Can Social Media Use Produce Enduring Social Ties? Affordances and the Case of Katrina Bloggers

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• 作者：Stephen F. Ostertag ; David G. Ortiz
• 关键词：Blogs ; Social media ; Social ties ; Affordances ; Mobilization ; Emotions ; Moralities
• 刊名：Qualitative Sociology
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：March 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：40
• 期：1
• 页码：59-82
• 全文大小：
• 刊物类别：Humanities, Social Sciences and Law
• 刊物主题：Sociology, general; Social Sciences, general; Cross Cultural Psychology; Personality and Social Psychology;
• 出版者：Springer US
• ISSN：1573-7837
• 卷排序：40

文摘

Can previously unacquainted, grieving individuals who use social media to organize and participate in decentralized mobilizations build strong, lasting social ties? If so, how? What is it about particular social media technologies and platforms that might explain the strength and longevity of their social ties? Drawing on a case study of New Orleans bloggers who took part in a variety of contentious and non-contentious mobilizations after hurricane Katrina, we find that people who mobilize through social media like blogs can form strong and lasting social ties. We argue that this is partly because of the types of communication and interaction that blogs afford. We identify two types of affordances, mechanical and cultural, as distinct qualities of social media like blogs, and illustrate how they enable the building of strong, digitally mediated social ties among grieving people.