Drift Reality > London, England > Social Media

This is the abstract from my Masters dissertation, which examined the political economy of social media.

In the past several years, there has been a steady growth in the prominence of participatory forms of media online, also referred to as social media. Many believe this trend represents a profound shift in which the Internet has a democratizing effect on society. The main objective of this research project is to analyze how power is articulated in Internet-based participatory media between participating users in a shared system, as well as through the system itself. Drawing on two related theoretical areas, political economy and critical constructivism, this study examines issues of power by focusing on a case study, Newgrounds. Newgrounds is a Web portal that hosts independently produced multimedia content and accommodates a range of interactive functionality. Two main research questions were explored: First, we studied how traditional media roles were shifting in participatory forms of media. Second, the potential for Internet-based participatory media to serve as a form of democratic rationalization was studied.

The Newgrounds users were the primary subjects of this research project. Using a semi-structured interview methodology, the perspectives of seven users who were pre-screened as ‘ordinary users’ on Newgrounds and six users who were pre-screened as ‘producers’ on Newgrounds were studied. The research findings indicated that the ‘ordinary user’ can be considered an empowered media participant when compared with the archetypical media consumer, but clear delineations still exist between ordinary users and producers of media. Furthermore, it was learned that in many ways, consumptive components of participatory media could actually serve a more democratic function than communal components.

Ultimately, the study concludes that although participatory media can serve a democratizing function, there is nothing that would suggest that it will dissolve power imbalances. A more underlying aim of this research project is to open new doors of inquiry into the study of how power is articulated in a form of Internet-based participatory media and update the parameters of the lense through which the issue is studied.

For the full paper in PDF format, click here.