In this theoretical piece, I explicate the concept of bounded social media places (BSMPs), places within social media characterized by control over visibility such as private groups, servers, and chats. I distinguish these from public social media places (PSMPs), like algorithmically controlled content feeds and public groups, profiles, and pages. In doing so, I argue that political communication scholars engaged in multi-platform research can adopt an affordances perspective and use the affordance of visibility as an organizing principle to understand the broader social media ecology. Thus, they can differentiate between lower visibility BSMPs and higher visibility PSMPs across multiple platforms. This helps to address the limitations associated with using platform as a discrete object of study in multi-platform research. In particular, individual platforms are heterogenous and contain both lower and higher visibility places, which can be associated with distinct political outcomes. Furthermore, I identify four types of BSMPs and review political communication research on them, highlighting how the concept of BSMPs can help researchers tackle some of the limitations associated with this work as well as encourage scholars to conduct more multi-platform political communication research on these different BSMPs. I also outline specific ways in which the concept of BSMPs can facilitate more nuanced multi-platform political communication research and theorizing. Scholars can draw on this concept to more clearly identify their object of study, engage in more platform-agnostic and durable research, and present a more complete picture of multi-platform media ecologies and political communication.
We examine how people evaluate the credibility of information shared within bounded social media places (BSMPs), low visibility places within social media like private chats, groups, and servers. We conduct interviews with users of BSMPs across multiple social media platforms (N = 35), followed by an experiment comparing message credibility evaluation on BSMPs versus more public places within social media (N = 240). The interviews reveal that BSMPs are associated with a sense of familiarity and intimacy, resulting in people viewing information shared within these places as credible. The experiment further verifies that the perceived intimacy of BSMPs impacts credibility evaluation. This study therefore enhances our understanding of credibility evaluation on BSMPs, including the underlying mechanisms and affordances that inform this process.
Abstract: This study focuses on the affordances of bounded social media places (BSMPs), low visibility places within social media platforms like private messaging and private groups. While researchers have focused on BSMPs within specific platforms, this study presents a systematic examination of BSMPs across multiple platforms to facilitate theoretical durability. Interviews with users of BSMPs across diverse platforms (N = 35) reveal that BSMPs discourage the affordance of visibility as they are considered private due to visibility management mechanisms and trust in known audiences. They encourage personalization as users believe they receive relevant content from and can send relevant content to specific audiences, in the absence of algorithms. BSMPs also encourage synchronicity by facilitating continuous conversations. The strength of encouragement or discouragement of these affordances varies across different BSMPs and is informed by users’ social positions. This study therefore contributes a framework and shared terminology for future research on BSMPs across social media.
Abstract: This volume maps the role of mobile communication in the daily lives of women around the globe, shedding light on “under-the-radar” use of mobile communication to display a nuanced understanding of social impacts that may affect the gender construction processes of women at the individual, institutional, and societal levels. A global team of authors focus on the use of mobile communication by women in the lower rungs of their respective societies, as well as those who migrate with marginalized statuses within and across the national borders, to demonstrate how “under-the-radar” use of mobile communication is deeply inscribed within diversified social, cultural, historical, and political milieus. Illuminating the social structural constraints faced by women under their dynamic negotiation of agentic mobile phone use for self-empowerment, the chapters cover women’s economic activities, health care, well-being, migration, gendered identity, and the practices of different gender roles.
Pranav Malhotra 