Why and how politicians use social media? Understanding sensemaking and representations of digital platforms. Case study in the European Parliament

Roginsky, Sandrine
(2015) Association of Internet Researchers Annual Conference “Digital Imaginaries” — Location: Phoenix, Arizona, Etats-Unis (21.October.2015)

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The mainstream perspective on politicians who use social media has been based on the premise that social media technology is, by nature, an innovative tool and that politicians are not using it to its full potential. In my presentation, I will outline some of the existing claims made for the innovative potential of social media regarding politics and lay out a number of issues and questions that should lead us to be wary about celebratory accounts. Such an approach requires us to first focus on digital imaginaries as apprehended by social media promoters before looking at its development and circulation within a specific political context – taking into account the different types of actors that may be encountered (internet specialists, journalists, politicians, employees…). As underlined by Flichy, “the imaginaire is at the center of (…) use of the internet” and is diverse and riddled with contradictions (2004:11). I will challenge the mainstream normative approach and will rely on a socio-technical approach to demonstrate that social media technology is not innovative by nature and innovation is not necessarily where it is expected, nor it is necessarily easily visible: it is however part of a “technical imaginaire” (Flichy, 2004:10). Such an approach highlights the existence of a “symbolic universe” (Granjon, 2014:113) accompanying adoption and uses of social media. This will lead me to call into question the capacity of quantitative analysis of large datasets to understand how social media are used as a tool for political communication and the manner in which politicians use it. In the realm of new media, populated as it is by rhetoric about technical possibilities and potentials, it is indeed important to look at actual users, uses and experience. However, there is a lack of comprehensive accounts of how politicians perceive social media. We must therefore examine carefully the experiences politicians make in specific environments and understand how practices are shaped. In other words, “scholars should not take the technological affordances of social media for granted – but should carefully consider the way in which users understand, appropriate and experience social media” (Barassi, Treré, 2012: 12). How to study uses and representations of social media? In this regard, the presentation will highlight the contribution of ethnographic methods to better understand perceptions and uses patterns of social media technology, focusing on the recursive intertwining of users and technology in practice. I will argue that communication emerges from the performativity of social media as interacting with actors’ practices. The performativity is sociomaterial, shaped by the way in which the technology is designed, configured but also engaged in practice (Orlikwoski, 2007). Such an approach demonstrates the importance to look at “social media imaginaries” in order to understand how political actors make sense of social media and how it drives their usages of such digital tools. Indeed social media practices are not phenomena that take place exclusively online but are rather consecutive with and embedded in other social spaces (Miller & Slater, 2005:5). Case study in the European Parliament Throughout this presentation, I will use one specific field to exemplify my arguments – my research related to the use of social media by Members of the European Parliament from 2009 to 2014. The approach is longitudinal and sheds light on the evolution of representations and uses of social media over five years. I will provide empirical insights into how politicians make sense of social media technology and the “imaginary world” (Mésangeau, Povéda, 2013) they create, emphasizing the importance of contexts and interactions. Political actors act with social media technology as a function of the meaning this technology has for them, and this meaning is constructed in the course of social interactions as well as individual and collective practices. This research adopts an ethnographic perspective in order to investigate how social media technology is described and discussed among users. It includes a mix of participant observation within the European Parliament (2009-2012) and about 60 interviews with Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and/or their staff (2010-2014). The analysis of the representations of social media by political actors does not limit itself to ethnography of situational practices but includes the analysis of published messages on social media platforms (Facebook and Twitter). Triangulation of methods allows the researcher to study practices and uses of social media from more than one standpoint in order to explain more fully the richness and the complexity of the different ways that social media are imagined in the political realm. Textual readings of profiles are conducted and status updates analysed, focusing on those politicians and staff who have been interviewed. Hine (2009) notes indeed that the ethnography of the internet should involve mobility between contexts of production and use as well as between online and offline. This presentation is intended to show (1) the richness and complexity of user practices in relation to social media (2) the contribution of an ethnographic approach to actors’ uses and practices toward a better understanding of the manner in which they understand and make sense of social media and (3) the contribution of triangulation to validate the observations. The research hopes to contribute to the knowledge of social media’s representations and imaginaries within the political realm, emphasizing why and how political actors use social media in everyday political life.
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Roginsky, S. (2015). Why and how politicians use social media? Understanding sensemaking and representations of digital platforms. Case study in the European Parliament. Association of Internet Researchers Annual Conference “Digital Imaginaries”, Phoenix, Arizona, Etats-Unis. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/177693