatekeepers. In online spaces like Instagram, TikTok, and X (Twitter), African women creators have built massive audiences that cross national and continental boundaries. In this project, I draw on interviews with three prominent female comedy creators—Stella Dlangalala, Thenjiwe Mosely, and Beverly Adaeze—and use their work to shed light on how female comedians negotiate their position(s) in digital spaces rooted in Nigeria, South Africa, the United States, the United Kingdom, and beyond. While social media affords autonomy to performers, success as a comedian-influencer demands more from women than jokes. Feminism, Afropolitanism, and commodification intertwine in the stories of these performers. The gendered body, viewed through the lens of parasocial intimacy that short-form video facilitates, emerges as a site of great significance. In addition, I argue for greater critical attention to what I call “algorithmic mystery”—the influence of opaque social media algorithms in promoting, maintaining, and severing digital connections.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"89 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142869910","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}
Pub Date : 2024-12-19DOI: 10.1177/20563051241309499
Michael Dezuanni, Amy Schoonens
This article extends the idea of media pedagogies to consider how TikTok provides a site of social learning about books and reading. It uses the concept of “peer pedagogies” to identify how the #BookTok hashtag is used to invite book and reading enthusiasts to take up learning positions. The article uses an exploratory approach to identify contrasting videos in which learning about books and reading is made available, and it undertakes an in-depth content and semiotic analysis of three videos to consider how learning is framed in different ways. The article is informed by Bernstein’s theorization of pedagogical classification and framing, which relates to how knowledge and skills are institutionally defined, and how knowledge is made available along a continuum of greater and less formality. This approach enables a consideration of the learning positions available to members of the #BookTok community as they engage with the videos. The article shows how #BookTok creators make deliberate creative and pedagogical choices to use TikTok’s affordances to share knowledge and skills as a form of public media pedagogy and service to the #BookTok community. In addition, it argues that the sharing of knowledge and skills between people who share a passion and interest in books and reading contributes to the videos’ popularity and success.
{"title":"#BookTok’s Peer Pedagogies: Invitations to Learn About Books and Reading on TikTok","authors":"Michael Dezuanni, Amy Schoonens","doi":"10.1177/20563051241309499","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051241309499","url":null,"abstract":"This article extends the idea of media pedagogies to consider how TikTok provides a site of social learning about books and reading. It uses the concept of “peer pedagogies” to identify how the #BookTok hashtag is used to invite book and reading enthusiasts to take up learning positions. The article uses an exploratory approach to identify contrasting videos in which learning about books and reading is made available, and it undertakes an in-depth content and semiotic analysis of three videos to consider how learning is framed in different ways. The article is informed by Bernstein’s theorization of pedagogical classification and framing, which relates to how knowledge and skills are institutionally defined, and how knowledge is made available along a continuum of greater and less formality. This approach enables a consideration of the learning positions available to members of the #BookTok community as they engage with the videos. The article shows how #BookTok creators make deliberate creative and pedagogical choices to use TikTok’s affordances to share knowledge and skills as a form of public media pedagogy and service to the #BookTok community. In addition, it argues that the sharing of knowledge and skills between people who share a passion and interest in books and reading contributes to the videos’ popularity and success.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"70 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142869915","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}
Pub Date : 2024-12-19DOI: 10.1177/20563051241306382
Shuning Lu, Biying Wu-Ouyang, Hsuan-Ting Chen
This study examines how perceived news feed performance (i.e., perceived news feed quality and valence) shapes consumptive news feed curation, defined as a type of social media consumption behavior by which users inform algorithms about what they want to see in their news feeds. Results from a survey in the United States ( N = 1,525) show that both perceived quality and valence of news feed were associated with consumptive news feed curation on Facebook. However, an asymmetric pattern emerged in that perceived news feed performance was only related to boosting behavior but not limiting behavior. Furthermore, the level of news feed diversity moderated the identified associations above. We revealed that the associations between perceived news feed quality and boosting curation were statistically stronger when the news feed was more diverse; when the news feed was less diverse, perceived negativity of the news feed was positively related to limiting curation; when the news feed became diverse, perceived negativity was negatively related to boosting curation.
