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As social media becomes more ingrained in political and social discourse around the world, the need for systematic measures and interpretations of online polarization grows. In this work, we introduce five major organizational forms of community-level polarization and nine subforms to support comparison of community dynamics in controversial discussions across time, platforms, languages, and domains. We propose a multi-dimensional social network analysis approach to characterize the structure within and between ideologically opposed communities and evaluate the organizational form. Through three case studies, we demonstrate applying the proposed methodology on two social media platforms (Twitter and Reddit) and levels of conflict (topic and partisanship). This work has implications for depolarization interventions and policies on social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social networks are used by millions of people. These platforms are very popular with young audiences but also raise a growing number of questions: What are young people doing on social networks? What do they read and produce? Do they engage in a variety of activities? Are they media literate in relation to these social networks, and how do they develop these competences? This article focuses on the relationships between young adults' social network practices and the development of their media literacy competences. Based on responses from 350 Belgian young adults, we identify profiles based on frequency and diversity of their practices. These profiles correlate with different levels of media literacy. We observe no relationship between frequency of participants' reception practices (reviewing their newsfeed, reading posts, conducting in-depth research) and the development of their media literacy competences. However, we observe that the more young adults diversify these reception practices, the better their media literacy competences are. Conversely, and surprisingly, the more often they produce media content and the more they diversify these production practices (creating and sharing posts), the less media literate they appear to be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media uptake in the Gulf States continues to grow, and while previous research has explored its place in terms of political action and individual responses to pressures of globalisation and urbanisation, little attention has been paid to how social media has integrated with the tribal networks in the region. This paper presents research that uses inductive thematic analysis of 107 public Twitter and Instagram accounts of Gulf State tribal groups to explore how tribes in the Gulf region use these platforms to facilitate tribal power and cohesion. We argue that tribal social media is performing multiple simultaneous roles, including aiding in maintaining tribal cohesion in the face of urbanisation and globalisation, displaying a tribe's social power and influence, and enabling social cohesion and mutual aid. We conclude that to understand flows of power and information in the Gulf States, it is critical to understand the influence of the tribe on both individuals and wider social and political trends in the Gulf region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The disclosure of life events is among the most common behaviors on social media and is part of the everyday activities revealed through the use of many other new media. This paper explores the awareness of major life events through these media as they relate to a person's belief in a just world for themselves and others. Using survey data, we find that text messaging, commenting on Facebook, and having more Facebook friends are associated with awareness of desirable events. Passive modes of communication, e.g., the use of the 'like' interaction on Facebook, are related to an awareness of both desirable and undesirable life events across a greater range of social ties. Awareness of undesirable events in the lives of strong ties fosters a lower perception of equity and justice for others, whereas an awareness of desirable experiences in the lives of strong ties is related to greater, perceived, personal justice. We discuss the implications of the awareness of major life events through new media in terms of the psychological benefits that can come from the vicarious joy and comfort one receives from other's experiences; what we call mudita and comfort from others (MACO). We argue that the long-term, cumulative effects of greater awareness of undesirable life events may lend support to social movements that seek to reduce injustices experienced by disadvantaged groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For some time now, media regulators in Germany and beyond have been trying to cope with the rise of digital intermediaries like social networks and search engines. In this context, the German Network Enforcement Act ('NetzDG') has become the epitome of the concept of new-school speech regulation: the increasing co-optation of intermediaries for governmental content moderation – with all its potential harms to free expression and democratic discourse. Contrary to this trend, however, recent legislative measures in Germany, including the Interstate Media Treaty (IMT), suggest that the country is exploring new avenues in digital intermediary regulation. Not only does the new German legislation focus on procedural instead of substantive aspects of content moderation, offering a case study for concepts promoted by recent literature on platform regulation. By introducing a positive bias for certain 'content of value,' the country also includes the role of beneficial content in its regulation. This paper analyzes the new German countermovement against new-school regulation and presents its potential impact for future regulatory concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media use enables information consumption and exchange as well as group ties that can facilitate participation in boycott and buycott campaigns. Social media also provide