Social media platform: Where cultures meet technology

The need for a cross-platform method approach

Over time, studies of the self have moved to "post-API" (Perriam et al., 2020) methodological situations. These have included using web scraping techniques common in web 1.0 research or creating creative ways to get data, like visiting the modified version of Instagram stories on YouTube to get around their expiration date. In the end, platform limitations have made API-based data collection only helpful in studying groups of people. During this change, Twitter has remained the only central Western platform that makes it easy for researchers who are not affiliated with the platform to create large datasets (Weller, 2015), even though it does have some ongoing restrictions, such as those that apply to historical data analysis or sampling design (Vicari & Kirby, 2023).

You can find more here if you do not know the term API. Source: https://www.youtube.com/@AaronJack

Single-platform research can provide insight into a platform's relationship with a collective phenomenon, such as the role of Twitter in the Black Lives Matter social movement. However, it cannot fully understand how different platform affordances and uses contribute to or comprehensively picture the phenomenon. Platform studies have explored how user cultures depend on device cultures, which are how platforms position or recommend content differently based on algorithmic choices. For example, in August 2014, the Ferguson protests became a trending topic for Twitter users worldwide, while Facebook news feeds displayed no Ferguson-related content. As a result, Twitter users learned about police violence and protests in Ferguson, while Facebook users did not (Vicari & Kirby, 2023).

Ferguson protests: National Guard sent to Missouri unrest. Source: BBC News

Overall, current conceptualizations of digital methods indicate that the best ways to study collective phenomena involve stepping outside of the "walled gardens" of various platforms and considering each platform's user culture as shaped by the multimodal local vernaculars that exist there (Vicari & Kirby, 2023).

Social media platform: A combination of technology and culture

Pearce et al. (2020) focused on the technical parts of social media platforms instead of the culture. They say these platforms comprise a mix of users, algorithms, and data that are not always connected to local cultures, places, or situations. On the other side, digital methods can be seen as platforms' cultural side and how users experience group phenomena on and within these platforms. Researchers in this line are not just interested in how or why a new medium is used; they want to know how a specific culture tries to find its place in a changing communication landscape while also trying to shape it in its own image (Miller and Slater, 2000).

From this perspective, the social media platform should be seen as a combination platform of technology and culture. Recently, I found this article: Your Strength Is Inspirational’: How Naomi Osaka’s Twitter Announcement Destigmatizes Mental Health Disclosures on Communication & Sport (Kumble, Diddi, & Bien-Aimé, 2022). This paper examines the case of female athlete Naomi Osaka, who withdrew from the French Open on her Twitter (X), citing mental health issues.

Naomi Osaka Withdraws From French Open, Citing Mental Health. Source: TODAY

The paper not only seek the answer for the theme of responser's comment on Osaka's twitter (to see how sport community support for her, a cultural perspective) but also find the answer for the question of whether bots playing a role as an agent of information (technological perspective). As one of the readings, this week suggested that researchers should look at cross-social media platforms for a comprehensive picture of a phenomenon, I'm eager to replicate the study about other female athletes who cited their mental illness for seeking the answer to a similar question on the Instagram platform.

References

Miller, D., & Slater, D. (2000). The internet: An ethnographic approach Kumble, S., Diddi, P., & Bien-Aimé, S. (2022). ‘Your Strength Is Inspirational’: How Naomi Osaka’s Twitter Announcement Destigmatizes Mental Health Disclosures. Communication & Sport, 0(0). https://doi-org.libezp.lib.lsu.edu/10.1177/21674795221124584

Pearce, W., Özkula, S. M., Greene, A. K., Teeling, L., Bansard, J. S., Omena, J. J., & Rabello, E. T. (2020). Visual cross-platform analysis: Digital methods to research social media images. Information, Communication & Society, 23(2), 161–180. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2018.1486871

Perriam, J., Birkbak, A., & Freeman, A. (2020). Digital methods in a post-API environment. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 23(3), 277–290. https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2019.1682840

Weller, K. (2015). Accepting the challenges of social media research. Online Information Review, 39(3), 281–289. https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-03-2015-0069

Vicari, S., & Kirby, D. (2023). Digital platforms as socio-cultural artifacts: developing digital methods for cultural research. Information, Communication & Society, 26(9), 1733–1755. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2027498