Re-conceptualizing Mass Communication as Engagement: The Influence of Social Media

In a summit at the U.S. Institute of Peace in September, 2011 policymakers and social media experts identified several issues surrounding the evolving role of social media in political contexts including: the challenge of understanding social media because there is simply too much data; the difficulty of effectively interpreting information communicated in social media platforms; the reality that social media is reshaping human language; the struggle with balancing the veracity of social media as a vehicle of public opinion with the anonymity and risk of false information communicated; 

the potential corporate influence in the dominant social media platforms; and the application of social media in both peace and conflict situations. While analyses of social media’s influence in politics have been emerging since the 2008 election of Barack Obama in the United States and underscored by the Arab Spring in 2010 where collective action was not only enabled by social media, but the world was ableto watch citizens of some of the most restrictive regimes demand their voicesbe heard; we have not yet adequately addressed social media’s influence on mass communication and journalism research and analysis. For the last decade there has been a growing community of ‘new communication technology’ researchers and analysts