Social Influence

Social Media and Social Change

Social media platforms in their current form started emerging roughly two decades ago and are transforming how influence unfolds in contemporary society. In that time, those of us avid users witnessed the evolution from simply another fun communication tool among friends and family to arguably the leading communication medium currently used by governments, journalists, business owners, community leaders, grassroots movements, and networked publics more broadly. These platforms quickly became central for anyone wishing to reach wider audiences to campaign, mobilize, or advocate for a cause. The Arab Spring erupted on social media, demonstrating to the average struggling citizen that there was now a new way to organize and bypass the gatekeepers, surface “hidden truths,” and share content with the masses in the attempt to achieve social justice through using modern technology. Perhaps as a consequence, influence on social media has become increasingly datafied and platform mediated, with large-scale collection, profiling, and automated accounts shaping who is visible, who is targeted, and who is heard. These dynamics show both the bottom-up potential of digital mobilization to drive social change, alongside the challenges of sustaining inclusivity, authenticity, and resilience in the face of manipulation and disinformation.

The mobilization of the masses through various social media platforms—which eventually led to a revolution spanning across multiple countries—is a phenomenon that has somehow also become commonplace. All sides of the political spectrum have organized and mobilized using social media platforms in order to create social change. Many Tommy Robinson demonstrations have occurred since his voice emerged on social media, while Greta Thunberg’s climate change activism influenced a shift in climate policies in Europe. The 2017 #MeToo movement led to Parliamentary discussions and changes to UK legislation. While this phenomenon empowers the average citizen, it is crucial for those of us concerned with social justice to understand the long-term consequences of this empowerment through these digital spaces. Are these changes to the original gatekeepers of information permanent, or are the platforms themselves becoming the new gatekeepers, amplifying the voice of some while censoring the voice of others? Does social media in its current form facilitate or hinder social justice? Understanding how influence is constructed, amplified, and resisted in digital environments is therefore important to sustaining inclusive forms of public life built on dignity, fairness, and equal rights.

This Article Collection is interested in how various social media platforms are currently being used to advance social causes and create (positive or negative) social influence through the mobilization of the masses. Whether it is through sharing AI generated images as propaganda, spreading mis- and disinformation on social media platforms to other marginalized minorities, or whether it is advocating for boycotts to apply pressure, social media platforms are an instrumental tool that were originally a lifeline for grassroots movements. Are these movements and platforms still for the average disenfranchised citizen to create social change or have they been hijacked? How does AI play into the current social media environment? Are “electronic flies[1]” influencing the dialogue, or are social media users tech-savvy enough to be able to distinguish between real humans and sophisticated algorithms? Emerging concepts such as alethocide point to the systemic destruction of truth through mass disinformation, raising new theoretical questions. Does this online mobilization translate to offline mass behaviors?

[1] Electronic Flies (ذباب إلكتروني) is the Arabic term used for “Social Bots” which are software agents that communicate unsupervised or semi-supervised on social media.

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Suzanne Elayan is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Information Management at Loughborough University. Her work involves studying language on various social media platforms in several domains and understanding how language is used online.

Martin Sykora is a Reader (Senior Associate Professor) in Information Management at Loughborough Business School, where he also serves as Head of the Information Management Group and Director of Research and Innovation Funding. His research combines large-scale social media and big data analytics with qualitative and ethnographic approaches to study emotions, misinformation, and collective behavior online. His research focus is on how digital influence and emotion shape public discourse, health, and political participation.

Dr. Elayan and Dr. Sykora declare no conflicts of interest regarding this work.