Monday, 10 June 2024
Social Media Exam
WEEK 1
Social Media and Society
• At the turn of the century, people became more reliant on the Internet as information was
more easily accessible
• Nowadays, most of the social activities are conducted through some sort of computing
technology. For instance: posting online, making communities or a campaign, reading
news, etc
Social Media and Social Inequalities
The social beliefs expressed in social problems
Social Media = Echo-chambers
• ‘environment where a person only finds information or opinions that reinforce their
own’
• attracted/channeled through those who share similar ideas = nodes that create niche
opinion and interested groups
• engine algorithms provide information based on user preference = algorithms signal
what your network community values and cement what kind of ideas and attitudes are
common across the election of connectivity
• affective communities - feeds as a collective alignment emotionally driven by an issue
Social Media - Filter Bubble
• algorithm bias that limits the information the user has access to, restricting exposition to
alternative perspectives
• consequences: increases radicalization, xenophobic and hate speech in groups
Social Media and Resistance
• Hashtags as a way to attract new discussions and similar content into focus
E.g. #BlackLivesMatter brought injustice into a wider public view
• Voices from below - Hashtags call for action and justice, raising awareness of inequalities
in a manner facilitated by social media
• Social media allow dominant knowledge to be disseminated top-down by mainstream
media - news media, television and movies carry representations of events associated with
to broader financial and political interests that were less critical of the status quo
Social Media as Ephemeral
• we think less about the person we are attacking
• We are less attentive to the details of the content
• scan-and-go nature of social media
1
, Social Media and Discourse
• Discourse = language used in social reality context, socially conditioned and constitutive
• Discourse enables people to share their ideological beliefs, and therefore social inequalities
may rise (e.g. hate speech, racism)
• Different discourse represent different perspectives
Social Media Communication (SMC) = any electronic platform by which users (a) work
together in producing content, (b) can perform interpersonal communication and mass
communication (reproduction of hegemonic narratives) and (c) have access to to see and
respond — transforms the traditional unambiguous distinctions between producers and
consumers
E.g. Facebook & Linkedin
The new communicative dynamic of digitally mediated communication calls for a
digitization and social contextualization - Social Media Critical Discourse Study (SM-CDS)
- set of guidelines which pay attention to the affordances and the sócio-technological
context that determines discourses in social media unraveling the ways social
inequalities are produced in social media
WEEK 2
Racist Discourse: resonates social practices of discrimination based on socially shared and
negatively oriented mental representations of ‘us’ and ‘them’
- Is the most efficient way to achieve national homogenization = one-dimensionality of
thought and behavior that delimits the nation as one and pure dimensional entity with
internal coherence, excluding any differences = monoculturalism/monolingualism
• Explicit racist discourse = produced by (extreme) right parties/groups or may circulate in
the social media where participants employ hate speech against minorities
• Implicit racist discourse = produced in political discussions broadcast in the media or in the
speech produced by individuals who hold racist views but would not consider themselves
racists
Two components of racist discourse:
1. Exclusion - excludes the ‘other’
2. Assimilation - subject alignment with dominant behaviors
Note. Domination = power abuse; violation of human/social rights
Antiracist Discourse: practices/theories that seek to challenge, reduce or eliminate any
manifestation of racism in society, challenging the patterns of privilege and power relations in
humanitarian values = non-hegemonic discourse
• Relativism = respect human difference
• Universalism = repesco universal values and human existence
- Post-war era nation-states eliminated the ‘de jure racist supremacy’ but the ‘de facto
racist supremacy’ remained and is based on a new covert of racism: subtle and
2
Social Media Exam
WEEK 1
Social Media and Society
• At the turn of the century, people became more reliant on the Internet as information was
more easily accessible
• Nowadays, most of the social activities are conducted through some sort of computing
technology. For instance: posting online, making communities or a campaign, reading
news, etc
Social Media and Social Inequalities
The social beliefs expressed in social problems
Social Media = Echo-chambers
• ‘environment where a person only finds information or opinions that reinforce their
own’
• attracted/channeled through those who share similar ideas = nodes that create niche
opinion and interested groups
• engine algorithms provide information based on user preference = algorithms signal
what your network community values and cement what kind of ideas and attitudes are
common across the election of connectivity
• affective communities - feeds as a collective alignment emotionally driven by an issue
Social Media - Filter Bubble
• algorithm bias that limits the information the user has access to, restricting exposition to
alternative perspectives
• consequences: increases radicalization, xenophobic and hate speech in groups
Social Media and Resistance
• Hashtags as a way to attract new discussions and similar content into focus
E.g. #BlackLivesMatter brought injustice into a wider public view
• Voices from below - Hashtags call for action and justice, raising awareness of inequalities
in a manner facilitated by social media
• Social media allow dominant knowledge to be disseminated top-down by mainstream
media - news media, television and movies carry representations of events associated with
to broader financial and political interests that were less critical of the status quo
Social Media as Ephemeral
• we think less about the person we are attacking
• We are less attentive to the details of the content
• scan-and-go nature of social media
1
, Social Media and Discourse
• Discourse = language used in social reality context, socially conditioned and constitutive
• Discourse enables people to share their ideological beliefs, and therefore social inequalities
may rise (e.g. hate speech, racism)
• Different discourse represent different perspectives
Social Media Communication (SMC) = any electronic platform by which users (a) work
together in producing content, (b) can perform interpersonal communication and mass
communication (reproduction of hegemonic narratives) and (c) have access to to see and
respond — transforms the traditional unambiguous distinctions between producers and
consumers
E.g. Facebook & Linkedin
The new communicative dynamic of digitally mediated communication calls for a
digitization and social contextualization - Social Media Critical Discourse Study (SM-CDS)
- set of guidelines which pay attention to the affordances and the sócio-technological
context that determines discourses in social media unraveling the ways social
inequalities are produced in social media
WEEK 2
Racist Discourse: resonates social practices of discrimination based on socially shared and
negatively oriented mental representations of ‘us’ and ‘them’
- Is the most efficient way to achieve national homogenization = one-dimensionality of
thought and behavior that delimits the nation as one and pure dimensional entity with
internal coherence, excluding any differences = monoculturalism/monolingualism
• Explicit racist discourse = produced by (extreme) right parties/groups or may circulate in
the social media where participants employ hate speech against minorities
• Implicit racist discourse = produced in political discussions broadcast in the media or in the
speech produced by individuals who hold racist views but would not consider themselves
racists
Two components of racist discourse:
1. Exclusion - excludes the ‘other’
2. Assimilation - subject alignment with dominant behaviors
Note. Domination = power abuse; violation of human/social rights
Antiracist Discourse: practices/theories that seek to challenge, reduce or eliminate any
manifestation of racism in society, challenging the patterns of privilege and power relations in
humanitarian values = non-hegemonic discourse
• Relativism = respect human difference
• Universalism = repesco universal values and human existence
- Post-war era nation-states eliminated the ‘de jure racist supremacy’ but the ‘de facto
racist supremacy’ remained and is based on a new covert of racism: subtle and
2