low-threshold activities that serve as a stepping stone towards more intense forms of cause-oriented participation. This paper uses original survey data (n = 1,539) collected in 2019. Reading political information, posting political information on social media, and following social and leisure groups increase the likelihood of boycotting and buycotting. Changing profile pictures doubles the odds of participating in political consumerism. Overall, citizens use symbolic low-effort activities on social media to mobilize their peers to participate in political consumerism but, in the end, they also mobilize themselves toward more intense forms of participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an inconclusive debate on whether male and female users of social media platforms engage with political content differently. While some highlight minimal differences, others evidence an engagement gap where male are more visible within online environments. Drawing on data from a representative survey of citizens in France, the UK and USA, we explore the engagement gap in more granular detail. Our data show minimal gender differences for most forms of online political engagement, but there remain some indications of a gendered divide. While the feeling of external efficacy is crucial to engage online regardless gender, women appear to need a sense of higher levels of competence in order to engage with online political content, especially for sharing and commenting. The study confirms interest in politics, extreme political ideological views and large social media network as prompt for more eager political engagement, but we do not find any substantial gender differentiation. Our findings suggest some minimal country differences on women engagement in commenting. Overall, our data indicate that while women may be as likely as men to participate in online political expression, through sharing and commenting, and may have an equal overall share of voice, the voices of many women are at least more muted in open public political discussions environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the social media networks and content of four Australian parties, assessing their relationship to the far right at the time of the 2019 Australian federal election. Using social network analysis, I map their relationship to a broader network of far-right actors in Australia on Facebook and Twitter, identifying pathways of communication, mobilisation and recruitment. The structure of the parties' networks points to highly centralised, leader-centric organisations, placing them in a vulnerable position in terms of sustainability. This is combined with qualitative content analysis, which finds little evidence of party organisation or campaign mobilisation on either platform, despite the context of a first-order election. Instead, these parties use social media primarily for the construction of collective identities and the development and dissemination of interpretive frames, practices typically associated with social movements rather than political parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While fake news has been widely reviled as an attack on democracy, less has been written about its threat to interpersonal relationships. Social networks have become increasingly popular for sharing news and as a result have also offered fertile ground for the spread of fake news. This paper considers the impact of the latter on the former, particularly in circumstances where the sharer either does not know or does not suspect that the news they are sharing is fake. This distinction is important because while sharing information and news may be construed as a social good, sharing news that turns out to be fake might negatively impact relationships. How do people react when the news they have shared with the intention of fostering social cohesion turns out to be fake, and as a result damages that cohesion? Based on 12 focus groups, this study examines how social media users react to fake news and how it affects interpersonal relationships between sender and receiver. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The year 2017 saw a cycle of protest ignited by President Trump's election and subsequent policies. This research seeks to investigate the role of social media and television in raising awareness of protest events and increasing participation in marches and demonstrations. This paper uses data from two surveys conducted in May and June 2017, during the peak of this cycle of protest. We explore the role of social media for protest participation (in general) as well as for awareness and participation in the Women's March and March for Science. We find that Twitter use offers more consistent effects compared to Facebook in relation to the cycle of protest. In contrast, television use has no impact on awareness and thus, limited potential for mobilization. Social media is distinctive in relation to mobilization, because of social networking features that allow people to learn about specific events, discuss the issues, expose people to invitations to participation, as well as identify members of one's social network who are also interested in participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the use of mobile social media in three successive campaigns to unionize workers (2012–2014) in Israel. We examine the workers' efforts to initiate a union in their workplace as a sociomaterial process of organizing. An analysis of unionization-related Facebook pages and interviews with union activists reveals how the activists leveraged the portable-visibility afforded by social media networks (Facebook and WhatsApp) and mobile devices (Smartphones) to create and express their collective voice, achieving both mobilization of workers and recognition by management. The analysis traces how the activists tactically leveraged the portable-visibility of the media they used, fine-tuning visibility and manipulating portability during the covert and overt phases of their campaign. In the conclusion, we unpack the challenges involved in utilizing these neoliberal