Brian Loader

VIRTUAL COMMUNITY CARE? SOCIAL POLICY AND THE EMERGENCE OF COMPUTER MEDIATED SOCIAL SUPPORT

This article argues that the emergence and growth of internet use in Britain has important implications for the analysis of social policy. It attempts to outline a research agenda for social policy in relation to one particular aspect of internet use, that of on-line self-help and social support – what we term here virtual-community care . The article presents data on patterns of home based internet use in Britain and outlines some contemporary debates in social policy about the importance of self-help and social support. It also considers how the internet is being used for self-help and social support with a particular emphasis on the emerging situation in Britain. Three illustrations of on-line self-help and social support are presented: two from newsgroups, which are part of the ‘uk.people.* hierarchy’: one concerned with disability and one with parenting issues; and one web based forum concerned with issues surrounding mortgage repossession. Drawing upon this illustrative material the article discusses some emergent issues for contemporary social policy discourse: the rise of self-help groups; the privileging of lay knowledge and experience over the ‘expert’ knowledge of health and welfare professionals; the nature of professional-client relationships; the quality and legitimacy of advice, information and support; dis/empowerment; and social exclusion.

The great equalizer? Patterns of social media use and youth political engagement in three advanced democracies

Recent developments suggest a strong relationship between social media use and political engagement and raise questions about the potential for social media to help stem or even reverse patterns of political inequality that have troubled scholars for years. In this paper, we articulate a model of social media and political engagement among young people, and test it using data from representative samples of young people in Australia, the USA, and the UK. Our results suggest a strong, positive relationship between social media use and political engagement among young people across all three countries, and provide additional insights regarding the role played by social media use in the processes by which young people become politically engaged. Notably, our results also provide reasons to be optimistic concerning the overall influence of this popular new form of digital media on longstanding patterns of political inequality.

Networking Democracy? Social Media Innovations and Participatory Politics

Early conceptions of digital democracy as a virtual public sphere or civic commons have been replaced by a new technological optimism for democratic renewal based upon the open and collaborative networking characteristics of social media. This article provides an introduction to a special issue of the international journal Information, Communication & Society, which attempts to present a grounded analysis of these claims drawing upon evidence-based research and analysis. A more cautious approach is suggested for the potential of social media to facilitate more participative democracy while acknowledging its disruptive value for challenging traditional interests and modes of communicative power.

The networked young citizen: social media, political participation and civic engagement

The accusations that young people are politically apathetic and somehow failing in their duty to participate in many democratic societies worldwide have been refuted by a growing number of academic...

Young people, social media and connective action: from organisational maintenance to everyday political talk

Social media is pervasive in the lives of young people, and this paper critically analyses how politically engaged young people integrate social media use into their existing organisations and political communications. This qualitative research project studied how young people from a broad range of existing political and civic groups use social media for sharing information, mobilisation and, increasingly, as a means to redefine political action and political spaces. Twelve in-person focus groups were conducted in Australia, the USA and the UK with matched affinity groups based on university campuses. The groups were of four types: party political group, issue-based group, identity-based group and social group. Our focus group findings suggest that this in-depth approach to understanding young peoples political engagement reveals important group-based differences emerging in young peoples citizenship norms: between the dutiful allegiance to formal politics and a more personalised, self-actualising preference for online, discursive forms of political engagement and organising. The ways in which political information is broadcast, shared and talked about on social media by engaged young people demonstrate the importance of communicative forms of action for the future of political engagement and connective action.

A decade in internet time: The dynamics of the Internet and society

This introductory article provides a critical assessment of the last decade of social research on the Internet and identifies directions for research over the next. Ten years is only a moment in the span of social research, but aeons in Internet time. Has social research across the disciplines been up to the challenges? Over more than 40 years, the unfolding development of the Internet and related information and communication technologies has been one of the most dynamic areas of technological and social innovation worldwide. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, its development was even more dramatic. While innovations in such areas as search, social media, big data, and the commercialization of the Internet became prominent only over the last decade, they are already taken for granted by most Internet users. It is becoming increasingly apparent to us that this interdisciplinary field must broaden even further to better connect with fields beyond the social sciences and information, communication, media and cultural studies to include stronger collaborative ties to law, ethics, and the sciences, engineering, and computer sciences, but also across the arts and humanities. This will be an almost certain requirement for interdisciplinary research over the coming decade with technology and society moving at Internet time.

