Journal of Asian Social Sciences Research
Vol. 4 No. 1 (2022)

Alternative Imaginations: Confronting and Challenging the Persistent Centrism in Social Media-Society Research

Merlyna Lim (Carleton University)



Article Info

Publish Date
30 Jun 2022

Abstract

This article attempts to intervene the current trend in social media research that, to a certain degree, reflects the centrality of technology. Beyond the broad trend of technocentrism, I identify and outline four other major oversights or challenges in researching the social media/society relationship, namely online data centrism, moment centrism, novelty centrism, and success centrism. Stemmed from these four types of centrism, I offer an alternative imagination, namely a set of alternative pathways in social media research that value histories and historical context, interdisciplinarity, longue durée, and complexity. By revealing these oversights, this article aims to contribute to our collective attempt to interrogate the relationship between social media and society (and technology/society) critically. This alternative imagination might help animate, reveal, and make transparent various societal dynamics that otherwise would be invisible and, thus, might contribute to a better, deeper, and more comprehensive understanding of the technology/society relationship.

Copyrights © 2022






Journal Info

Abbrev

jassr

Publisher

Subject

Social Sciences

Description

Journal of Asian Social Science Research is a peer-reviewed and open access publication since 2019. It aims to contribute to the development of Asian social science by providing a forum for researchers, academics and policy-makers to publish their research on the broad problems on Asian social ...