platforms in workers unionization efforts within the organizational setting and discuss the implications of these tensions for the study of both organizational resistance and mass protest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theorizing information flows is at the heart of traditional communication theories such as the two-step flow of communication and the concept of opinion leadership. Social media have fundamentally altered how information reaches people. This study examines opinion leadership in social media networks and argues that opinion leaders may no longer need to rely on information provided by the media if they have access to first-hand information. To test this assumption empirically, we used data from the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21). Attendees of the conference had direct information about what was happening, which they were able to share live with their followers via social media. We used geo-located tweets to identify Twitter users who attended the COP21 summit. We then located these users in a data set of tweets that were collected based on the main conference hashtag (#COP21) and represent the wider social media debate on the conference. Our results, which are based on network analysis measures and Twitter user data, show that COP21 participants were more central actors compared to the average user in the network, and that they were more likely to have brokering positions. They were also more involved in the debate and received more attention from other users. We used automated content analysis to divide COP21 participants into different actor types and performed the analysis by actor group. The results show only minor differences across the actors and support the robustness of our analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses 'the biggest lie on the internet' with an empirical investigation of privacy policy (PP) and terms of service (TOS) policy reading behavior. An experimental survey (N = 543) assessed the extent to which individuals ignored PP and TOS when joining a fictitious social networking service (SNS), NameDrop. Results reveal 74% skipped PP, selecting the 'quick join' clickwrap. Average adult reading speed (250–280 words per minute), suggests PP should have taken 29–32 minutes and TOS 15–17 minutes to read. For those that didn't select the clickwrap, average PP reading time was 73 seconds. All participants were presented the TOS and had an average reading time of 51 seconds. Most participants agreed to the policies, 97% to PP and 93% to TOS, with decliners reading PP 30 seconds longer and TOS 90 seconds longer. A regression analysis identifies information overload as a significant negative predictor of reading TOS upon sign up, when TOS changes, and when PP changes. Qualitative findings suggest that participants view policies as nuisance, ignoring them to pursue the ends of digital production, without being inhibited by the means. Implications are revealed as 98% missed NameDrop TOS 'gotcha clauses' about data sharing with the NSA and employers, and about providing a first-born child as payment for SNS access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accounts of social network platforms have often stressed their programmability. The economic, social and technical fabric of social media has been directly associated with the code that modulates their connectivity and constructs opaque forms of property and capitalisation. The programmability of contemporary platforms is shifting in significant respects. By describing some recent shifts in programming practice at Facebook, the paper explores how predictive and machine learning approaches arise from a constitutive opacity present in all platform ensembles. It suggests that the growth in predictive programmability can be understood in terms of an increasingly experimental interplay between processes of platformisation and infrastructuralisation. Understanding these changes in programmability might be useful in analysing the relations between large information-communication ensembles and contemporary forms of life. It conceptualises, in particular, opacity as a constitutive problem for platforms rather than a proprietary limitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses as its base a key initiative involving a not-for-profit organisation (NPO), government start-up funding and a social enterprise which evolved through three phases. The purpose of the initiative was the development of a smart phone technology platform for people with disability. The paper's purpose is to answer questions about the ways in which the mobile technology, seen here as assistive technologies, supported the development of disability citizenship and active citizenship. Data were collected through in-depth interviews conducted at three points in the 13-week programme during which participants with disability received customised support for their phone and training in its use, at no cost. Fifteen participants volunteered to take part in the research project, along with their significant other and service provider. Key themes were identified in the preliminary analysis. Exploring these using Ragnedda's ([2017]. The third digital divide: A Weberian approach to digital inequalities. Abingdon: Routledge) three levels of digital divide, and Wilson's ([2006]. The information revolution and developing countries. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press) categories of access allowed a series of philosophical, ethical and human services management questions to emerge, challenging the optimism with which the digital economy is presented as a solution to issues of inequality. Although the mobile technologies were very successful as assistive technologies for some participants, the findings reinforced the potential for such technologies to further entrench aspects of social exclusion. They also identified ways in which the shift in the role of the NPO to social entrepreneurship, and its relationships with government and private enterprise, had the potential to undermine the exercise of disability citizenship by turning participants into consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social networking sites are popular tools to engage citizens in political campaigns, social movements, and civic life. However, are the effects of social media on civic and political participation revolutionary? How do these effects differ across political contexts? Using 133 cross-sectional studies with 631 estimated coefficients, I examine the relationship between social media use and engagement in civic and political life. The effects of social media use on participation are larger for political expression and smaller for informational uses, but the magnitude of these effects depends on political context. The effects of informational uses of social media on participation are smaller in countries like the United States, with a free and independent press. If there is a social media revolution, it relates to the expression of political views on social networking sites, where the average effect size is comparable to the effects of education on participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We address the conflict between citizenship engagement through news commenting, and censorship needs. News articles often contain forms of censorship to maintain security, with non-identification of individuals a means of information protection. Commonly used is the replacement of a name with a supposedly non-identifying initial, protecting the identity of military personnel, witnesses, minors, victims or suspects who need to be granted anonymity in the public sphere. We seek to understand the characteristics of commenters including awareness of the potential for social media to circumvent censorship, and attitudes towards censorship in news articles. Our study of censored articles collected from online news pages on Facebook, presents insights into participant characteristics including a strong correlation between personal network size and censorship support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Twitter chats and other forms of social media engagement events are idealized in the literature as opportunities for dialogic communication between organizations and individuals, less is known about how engagement is operationalized within these spaces. Using textual and content analysis, we conducted two studies to explore how health organizations engage with the public via Twitter chats during the Ebola and Zika outbreaks. In official records of Ebola chats, the organization addressed both hostile and neutral public questions that pressed for specification of disease characteristics and protocol. However, in a content analysis of all public tweets sent during a later Zika chat, we found that questions were privileged, and other tweet forms and themes were excluded from the participatory space. Specifically, public comments demonstrating expertise or extending the topic of the chat were not addressed by the organization. Our analysis provides insight into the implicit rules governing how organizations engage with the public online during a rapidly evolving health crisis. We argue that the question–response dyad is a form of ideal communication that suggests engagement but maintains organizational expertise. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A patient- and family-centred approach in paediatric health care is important because parents are involved in making key decisions about their child’s health care and advocating for the best interest of the child. Parents and family members are increasingly turning to the internet to find and actively share information about their child’s health care. Twitter is one of many online platforms used by parents of children diagnosed with cancer to share information related to their child’s cancer experience. Existing research suggests that there is a need to better understand the motives for using Twitter for sharing content about a child’s cancer experience. Furthermore, there is a lack of theoretical frameworks for characterizing those motives. In this paper, we identify key themes of tweets posted by parents of children diagnosed with cancer and align those themes with motives inspired by the well-studied Everyday Life Information Seeking framework. We propose a new motive in addition to those associated with the framework and suggest that information can be shared for endogenous reasons as well as to meet the needs of others. This paper contributes an increased understanding of motives for sharing information about a child’s cancer journey and extends a theoretical framework for building further knowledge in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Scholars, educators, regulators, pundits, and other observers are advocating for regulation and oversight of direct-to-consumer (DTC) genomic testing. As a result, the technology has been subject of highly visible public and regulatory controversy. In this article, we explore the nature and the shape of the sentiment of public discourse about the DTC company, 23andMe. We conduct a quantitative content analysis and qualitative framing analysis on Tweets. We find that the discourse surrounding DTC genomics and 23andMe is largely positive. We also identify a number of frames users deploy to debate, discuss, and share their experiences with DTC genomics and 23andMe. We argue that these frames create meaning around this emerging technology for its users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between the use of social media, attitudinal strength, perceived opinion agreement with social ties, and willingness to discuss a political issue in different online and offline contexts. Unlike the anonymous environment of some Internet forums, social media are closely tied to the relationships and activities of everyday life. Social media increasingly make ties from offline contexts persistent online, and, because of the ambient nature of these technologies, awareness of the opinions, interests, and activities of social ties has become pervasive. As such, the use of social media is likely to affect everyday conversation about political issues in on- and offline contexts, including the home, workplace, social gatherings with friends, community meetings, and on social network sites (SNSs). Based on a national probability survey, we find that the use of SNSs (i.e., Facebook and Twitter) has a direct, negative relationship to deliberation in many offline settings. Some uses of these platforms are associated with having a lower, perceived opinion agreement with social ties. As part of a spiral of silence, this further reduces the willingness of social media users to join political conversations in some offline settings. Only those with the strongest attitudes on an issue are immune. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