{"title":"Asymmetric Consumptive News Feed Curation? Examining How Perceived News Feed Performance Influences Boosting and Limiting Curation on Facebook","authors":"Shuning Lu, Biying Wu-Ouyang, Hsuan-Ting Chen","doi":"10.1177/20563051241306382","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051241306382","url":null,"abstract":"This study examines how perceived news feed performance (i.e., perceived news feed quality and valence) shapes consumptive news feed curation, defined as a type of social media consumption behavior by which users inform algorithms about what they want to see in their news feeds. Results from a survey in the United States ( N = 1,525) show that both perceived quality and valence of news feed were associated with consumptive news feed curation on Facebook. However, an asymmetric pattern emerged in that perceived news feed performance was only related to boosting behavior but not limiting behavior. Furthermore, the level of news feed diversity moderated the identified associations above. We revealed that the associations between perceived news feed quality and boosting curation were statistically stronger when the news feed was more diverse; when the news feed was less diverse, perceived negativity of the news feed was positively related to limiting curation; when the news feed became diverse, perceived negativity was negatively related to boosting curation.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"201 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142869913","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}
Pub Date : 2024-12-18DOI: 10.1177/20563051241308326
Leslie M. Cuevas, Stacy H. Lee, Daniella Recalde
This study explores how fashion influencer moms (FIMs) navigate the intersection of motherhood and fashion within the social media landscape. Drawing upon theories of affective labor and self-presentation, we examine the online community these women built as a means of self-care and creating access to fashion for themselves and others. Participants were recruited using a social media hashtag sampling method. Subsequent semi-structured interviews with 16 micro-influencers were analyzed using a thematic approach. Findings revealed that FIMs leverage social media to maintain a sense of self by engaging in affective labor practices such as belongingness, authenticity, and solidarity. Through their self-presentation, these influencers offer confidence and style tips that reflect contemporary trends in mom fashion. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of the social media influencer phenomenon by considering new generations of mothers as influential consumers and marketers within the fashion industry.
{"title":"Fashion Influencer Moms on Instagram: Exploration of Their Affective Labor and Self-Presentation Practices","authors":"Leslie M. Cuevas, Stacy H. Lee, Daniella Recalde","doi":"10.1177/20563051241308326","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051241308326","url":null,"abstract":"This study explores how fashion influencer moms (FIMs) navigate the intersection of motherhood and fashion within the social media landscape. Drawing upon theories of affective labor and self-presentation, we examine the online community these women built as a means of self-care and creating access to fashion for themselves and others. Participants were recruited using a social media hashtag sampling method. Subsequent semi-structured interviews with 16 micro-influencers were analyzed using a thematic approach. Findings revealed that FIMs leverage social media to maintain a sense of self by engaging in affective labor practices such as belongingness, authenticity, and solidarity. Through their self-presentation, these influencers offer confidence and style tips that reflect contemporary trends in mom fashion. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of the social media influencer phenomenon by considering new generations of mothers as influential consumers and marketers within the fashion industry.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"146 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142849103","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}
Pub Date : 2024-12-17DOI: 10.1177/20563051241306322
Ursula Kristin Schmid, Anna Sophie Kümpel, Diana Rieger
Despite extensive research on what causes social media users to recognize hate speech and what motivates their reactions to it, little is known about a crucial intermediate step that leads to users’ engagement or non-engagement with hate speech online. In our study, drawing on the uses and gratifications approach, we theoretically derived motives representing affective and entertainment, personal identity and social-integrative as well as cognitive dimensions for social media users to engage or not engage with hate speech. To empirically investigate those motives, we conducted a quota-based online survey of adult social media users in Germany ( N = 4,020) and subjected the responses to exploratory factor analysis. We found that a range of personal and social gratifications, far beyond simple expressions of approval or disapproval, encourage social media users to engage with hate speech online, whereas intentions to protect oneself and others from potential harm discourage such behavior.
