When Risk Society Meets a Transnational Networked Public Sphere: An Analysis of PM2.5 Twitter Network

• In Event: 579 - Section on Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 07. Social Life of Information

Abstract

Drawing on Twitter data and publicly accessible government document and media reports, this research integrates Beck’s risk society theory with digital media theories to examine the mediated process of risk definition and assessment of PM2.5 (particulate matters with a diameter less than 2.5 micrometers) in a networked public sphere. Network and content analysis of a PM2.5 Twitter network shows that elite - political or professional - remained the most powerful producers of risk definition. Media played a key role yet faced challenges from diverse actors who participated in information dissemination. Laypersons, while peripheral, actively interacted with elite and media. The blurring geographic boundary in the PM2.5 Twitter network revealed an emerging transnational public sphere, which, however, remained segregated by language. This research advances a layered understanding of contingent, paradoxical impact of media in a risk society

Authors

• Wenhong Chen, University of Texas at Austin

• Fangjing Tu, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Pei Zheng, University of Texas at Austin