How do older adults mobilize social support, with and without digital media? To investigate this, we focus on older adults 65+ residing in the Toronto locality of East York, using 42 interviews lasting about 90 minutes done in 2013–2014. We find that digital media help in mobilizing social support as well as maintaining and strengthening existing relationships with geographically near and distant contacts. This is especially important for those individuals (and their network members) who have limited mobility. Once older adults start using digital media, they become routinely incorporated into their lives, used in conjunction with the telephone to maintain existing relationships but not to develop new ones. Contradicting fears that digital media are inadequate for meaningful relational contact, we found that these older adults considered social support exchanged via digital media to be real support that cannot be dismissed as token. Older adults especially used and valued digital media for companionship. They also used them for coordination, maintaining ties, and casual conversations. Email was used more with friends than relatives; some Skype was used with close family ties. Our research suggests that policy efforts need to emphasize the strengthening of existing networks rather than the establishment of interventions that are outside of older adults’ existing ties. Our findings also show that learning how to master technology is in itself a form of social support that provides opportunities to strengthen the networks of older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Curation is a key mechanism of sociality in a digital era.With an abundance of information, sifting, sorting, selecting, hiding, and standing out become laborious tasks. While researchers have diligently documented people’s curatorial strategies, digital curation remains undertheorized in its own right. I therefore theorize digital curation by disentanglingproductive curationfromconsumptive curation, addressing how people curate content that they share, and that which they consume. I embed these agentic curatorial practices within structural bounds, both social and technological. In doing so, I offer a basic theoretical model that captures a dynamic relationship between individual curators, their social networks, and technological design. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This research explores the relationship between the use of digital media and stress. Based on the findings of a national, probability sample of adults in the United States, the use of digital media was not directly associated with higher levels of psychological stress. Some uses of digital media were associated with lower levels of perceived stress for women but not for men. However, the evidence suggests that, for men and women, digital media provides heightened awareness of network life events (AoNLE) in the lives of both close and more distant acquaintances. An awareness of undesirable, major life events in the lives of others can be a source of psychological stress; this is the cost of caring. Thus, the link between digital media and stress is indirect. We argue that the growth of digital media is related to changes in the structure of peoples’ personal communities that contribute to this trend. There has been a shift toward networks that offer persistent contact and pervasive awareness. Findings suggest that different mobile technologies, Internet technologies, and social media afford AoNLE for men and women, but women tend to report greater psychological stress than men, and they experience psychological stress from a wider range of AoNLE. We discuss explanations for the negative relationship between technology use and stress for women, as well as the implications of our findings for research on the use of digital media and psychological well-being, such as the relationship to social support, narcissism and empathy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sharing has been subjected to continuous re-imagination and positioning throughout networked culture's history. Recently, there has been specific emphasis on user-generated content and social media platforms. Particular social actors, such as social media platforms, attempt to cultivate an imaginary of sharing in networked culture. They do this by appropriating positive social values associated with common understandings of sharing, such as community, generosity, shared values of cooperation, and participation. While there has been a recent surge of interest in sharing, conceptual gaps remain. Though sharing is a central concept of networked culture, in this paper I show how its boundaries with other social theories of exchange have not been sufficiently established nor has the concept itself been adequately critiqued. Most significantly, this paper problematizes how sharing is implicated and positioned in studies of networked culture. I argue that a framework for a theory of sharing is needed and identify three distinct perspectives in the literature: sharing as an economy driven by social capital; sharing as a mode of scaled distribution; and sharing as a site of social intensification. It is shown how the use of the term sharing in the description of practices in networked culture is fraught with ambiguity. The paper concludes by elucidating how a focus on sharing practices can advance the field. