This document summarizes research on social media platforms and their role in public discourse. It discusses how platforms like Tumblr enable the formation of counterpublics but also allow trolling behavior. Tensions exist between desires for privacy and public performance online. While Tumblr supports feminist discussion, it does not prevent trolling or the need to educate others. Overall, the document examines the complex relationship between social media platforms and their impact on online communities and public debates.

1. TUMBLING AND TROLLING
Anastasia Salter
Assistant Professor, Digital Media
University of Central Florida
Twitter: @anasalter
Image from Alice in tumblr-land,
Tim Manley (Penguin 2013)

3. SOCIALLY MEDIATED PUBLICNESS
As people communicate publicly through social media, they become more
aware of themselves relative to visible and imagined audiences and more
aware of the larger publics to which they belong and which they seek to
create. They negotiate collapsed contexts, continuously shifting power
dynamics, and an open-ended time frame. Through discussing the
personal, mundane, and everyday, people negotiate a sense of public
place and help new publics—both wanted and unwanted—to coalesce.
Socially-mediated publicness may be a source of support and
empowerment while simultaneously posing conflict and risk.
Baym, Nancy K., and Danah Boyd. "Socially mediated publicness: an
introduction." Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 56.3 (2012):
320-329.

6. THE PUBLIC DIARY?
Tensions exist between
(1) notions of diaries as personal and private vs. the recognition of online
journals as public and performative;
(2) the efficiency of blending one’s social contacts into one audience vs. the
ability to provide different self–presentations to different groups;
(3) the desire for personal control of discourse vs. the desire for connection to
others; and
(4) values of individualism and autonomy vs. the desire for feedback and
attention.
Kendall, Lori. "Shout into the wind, and it shouts back: Identity
and interactional tensions on LiveJournal." First Monday 12.9

9. IS TUMBLR OUR CURRENT “BEST” MODEL FOR
A NETWORKED PUBLIC / COUNTERPUBLIC?
(maybe)

14. “
”
I’M TIRED OF EDUCATING STRANGERS ON
BASIC FEMINISM 101 POINTS THAT THEY
COULD HAVE LEARNED WITHIN (A) THEIR
FIRST WEEK OF AN INTRO TO WOMEN’S
STUDIES CLASS, OR (B) THEIR FIRST
TWENTY-FOUR HOURS ON TUMBLR.
http://globalcomment.com/goodbye-to-all-that-im-done-with-election-2016/
Sady Doyle

16. (maybe not?)

17. IN A WORLD OF TROLLING:
ARE THESE THE FOUNDATIONS OF A
FEMINIST SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM?

18. RENNINGER: TUMBLR AFFORDANCES AS
COUNTERPUBLIC
• Commentary is trackable but deemphasized
• Trolling is de-incentivized
• The original poster of an object is easily discovered
• Near equivalent emphasis of posts from new and advanced users
• Private and/or anonymous interaction with other users is available
• Consolidation of (counter)public discussion
Renninger, Bryce J. "“Where I can be myself… where I can speak my
mind”: Networked counterpublics in a polymedia environment." new
media & society17.9 (2015): 1513-1529.

21. KANAI: WHATSHOULDWECALLME
…this participation requires sophisticated mobilizations of social knowledges which
construct forms of sociality which are not equally open to all digital users. The
classificatory imagination of digital culture combined with assumptions relating to the
useability of the social is visibly operationalized in these shared spaces of meaning.
Post-racial, postfeminist narratives of how identity operates in the world are not simply
“out there” for youth to make meaning of their lived experience, but now in a visual
format, form part of the literacy required to take part, and feel central in these cultural
spaces.
Kanai, Akane. "Sociality and Classification: Reading Gender, Race, and
Class in a Humorous Meme." Social Media+ Society 2.4 (2016):
2056305116672884.

23. TRICKSTERS AND TROLLS
Like trickster, trolls are woven into the very fabric they seek
to unravel; like trickster, trolls have a great deal to
teach...specifically, they unearth the biases, hypocrisies, and
deep inconsistencies that compose mainstream culture--and in
the process, handily blur the boundary between where the
troll mess ends and the mainstream mess begins.
Phillips, Whitney. This is why we can't have nice things:
Mapping the relationship between online trolling and
mainstream culture. MIT Press, 2015.

24. ON TUMBLR,
EVERYONE’S A TROLL

25. Anastasia Salter
@anasalter