Popular, Accessible, Inclusive: Social Media as an Ideal for Decision-making in a Democracy

Rhea Ledesma-Gumasing; Regina Mendoza-Armiendo

doi:doi:10.11648/j.jppa.20210504.12

| Peer-Reviewed

Popular, Accessible, Inclusive: Social Media as an Ideal for Decision-making in a Democracy

Rhea Ledesma-Gumasing, Regina Mendoza-Armiendo

Published in Journal of Public Policy and Administration (Volume 5, Issue 4)

Received: 3 October 2021 Accepted: 22 October 2021 Published: 30 October 2021

Views: Downloads:

Download PDF

Share This Article

Twitter
Linked In
Facebook

Abstract

Restrictions to participation attract skepticism to ordinary citizens’ capacity to be engaged in the political decision-making process in a democratic society. Social media platforms address these skepticisms by outlining features of social media that facilitate discourses, quality civic engagement, and responsibility, necessary in preserving democratic ideals and practice in society. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, including algorithms and artificial intelligence, are regarded as better media to be trusted with political decision-making as they remove constraints of bias, accessibility, discrimination, and power imbalances usually found in precarious settings like face-to-face deliberations and of political representations. Employing analysis of secondary data from peer-reviewed journals and dissertations enabled us to harvest insights needed to substantiate the arguments and conclusions made in this article. This paper demonstrates the arguments for the ubiquity of social media as an ideal for the decision-making process in a democratic space. However, the presence of impediments as provided for by the social media platforms and governments including censorship, regulation, and legitimacy must be recognized for the merit it attaches to quality deliberations through social media. Using the normative ideals of inclusivity and epistemic value of participation, social media indeed is an ideal for decision-making particularly when the conditions under which the biases are developed and explained are held. In the end, accepting social media as an ideal to decision-making in democracy should not be accepted as is, unless theorization of the role of social media and justification of its merits is made. Without such, we may fail to account for what we seek in social media to support democracy.

Published in	Journal of Public Policy and Administration (Volume 5, Issue 4)
DOI	10.11648/j.jppa.20210504.12
Page(s)	131-138
Creative Commons	This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright	Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Social Media, Decision-making, Inclusive, Democracy

