Project description
The construction of values on social media
Social media is an important arena where values are expressed, contested and shaped. With billions of people sharing videos on YouTube and posting on Facebook and Twitter daily, researchers are checking the relationship between these digital platforms and values. How are values constructed through social media? Which values are emphasised in these spheres? To what extent are social media platforms associated with the globalisation of values? The EU-funded DigitalValues team will explore user-generated content in five languages through an array of inductive methods. The project will develop a novel theory of value construction as an intersection between individuals, technologies and socioeconomic contexts. The results will be key to deciphering cultural and social processes governing the 21st century.
Objective
In recent decades, social media has emerged as a central arena for the construction of values. Artifacts such as YouTube videos, Facebook posts, and tweets reflect and shape what people across the globe consider important, desirable, or reprehensible. Understanding this pervasive value ecology is key to deciphering the political, cultural, and social processes governing the twenty-first century. In this project, I will conduct the first comprehensive study of values in social media. I will explore the following over-arching questions: How are values constructed through social media? Which values are emphasized in these spheres? To what extent are social media platforms associated with the globalization of values? In addressing these fundamental issues, I will apply an entirely new approach for the conceptualization and study of values.
Carried out comparatively in five languages, DigitalValues will explore the interaction between three facets of value construction: (a) explicit uses of the terms “value” and “values”; (b) the implicit construction of values in genres of user-generated content; and (c) users’ interpretation and evaluation of values through both private meaning-making and public social practices of commenting, sharing, and liking. The project is theoretically, empirically, and methodologically groundbreaking in a number of ways: (1) it will be a pioneering large-scale study employing inductive methods to explore the construction of values through everyday cultural artifacts; (2) as a foundational study of values in social media, it will yield a novel theory of value construction as an intersection between individuals, technologies, and sociocultural contexts; (3) it will generate new methods for infering values from verbal texts, combining qualitative, quantitative, and automated analyses; (4) finally, it will yield a comprehensive map of values as expressed across languages and platforms, leading to a new understanding of the globalization of values.
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
ERC-COG - Consolidator GrantHost institution
91904 Jerusalem
Israel