10484: Who Gets to Speak? Ownership, Openness, and Participation Dis/Empowering Effects on Social Media

Scholars are investigating what social media affords in terms of spaces where people can exercise and express their power and voice. They question social media’s dual role as arenas for public engagement on societal issues while also exposing their darker dimensions, such as their detrimental effects on democracies. However, outlier social media platforms such as Wikipedia illustrate the potential for inclusive participation and the development of shared digital resources, even if they are not without critics regarding discrimination or bias. This PDW addresses who gets to speak in the social media’s public sphere. It provides opportunities for exploring critical questions around ownership, openness, and participation in social media, such as: What role does the institutional context play (e.g., democratic vs autocratic environments) in social media? How do open debates unfold on social media when platform design or ownership amplifies and spreads problematic content or, conversely, suppresses or removes it? Is open debate even possible if platforms support anti-democratic movements and political parties? Finally, what motivates people to participate, join a certain community, and debate? This PDW offers scholars to reflect collectively on how the socio-technical framings of social media platforms shape spaces for expression and power dynamics, considering the implications for participation and representation. This session aspires to reimagine how power and voice manifest in the social media digital age by adopting an interdisciplinary perspective and setting a collective research agenda for future work.