References

[1]	Abdulrauf, A. A. (2016). Cognitive engagement and online political participation on Facebook and Twitter among youths in Nigeria and Malaysia (Doctoral thesis). Universiti Utara Malaysia, Changlun.
[2]	Ahmad, T., Alvi, A. & Ittefaq, M. (2019). The Use of Social Media on Political Participation Among University Students: An Analysis of Survey Results from Rural Pakistan. SAGE Open July-September 2019: 1–9 DOI: 10.1177/2158244019864484 journals.sagepub.com/home/sgo.
[3]	Andrejevic, M. (2013). Public Service Media Utilities: Rethinking Search Engines and Social Networking as Public Goods. Media International Australia. 146 (1): 123–132. doi: 10.1177/1329878x1314600116. ISSN 1329-878X. S2CID 107705623.
[4]	Ansari, J. A. N., & Khan, N. A. (2020). Exploring the role of social media in collaborative learning the new domain of learning. Smart Learn. Environ. 7, 9. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-020-00118-7.
[5]	Atton, C. (2001). Approaching Alternative Media: Theory and Methodology. Napier University, Scotland.
[6]	Barry, W. (2012). Networked: The New Social Operating System. MIT. ISBN 978-0262017190.
[7]	Barsotti, S. (2018). Weaponizing Social Media: Heinz Experts on Troll Farms and Fake News. https://www.heinz.cmu.edu/media/2018/October/troll-farms-and-fake-news-social-media-weaponization.
[8]	Beauchamp, Z. (2019). Social media is rotting democracy from within". Vox. Retrieved 25 May 2020 from https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/22/18177076/social-media-facebook-far-right-authoritarian-populism.
[9]	Bekmagambetova, A., Wagnerb, K. M., Gainousc, J., Sabitovd, Z., Rodionovd, A., & Gabdulinad, B. (2018). Critical social media information flows: political trust and protest behaviour among Kazakhstani college students. Central Asian Survey, Vol. 37 No. 4, pp. 526-545.
[10]	Biswas, A., Ingle, N., & Roy, M. (2014). Influence of social media on voting behavior. Journal of Power, Politics & Governance, 2, 127-155.
[11]	Bulmer, D. & DiMauro, V. (2010). The New Symbiosis of Professional Networks: Social Media’s Impact on Business and Decision-Making, The Society for New Communications Research, CA.
[12]	Buschman, J. (2019). Good news, bad news, and fake news: Going beyond political literacy to democracy and libraries. Journal of Documentation, Vol. 75 Issue: 1, pp. 213-228, https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-05-2018-0074.
[13]	Chan, R. Y., Li, S., & Hui, D. (2014). Social Epistemic Cognition in Online Interactions. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2556977.
[14]	Cohen, J. (1997.) Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy. Deliberative Democracy: Essays on Reason and Politics, ed. James Bohman and William Rehg. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
[15]	Collins, B., Hoang, D. T., Nguyen, N. T & Hwang, D. (2020). Trends in combating fake news on social media – a survey. Journal of Information and Telecommunication, DOI: 10.1080/24751839.2020.1847379.
[16]	Cooke, N. A. (2017). Posttruth, truthiness, and alternative facts: information behavior and critical information consumption for a new age. Library Quarterly, Vol. 87 No. 3, pp. 211-221.
[17]	Deibert, R. J. (2019). The Road to Digital Unfreedom: Three Painful Truths About Social Media. Journal of Democracy. 30 (1): 25–39. doi: 10.1353/jod.2019.0002. ISSN 1086-3214. S2CID 149696774.
[18]	Dolan, R., Conduit, J., Fahy, J. & Goodman, S. (2015): Social media engagement behaviour: a uses and gratifications perspective. Journal of Strategic Marketing, DOI: 10.1080/0965254X.2015.1095222.
[19]	Filer, T. & Fredheim, R. (2016). Sparking debate? Political deaths and Twitter discourses in Argentina and Russia. Information, Communication & Society. 19 (11): 1539–1555. doi: 10.1080/1369118X.2016.1140805. S2CID 147004912.
