(Re)Defining Social Media as Digital Communication Networks

This article originally appeared in TheQuint with the headline 'We Need a Better Definition for Social Media To Solve Its Problems.' An excerpt is reproduced here.

The Need For a New Term

Conversations around ‘social media platforms’ also tend to fixate on specific companies, the prevalence of certain types of information on their platforms (misleading information, hate speech, etc.) and their actions in response (content enforcement of community standards, applications of labels, compliance with government orders, etc.). While this is certainly relevant, it is out of step with the nascent yet growing understanding of the reality that most users, and especially motivated actors (whether good or bad), operate across a range of social media platforms. In the current information ecosystem, any effects — adverse or positive — are rarely limited to one particular network but ripple outwards across different networks, as well as off them.

There’s nothing wrong with an evolving term, but it must be consistent and account for future-use cases. Does ‘social media platforms’ translate well to the currently buzz-wordy ‘metaverse’ use-case, which, with communication at its core, shares some of the fundamental characteristics identified earlier? Paradoxically, the term ‘social media platform’ is simultaneously evolving and stagnant, expansive yet limiting.This is one of the reasons my colleagues at The Takshashila Institution and I proposed the frame of 'Digital Communication Networks' (DCNs), which have three components — capability, operators and networks.Read More