How Facebook (and other Social Media) Fractures Institutions: Materiality and Institutional Work

Abstract

The diffusion of disinformation via social media has become a pressing societal concern for business leaders and policy makers. In recent years, disinformation has been implicated as a possible source of institutional change across a variety of societal contexts, including political contests, medical legitimacy, and scientific education. To better understand the disinformation phenomenon and how it changes institutions, we view disinformation through the lens of institutional work. From this perspective, the intentional propagation of false information represents a form of institutional work whereby actors seek to disrupt dominant institutional structures. We first focus on social media materiality or the material features of social media platforms that users interact with and the opportunities for disinformation actions that certain features afford actors. We introduce and define three social media material features: modular content, network velocity, and manifold network structures, and illustrate how they relate to three social media affordances for disinformation: crafting, amplifying, and partitioning. We then discuss a potential outcome of disinformation – institutional fracturing – as a form of institutional change. We conclude by offering recommendations for future researchers and policy makers.