[20]	Fiskin, J. (1995). The Voice of the People. Yale University Press.
[21]	Fuchs, C. (2014). Social Media: A Critical Introduction. Sage, London.
[22]	Ghazali, S., Sulaiman, N. I. S., Zabidi, N. Z., Omar, M. F., & Alia, R. A. (2016). The Impact of Knowledge Sharing through Social Media among Academia. AIP Conference Proceedings 1782, 030003 (2016); doi: 10.1063/1.4966060.
[23]	Gibson, R. K., & McAllister, I. (2012). Online social ties and political engagement. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 10, 21-34.
[24]	Global Social Media Stats. (2021). https://datareportal.com/social-media-users.
[25]	Godler, Y., Reich, Z. & Miller, B. (2020). Social epistemology as a new paradigm for journalism and media studies. SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1461444819856922.
[26]	Hamilton, J. (2000). Alternative Media: Conceptual Difficulties, Critical Possibilities." Journal of Communication Inquiry 24.4 (October 2000): 357-78.
[27]	Harbath, K. (2018). Hard Questions: Social Media and Democracy. Facebook Newsroom. Retrieved 21 March 2021 from https://about.fb.com/news/2018/01/hard-questions-democracy/.
[28]	Hellweg, A. (2011). Social media sites of politicians influence their perception by constituents. The Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communications, 2, 22-36.
[29]	Hemsley, J. Jacobson, J., Grudz, A., & Mai, P. (2018). Social Media for Social Good or Evil: An Introduction. SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F2056305118786719.
[30]	Ingram, M. (2018). Can social media have a positive effect on democracy? Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved 18 March 2021 from https://www.cjr.org/the_new_gatekeepers/social-media-democracy.php.
[31]	Jay, R. (2015). The People Formerly Known as the Audience. Press Think. Retrieved 12 March 2021 from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291188722_The_People_Formerly_Known_as_the_Audience.
[32]	Kemp, S. (2021). Digital 2021: Global Overview Report. Retrieved 12 March 2021 from https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2021-global-overview-report.
[33]	Kennedy, A. K. & Sommerfeldt, E. J. (2015). A Postmodern Turn for Social Media Research: Theory and Research Directions for Public Relations Scholarship, Atlantic Journal of Communication, 23: 1, 31-45. DOI: 10. 1080/15456870.2015.972406.
[34]	Klyuev, V. (2019). Fake news filtering: Semantic approaches. In 2018 7th International Conference on Reliability, Infocom Technologies and Optimization (Trends and Future Directions) (ICRITO) (pp. 9–15). https://doi.org/10.1109/icrito.2018.8748506.
[35]	Kraft, M. E. & Furlong, S. R. (2015). Public policy: Politics, analysis, and alternatives. (5th ed.) Los Angeles: CQ Press.
[36]	Laanpere, M., Sousa, S., & Tammsaar, K. (2011). A case study on using social media for e-participation: design of initiative mapper web service. DOI: 10.1145/2072069.2072120 • Source: DBLP.
[37]	Lievrouw, L. A. (2010). Social Media and the Production of Knowledge: A Return to Little Science?, Social Epistemology, 24: 3, 219-237, DOI: 10.1080/02691728.2010.499177.
[38]	Machackova, H., & Šerek, J. (2017). Does ‘clicking’ matter? The role of online participation in adolescents’ civic development. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 11 (4), Article 5. https://doi.org/10.5817/CP2017-4-5.
[39]	Matthews, P. D. (2015). Social Epistemology and Online Knowledge Exchange (Doctoral Dissertation). University of the West of England, Bristol.
[40]	Molina, M. Sundar, S. S., Le, T. & Lee, D. (2019). “Fake News” Is Not Simply False Information: A Concept Explication and Taxonomy of Online Content. SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0002764219878224.
[41]	Newman, N. & Levy, D. (2013). Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2013. reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-12-07.