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Research has shown that micro-mobilization efforts that invoke social media rely heavily on the influence of personal networks to motivate collective action participation. This study examines whether this trend applies (a) to networks of different levels of personalness, (b) to causes and organizations which people are either unaware of or not affiliated with, and (c) how personal networks affect people's willingness to participate in online versus offline forms of collective action, when personal dispositional factors (activism- and issue involvement, perceived self-, technological-, and group efficacies) are considered. An experiment (N = 315) tested whether calls-to-action by different sources via social media (close personal networks v. distant social networks v. organization officials) influence individuals’ willingness to publicly express support online through social media-based collective activities (e.g. commenting, hyperlinking, ‘Liking’, etc.) and offline activities (e.g. demonstrations, donning campaign materials, etc.). Findings are leveraged to provide practical insight and to inform theoretical development in these domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent accounts of social media have developed a powerful critical political economy analysis of social media, employing Dallas Smythe's notion of audience labour. Such analysis, which sees audiencing as a form of working producing surplus value, has been criticized for being too high and dry, employing the abstract categories of Marx's labour theory of value to analyse what regular users perceive as a fun, leisure, and empowering activity of using the web. This article concurs with the necessity of critical theory to not only offer an alternative interpretation of reality but to also point to social practices and subjects which manifest these alternative views. The article aims to couple the objective-scientific facet of audience labour theory with the subjective-lifeworld categories of media users that are the carriers of such knowledge. It does that by analysing a class-action lawsuit of Facebook users against the company concerning its Sponsored Stories advertising programme. Based on users' actions in the social network, they are mobilized as sponsors for products in ads, which appear on their friends' News Feed. An analysis of the legal case shows how users attempt to redefine their participation in social media in terms of work. Users put forth a critique of alienation (demanding that they have full control over the information they generate) and exploitation (demanding ownership over a greater share of the surplus value they produce). The article concludes that regular users are employing categories of audience labour theory in their struggle over digital value, making it a doubly suitable framework for analysing the political economy of social media, both objectively and subjectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on an action research project with public sector organizations in the UK which experimented with a range of digital methods (social media data mining, social network and issue network mapping and data visualization), in order to explore their potential usefulness for the public engagement activities of these organizations. We argue that there is a need for small-scale, qualitative studies of cultures of large-scale, quantitative data like ours, to open up spaces in which to reflect critically on the methods with which such data are produced. However, in this paper we highlight the difficulties we had enacting through action research a commitment to both the potential (which might be seen as the action part of action research)andthe problems (which might be seen as the research part of action research) of digital methods. Following Hammersley [(2002).Action research: A contradiction in terms?Exeter: British Educational Research Association], we suggest that an equal balance between action and research may always be difficult to sustain, in both action researchandthe use of digital methods. Despite this, we argue that critical discussion of digital methods needs to extend beyond academic spaces – through this move, we suggest, we might open up a space in which to reflect on how these methods might be used for the public good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the reworking of the traditional concepts and methods of Science and Technology Studies that is necessary in order to analyse the development and use of social media and other emerging information infrastructures (IIs). Through long-term studies of the development of two contrasting IIs, the paper examines theprosumer-management strategiesby which vendors manage their relationships with their diverse users. Despite the sharp differences between our cases – an online-game with social network features and traditional enterprise systems – we find striking homologies in the ways vendors manage the tensions underpinning the design and development of mass-market products. Thus theirknowledge infrastructures –the set of tools and instruments through which vendors maintain an adequate understanding of their multiple users – change in the face of competing exigencies. Market expansion may favour ‘efficient’ quantitative user assessment methods and the construction of abstractuser categoriesfor designing new generic solutions and services around market segments. However where a productextendsinto new and unfamiliar user markets the growingsocial distancebetween developer and user may call for ‘richer’ direct ways of knowing the user. We note the emergence of collective fora, which can provide a space for independent action and innovation by users. However, these were managed communities. Certain user relations functions were pushed out to the community or third-party organizations and at other times pulled back in-house – for example, to increase vendor direct control. This picture is far removed from the visions of seamless integration of producers and users encouraged by notions such as prosumer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]