尽管对社交媒体用户识别仇恨言论的原因及其对仇恨言论反应的动机进行了广泛研究，但对导致用户参与或不参与网上仇恨言论的关键中间步骤却知之甚少。在我们的研究中，我们借鉴了 "使用与满足"（uses and gratifications）的方法，从理论上推导出了社交媒体用户参与或不参与仇恨言论的动机，这些动机代表了情感和娱乐、个人身份、社会整合以及认知等维度。为了对这些动机进行实证研究，我们对德国的成年社交媒体用户（N = 4,020）进行了基于配额的在线调查，并对回答进行了探索性因素分析。我们发现，一系列个人和社会满足感（远远超出简单的赞同或反对表达）鼓励社交媒体用户参与网络仇恨言论，而保护自己和他人免受潜在伤害的意图则阻碍了此类行为。
{"title":"Social Media Users’ Motives for (Not) Engaging With Hate Speech: An Explorative Investigation","authors":"Ursula Kristin Schmid, Anna Sophie Kümpel, Diana Rieger","doi":"10.1177/20563051241306322","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051241306322","url":null,"abstract":"Despite extensive research on what causes social media users to recognize hate speech and what motivates their reactions to it, little is known about a crucial intermediate step that leads to users’ engagement or non-engagement with hate speech online. In our study, drawing on the uses and gratifications approach, we theoretically derived motives representing affective and entertainment, personal identity and social-integrative as well as cognitive dimensions for social media users to engage or not engage with hate speech. To empirically investigate those motives, we conducted a quota-based online survey of adult social media users in Germany ( N = 4,020) and subjected the responses to exploratory factor analysis. We found that a range of personal and social gratifications, far beyond simple expressions of approval or disapproval, encourage social media users to engage with hate speech online, whereas intentions to protect oneself and others from potential harm discourage such behavior.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142841981","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}
Pub Date : 2024-12-17DOI: 10.1177/20563051241306323
Rita Marchetti, Anna Stanziano, Roberto Mincigrucci, Susanna Pagiotti
While legacy media have received increasing attention in the literature on media and corruption in recent years, the role of digital media and, in particular, social media is still an open question in corruption and anti-corruption studies Through this study, we aim to partially bridge the existing gap in literature by focusing our attention on the study of a corruption scandal, namely the Qatargate scandal. We will demonstrate that the affordances of platforms could exacerbate the instrumentalization of corruption scandals, emphasizing the contrast of positions and creating new (and reiterating old) biases in the narrative of a corruption case.
{"title":"Bias and Polarization in the Qatargate Scandal: A Social Media Perspective","authors":"Rita Marchetti, Anna Stanziano, Roberto Mincigrucci, Susanna Pagiotti","doi":"10.1177/20563051241306323","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051241306323","url":null,"abstract":"While legacy media have received increasing attention in the literature on media and corruption in recent years, the role of digital media and, in particular, social media is still an open question in corruption and anti-corruption studies Through this study, we aim to partially bridge the existing gap in literature by focusing our attention on the study of a corruption scandal, namely the Qatargate scandal. We will demonstrate that the affordances of platforms could exacerbate the instrumentalization of corruption scandals, emphasizing the contrast of positions and creating new (and reiterating old) biases in the narrative of a corruption case.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142841979","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}
Pub Date : 2024-12-17DOI: 10.1177/20563051241306540
Caitlin McGrane, Larissa Hjorth, Peta Murray
Pets, companion animals, and “more-than-human” kin play important roles in people’s lives. Animals are familiar and familial—they are often integral family members and can help create communities beyond the family unit. People rely on their pets for emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being. More recently, research into the role of animals in the lives of older adults has come into focus, especially through the visibilities and visualities of social media. The significance of animals in the lives of older adults in conjunction with the storification and sharing potential of social media leads us to ask: What do the practices of pet image sharing on social media reflect about ideas of aging and human and more-than-human kinship? In this article, we draw on ethnographic and interview data conducted with Australian older adults (65 years and above) about how and why they share images of their pets on social media. How do these visualities represent the feelings, care practices, and experiences of older adults and the value of the more-than-humans in their lives? This article seeks to contribute to social media literature by engaging with the under-explored lives of older adults and how their sharing practices reflect shifting relationalities between older adults and their pets.
{"title":"“We Make Them Our Kin”: Australian Older Adult’s Playful Kinship Practices Through Sharing Animal Images on Social Media","authors":"Caitlin McGrane, Larissa Hjorth, Peta Murray","doi":"10.1177/20563051241306540","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051241306540","url":null,"abstract":"Pets, companion animals, and “more-than-human” kin play important roles in people’s lives. Animals are familiar and familial—they are often integral family members and can help create communities beyond the family unit. People rely on their pets for emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being. More recently, research into the role of animals in the lives of older adults has come into focus, especially through the visibilities and visualities of social media. The significance of animals in the lives of older adults in conjunction with the storification and sharing potential of social media leads us to ask: What do the practices of pet image sharing on social media reflect about ideas of aging and human and more-than-human kinship? In this article, we draw on ethnographic and interview data conducted with Australian older adults (65 years and above) about how and why they share images of their pets on social media. How do these visualities represent the feelings, care practices, and experiences of older adults and the value of the more-than-humans in their lives? This article seeks to contribute to social media literature by engaging with the under-explored lives of older adults and how their sharing practices reflect shifting relationalities between older adults and their pets.","PeriodicalId":47920,"journal":{"name":"Social Media + Society","volume":"38 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142841983","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}
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