[42]	Notley, T. (2009). Young People, Online Networks, and Social Inclusion. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. No. 14, 2009, pp. 1208-1227. doi: 10.1111/j.1083-6101.2009.01487.x.
[43]	Oser, J., Hooghe, M. & Marien, S. (2013). Is Online Participation Distinct from Offline Participation? A Latent Class Analysis of Participation Types and Their Stratification. Political Research Quarterly, 66 (1), 91-101. Retrieved March 20, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23563591.
[44]	Owen, D. (2017). The Age of Perplexity: Rethinking the World We Knew. Radically Reassessing “The Economic”. Madrid, BBVA, OpenMind, Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial.
[45]	Paniagua, J. & Korzynski, P. (2017). Social Media Crowdsourcing. DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4614-6616-1_200009-1.
[46]	Pew Research Center. (2019). Publics in Emerging Economies Worry Social Media Sow Division, Even as They Offer New Chances for Political Engagement. Pew Research Center Internet & Technology. Retrieved 12 March 2021 from https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/05/13/publics-in-emerging-economies-worry-social-media-sow-division-even-as-they-offer-new-chances-for-political-engagement/.
[47]	Quick, K. S. & Feldman, M. S. (2011). Distinguishing Participation and Inclusion. Journal of Planning Education and Research. Volume 31, Issue 3, pp. 272-290. https://doi.org/10.1177/0739456X11410979.
[48]	Rainie, L., Smith, A., Schlozman, K. L., Brady, H., & Verba, S. (2012). Social media and political engagement. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center’s Internet.
[49]	Robertson, E. (2013). The Epistemic Value of Diversity. Journal of Philosophy of Education, Vol. 47, No. 2, 2013.
[50]	Rubin, V. L., Chen, Y., & Conroy, N. J. (2015). Deception detection for news: Three types of fakes. Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 52 (1), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1002/pra2.2015.145052010083.
[51]	Senthil Kumar, N., Saravanakumar, K. and Deepa, K. (2016). On privacy and security in social media: a comprehensive study”, Procedia Computer Science, Vol. 78, pp. 114-119.
[52]	Seong, J. M. (2007). Online vs. Face-to-Face Deliberation: Effects on Civic Engagement. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Volume 12, Issue 4, 1 July 2007, Pages 1369–1387. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00377.x.
[53]	Singer, P. W. & Brooking, E. (2018). Like war: The Weaponization of Social Media. Boston. ISBN 9781328695741.
[54]	Siripurapu, A. & Merrow, W. (2021). Social Media and Online Speech: How Should Countries Regulate Tech Giants? https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/social-media-and-online-speech-how-should-countries-regulate-tech-giants.
[55]	Spinner, M. (2012). The Effects of Social Media on Democratization (Master’s Thesis). City College of New York.
[56]	Storck, M. (2011). The role of social media in political mobilisation: A case study of the January 2011 Egyptian uprising (Master’s thesis). University of St Andrews, Scotland.
[57]	Sunstein, C. R. (1995). Incompletely Theorized Agreements. Harvard Law Review. Vol. 108, No. 7 (May, 1995), pp. 1733-1772 (40 pages). https://doi.org/10.2307/1341816.
[58]	Torres, R. R., Gerhart, N., & Negahban, A. (2018). Epistemology in the Era of Fake News: An Exploration of Information Verification Behaviors among Social Networking Site Users. The DATABASE for Advances in Information Systems. Volume 49, Number 3.
[59]	Velasquez, A. & Rojas, H. (2017). Political Expression on Social Media: The Role of Communication Competence and Expected Outcomes. Social Media + Society. SAGE Publications. DOI: 10.1177/2056305117696521.

