Accountability through (Inter)Action? A Framework of Affordances for Understanding Civil Society Accountability on Social Media Platforms
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2414965 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Cecilia Gullberg (0000-0003-2125-3667, Södertörn University), Nils Gustafsson (0000-0001-8376-2729, Lund University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Publication date | 2025-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Media + Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2056-3051 • E-ISSN: 2056-3051 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/20563051251340146 |
| OpenAlex | W4410841593 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 47 |
This article investigates how social media can enable and constrain civil society organizations' (CSOs) discharge of accountability. Based on a comparative analysis of the Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter (X) posts of the Swedish Red Cross during 1 year ( N = 1014), we propose a framework of affordances that illustrate how platform features, practices, norms, and perceptions about audiences jointly shape the accountability potential of a platform. Accountability is overall more content- than process-oriented, emphasizing visibility of action rather than far-reaching social interactivity. Our study, however, reveals important differences between Instagram and Facebook, on the one hand, and Twitter, on the other. Whereas accountability is more short-term, scripted, and donor-oriented in the former, it is more abstract and ad hoc, with mainly indirect efforts at interactivity, in the latter. Our framework of affordances sheds light on the hitherto under-researched intersection between the literature on CSO accountability and the literature on CSO use of social media
Accountability · Affordance · Business · Civil society · Human–computer interaction · Political science · Public relations · Social accounting · Social media · Sociology · Computer Science · E-Government and Public Services · Law · Nonprofit Sector and Volunteering · Public Administration · Social Media and Politics · Accounting
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Imagined Affordance
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |