The Policy Sciences of Social Media

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6328720
AutoresMatthew R Auer (0000-0001-5405-8417, autor de correspondencia)
Año2011
Volumen39
Número4
Páginas709-736
Fecha de publicación2011-11-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaPolicy Studies Journal (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0190-292X • E-ISSN: 1541-0072
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1541-0072.2011.00428.x
OpenAlexW1710671768
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas12
Referencias citadas19

Twitter, Facebook, and other social media are increasingly touted as platforms not merely for networks of friends and for private diversion, but as vehicles that allow ordinary people to enter and influence the many arenas of public life. On the surface, the disparate and shapeless population of “i‐reporters,” policy “tweeters,” and anonymous news web site “commentators” would appear to challenge the comparatively well‐defined cast of professional diplomats, journalists, and propagandists that Harold D. Lasswell identified as policy‐oriented communicators. However, to illuminate the roles and impacts of social media in politics and policymaking, insights from Lasswell's “science of communication” must be embedded in Lasswell's broader lessons on value assets and outcomes. A closer look at the so‐called democratizing functions of social media in politics reveals the influence of powerful intermediaries who filter and shape electronic communications. Lasswell's insights on the likelihood of increased collaboration among political elites and skilled, “modernizing intellectuals” anticipates contemporary instances of state actors who recruit skilled creators and users of social media—collaborations that may or may not advance experiments in democracy. Lasswell's decision process concept is deployed to discover social media's strengths and weaknesses for the practicing policy scientist

Business · Democracy · Intermediary · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Population · Public relations · Social media · Sociology · Strengths and weaknesses · Value (mathematics · Information Systems Theories and Implementation · Law · Psychology · Social Media and Politics · Social Psychology