Cite This Article

Plain Text BibTeX RIS

APA Style

Rhea Ledesma-Gumasing, Regina Mendoza-Armiendo. (2021). Popular, Accessible, Inclusive: Social Media as an Ideal for Decision-making in a Democracy. Journal of Public Policy and Administration, 5(4), 131-138. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.jppa.20210504.12

Copy | Download

ACS Style

Rhea Ledesma-Gumasing; Regina Mendoza-Armiendo. Popular, Accessible, Inclusive: Social Media as an Ideal for Decision-making in a Democracy. J. Public Policy Adm. 2021, 5(4), 131-138. doi: 10.11648/j.jppa.20210504.12

Copy | Download

AMA Style

Rhea Ledesma-Gumasing, Regina Mendoza-Armiendo. Popular, Accessible, Inclusive: Social Media as an Ideal for Decision-making in a Democracy. J Public Policy Adm. 2021;5(4):131-138. doi: 10.11648/j.jppa.20210504.12

Copy | Download

@article{10.11648/j.jppa.20210504.12,
  author = {Rhea Ledesma-Gumasing and Regina Mendoza-Armiendo},
  title = {Popular, Accessible, Inclusive: Social Media as an Ideal for Decision-making in a Democracy},
  journal = {Journal of Public Policy and Administration},
  volume = {5},
  number = {4},
  pages = {131-138},
  doi = {10.11648/j.jppa.20210504.12},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.jppa.20210504.12},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.jppa.20210504.12},
  abstract = {Restrictions to participation attract skepticism to ordinary citizens’ capacity to be engaged in the political decision-making process in a democratic society. Social media platforms address these skepticisms by outlining features of social media that facilitate discourses, quality civic engagement, and responsibility, necessary in preserving democratic ideals and practice in society. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, including algorithms and artificial intelligence, are regarded as better media to be trusted with political decision-making as they remove constraints of bias, accessibility, discrimination, and power imbalances usually found in precarious settings like face-to-face deliberations and of political representations. Employing analysis of secondary data from peer-reviewed journals and dissertations enabled us to harvest insights needed to substantiate the arguments and conclusions made in this article. This paper demonstrates the arguments for the ubiquity of social media as an ideal for the decision-making process in a democratic space. However, the presence of impediments as provided for by the social media platforms and governments including censorship, regulation, and legitimacy must be recognized for the merit it attaches to quality deliberations through social media. Using the normative ideals of inclusivity and epistemic value of participation, social media indeed is an ideal for decision-making particularly when the conditions under which the biases are developed and explained are held. In the end, accepting social media as an ideal to decision-making in democracy should not be accepted as is, unless theorization of the role of social media and justification of its merits is made. Without such, we may fail to account for what we seek in social media to support democracy.},
 year = {2021}
}

Copy | Download

TY  - JOUR
T1  - Popular, Accessible, Inclusive: Social Media as an Ideal for Decision-making in a Democracy
AU  - Rhea Ledesma-Gumasing
AU  - Regina Mendoza-Armiendo
Y1  - 2021/10/30
PY  - 2021
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.jppa.20210504.12
DO  - 10.11648/j.jppa.20210504.12
T2  - Journal of Public Policy and Administration
JF  - Journal of Public Policy and Administration
JO  - Journal of Public Policy and Administration
SP  - 131
EP  - 138
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2640-2696
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.jppa.20210504.12
AB  - Restrictions to participation attract skepticism to ordinary citizens’ capacity to be engaged in the political decision-making process in a democratic society. Social media platforms address these skepticisms by outlining features of social media that facilitate discourses, quality civic engagement, and responsibility, necessary in preserving democratic ideals and practice in society. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, including algorithms and artificial intelligence, are regarded as better media to be trusted with political decision-making as they remove constraints of bias, accessibility, discrimination, and power imbalances usually found in precarious settings like face-to-face deliberations and of political representations. Employing analysis of secondary data from peer-reviewed journals and dissertations enabled us to harvest insights needed to substantiate the arguments and conclusions made in this article. This paper demonstrates the arguments for the ubiquity of social media as an ideal for the decision-making process in a democratic space. However, the presence of impediments as provided for by the social media platforms and governments including censorship, regulation, and legitimacy must be recognized for the merit it attaches to quality deliberations through social media. Using the normative ideals of inclusivity and epistemic value of participation, social media indeed is an ideal for decision-making particularly when the conditions under which the biases are developed and explained are held. In the end, accepting social media as an ideal to decision-making in democracy should not be accepted as is, unless theorization of the role of social media and justification of its merits is made. Without such, we may fail to account for what we seek in social media to support democracy.
VL  - 5
IS  - 4
ER  -

Copy | Download

Author Information

Rhea Ledesma-Gumasing

College of Public Affairs and Development, University of the Philippines Los Ba?os, Los Ba?os, Philippines
Regina Mendoza-Armiendo

College of Public Affairs and Development, University of the Philippines Los Ba?os, Los Ba?os, Philippines

Download PDF

Sections

Plain Text BibTeX RIS

APA Style

Rhea Ledesma-Gumasing, Regina Mendoza-Armiendo. (2021). Popular, Accessible, Inclusive: Social Media as an Ideal for Decision-making in a Democracy. Journal of Public Policy and Administration, 5(4), 131-138. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.jppa.20210504.12

Copy | Download

ACS Style

Rhea Ledesma-Gumasing; Regina Mendoza-Armiendo. Popular, Accessible, Inclusive: Social Media as an Ideal for Decision-making in a Democracy. J. Public Policy Adm. 2021, 5(4), 131-138. doi: 10.11648/j.jppa.20210504.12