On-Line with the Friends of Bill W: Social Support and the Net

The Internet is now being used as a mechanism for the delivery of social support on a global scale, chiefly through the formation of self-help groups. Most of the research that has been undertaken on these groups has focussed on Usenet and the use of newsgroups for social support. This paper examines the use of an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) ‘room’, by a self-help group composed of problem drinkers. The group had an international membership and advocated the use of social support, rather than intervention by professional services, to help its membership overcome problem drinking. The paper considers the roles that these new forms of Internet mediated self-help and social support might play in changing the relationships of those who participate in them towards traditional health and social care services. The paper also critically examines the extent to which such fora might function as virtual ‘communities’ of care.

Performing for the young networked citizen? Celebrity politics, social networking and the political engagement of young people

The use of social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, by politicians and entertainers to engage young citizens can be seen as a further example of the emergence of celebrity politics. While regarded by some commentators as further evidence of the trivialization of political life, this article adopts the alternative approach of those scholars who foreground the potential for popular culture and media entertainment to be more socially inclusive, democratizing and influential in public policy making. To-date analysis of celebrity politics has tended to be focused upon the media performances of politicians and political celebrities, based upon a single country and lacking empirical evidence. This article explores what young citizens drawn from three late-modern democratic societies (Australia, United Kingdom and the US) think about the use of social media by politicians and political celebrities and whether it influenced their own outlook on politics? Our conclusions are that young citizens are generally cautiously positive about both politicians and celebrities using social media but felt that they should learn to use it appropriately if they are to rebuild trust and credibility.

Understanding digital cultures

We live in a world of rapid cultural turns and even more rapid technological change. So rapid that few researchers could do justice to the ephemeral phenomena of transforming digital cultures. It was with this observation that we decided to organize a conference in Hong Kong entitled ‘Understanding global digital cultures’. The eight articles that comprise this special issue arose frommore than 50 submissions we received for that conference, which took place in April 2015. It would have been impossible without generous sponsorship from the Worldwide Universities Network, the Faculty of Social Science and the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. We selected the papers based on their excellent content presented at the conference, the follow-up reviews and feedback, and as a result, each paper was fully revised. We take an inclusive approach to ‘understanding digital cultures’ beyond any single discipline or research tradition, while avoiding the usual focus on privileged social groups in advanced economies. Yet this does not mean we take whatever is on offer and call it ‘culture’. Rather, as the articles in this special issue demonstrate, despite their methodological differences – from quantitative questionnaire survey and qualitative case study to digital methods and online ethnography – there are at least four connective tissues that help tie together the eclectic scholarship from different parts of the world, which is, after all, a reflection of diversity in both academia and the world of things digital. First, at information, Communication & Society (iCS) we understand that there is always a political dimension in cultural formations, which is often expressed most intensively, creatively, and consequentially, through social movement action. The 2014 Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong, like versions of Occupy on other continents, was one such moment when digitally equipped citizens rose up to challenge the dominant powers. But exactly how did the digital media usage patterns among protesters relate to their modes of social movement participation? Francis Lee and Joseph Chan address this question rigorously using their onsite survey data, which complements while also informing interesting dialogue with existing studies of digital media and Occupy movements around the world. Analysing two incidents of contentious politics among the Indigenous people of Australia, Tanja Dreher approaches the same question of political power and participation through digital media but from a very different viewpoint, focusing more on the policymaking authorities. Like Lee and Chan, Dreher does not equate technological diffusion with better democracy. Extending concepts of voice, expression, and mediatization, she provides an imperative critique against the discourse of digital political participation. Yes, there are indeed more opportunities for Indigenous media in cyberspace. But that does not necessarily mean politicians would listen to Indigenous voices, especially if they are voices of dissent.

Everyday Making through Facebook Engagement: Young Citizens’ Political Interactions in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States:

The emergence of personalised, interactive forms of social media has led to questions about the use of these platforms for engagement in politics. Existing research focuses on whether political actors successfully engage citizens, and how social media platforms mobilise young people into offline participation. In this article, we present original survey data on how many young people use social media to do politics: share information, express themselves, and take action. Everyday Facebook use is underpinned by young people’s engaged citizenship norms, and it has the potential to mobilise a broader range of young people. We contextualise the survey findings with qualitative analysis of how young people describe their willingness to engage in politics on social media. There is a general reluctance to take political action due to the possibility of conflict and disagreement within their networks; however, some acknowledge it is a way to bring the disengaged into political debate.