The Digital Architectures of Social Media: How Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat’s Design Influences Political Campaigning

• In Event: Potpourri of Research on Campaign Communication

Abstract

The present study argues that political communication on social media is mediated by a platform’s digital architecture – the technical protocols that facilitate and constrain user behavior in a virtual space. A framework for understanding digital architectures is introduced, and three platforms (Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat) are compared along the typology. Using the 2016 U.S. elections as a case, interviews with three Republican digital strategists are combined with social media data to qualify the study’s theoretical claim that a platform’s network structure, functionality, algorithmic filtering, and datafication model affect the content of messages issued by political campaigns on social media.

Author

• Michael Bossetta, U of Copenhagen