Copy | Download

AMA Style

Rhea Ledesma-Gumasing, Regina Mendoza-Armiendo. Popular, Accessible, Inclusive: Social Media as an Ideal for Decision-making in a Democracy. J Public Policy Adm. 2021;5(4):131-138. doi: 10.11648/j.jppa.20210504.12

Copy | Download

@article{10.11648/j.jppa.20210504.12,
  author = {Rhea Ledesma-Gumasing and Regina Mendoza-Armiendo},
  title = {Popular, Accessible, Inclusive: Social Media as an Ideal for Decision-making in a Democracy},
  journal = {Journal of Public Policy and Administration},
  volume = {5},
  number = {4},
  pages = {131-138},
  doi = {10.11648/j.jppa.20210504.12},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.jppa.20210504.12},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.jppa.20210504.12},
  abstract = {Restrictions to participation attract skepticism to ordinary citizens’ capacity to be engaged in the political decision-making process in a democratic society. Social media platforms address these skepticisms by outlining features of social media that facilitate discourses, quality civic engagement, and responsibility, necessary in preserving democratic ideals and practice in society. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, including algorithms and artificial intelligence, are regarded as better media to be trusted with political decision-making as they remove constraints of bias, accessibility, discrimination, and power imbalances usually found in precarious settings like face-to-face deliberations and of political representations. Employing analysis of secondary data from peer-reviewed journals and dissertations enabled us to harvest insights needed to substantiate the arguments and conclusions made in this article. This paper demonstrates the arguments for the ubiquity of social media as an ideal for the decision-making process in a democratic space. However, the presence of impediments as provided for by the social media platforms and governments including censorship, regulation, and legitimacy must be recognized for the merit it attaches to quality deliberations through social media. Using the normative ideals of inclusivity and epistemic value of participation, social media indeed is an ideal for decision-making particularly when the conditions under which the biases are developed and explained are held. In the end, accepting social media as an ideal to decision-making in democracy should not be accepted as is, unless theorization of the role of social media and justification of its merits is made. Without such, we may fail to account for what we seek in social media to support democracy.},
 year = {2021}
}

Copy | Download

TY  - JOUR
T1  - Popular, Accessible, Inclusive: Social Media as an Ideal for Decision-making in a Democracy
AU  - Rhea Ledesma-Gumasing
AU  - Regina Mendoza-Armiendo
Y1  - 2021/10/30
PY  - 2021
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.jppa.20210504.12
DO  - 10.11648/j.jppa.20210504.12
T2  - Journal of Public Policy and Administration
JF  - Journal of Public Policy and Administration
JO  - Journal of Public Policy and Administration
SP  - 131
EP  - 138
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2640-2696
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.jppa.20210504.12
AB  - Restrictions to participation attract skepticism to ordinary citizens’ capacity to be engaged in the political decision-making process in a democratic society. Social media platforms address these skepticisms by outlining features of social media that facilitate discourses, quality civic engagement, and responsibility, necessary in preserving democratic ideals and practice in society. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, including algorithms and artificial intelligence, are regarded as better media to be trusted with political decision-making as they remove constraints of bias, accessibility, discrimination, and power imbalances usually found in precarious settings like face-to-face deliberations and of political representations. Employing analysis of secondary data from peer-reviewed journals and dissertations enabled us to harvest insights needed to substantiate the arguments and conclusions made in this article. This paper demonstrates the arguments for the ubiquity of social media as an ideal for the decision-making process in a democratic space. However, the presence of impediments as provided for by the social media platforms and governments including censorship, regulation, and legitimacy must be recognized for the merit it attaches to quality deliberations through social media. Using the normative ideals of inclusivity and epistemic value of participation, social media indeed is an ideal for decision-making particularly when the conditions under which the biases are developed and explained are held. In the end, accepting social media as an ideal to decision-making in democracy should not be accepted as is, unless theorization of the role of social media and justification of its merits is made. Without such, we may fail to account for what we seek in social media to support democracy.
VL  - 5
IS  - 4
ER  -

Copy | Download