Year: 2018
Type: article
Abstract: In this paper, we examine and place "context collapse," as employed in social media studies, into context.In the hands of social media researchers, context collapse demonstrates how users lose track of the context in which they are operating when they enter into exchanges on social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.Examples that users lose their way include oversharing, failure to recognize privacy issues, and a belief that the imagined audience on these sites is much more trustworthy than further scrutiny warrants.In this paper, we praise context collapse researchers for drawing attention to users' difficulty in early stage navigation on social networking sites.However, we argue that the focus on users' early stage navigational difficulty can be limited in several aspects.It fails to examine social networking platforms as the basis for understanding context on social media sites; it restricts the idea of concept collapse to a narrow conception of the user; and finally, it does not distinguish variations among these platforms.Putting social networking into context requires considering how multiple users on social networking platforms-sponsors, entrepreneurs, information brokers, data analysts, platform owners, platform regulators-create a workable assemblage in which the interactions of participants create a discernible context.To derive this, we unpack three binaries used to establish the existence of context collapse: 1) leap/lag; 2) collusion/collision; and 3) publicity/privacy.First, aligned with the existent research on context collapse, we apply these binaries to social network sites with a narrow conception of the user.Then, we employ the same three binaries under two conditions: firstly, using a multi-stakeholder model of social networking platform participation; and secondly, using these binaries with three different variations on the social networking platform.
Authors: Mark N. Wexler, Yunzhijun Yu, Shannon Bridson
Language: English
Subfield: Communication
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2972075227