Abstract
Purpose of this paper: The paper intends to explore the role and function of citizen-led social media forums in the marketing of political discourse. Using the Entrepreneurial marketing perspective of ‘co- creation of value’, this paper explores the manner in which consumers of political communications in a specific region have created value via setting up Facebook forums to manage the risk created by the trust deficit between citizen and mainstream media.
Methodology: The paper adopts a ‘netnographic’ approach to investigation and the data is analysed via suggested manual coding (Kozinets, 2010).
Findings: The study provides insights on the value created by innovative alternate media development by citizens via effective leverage of Social Networking Sites (SNS), its role in the political discourse and its purpose.
Research limitations: The study utilizes a qualitative, netnographic approach and the emerging insights cannot be generalised. The emergent findings are specific to the context of this study and researchers are encouraged to test the propositions emerging from this research further in varied contexts.
Social implications: The study helps highlight the role SNS forums can play in informing the political discourse within a region. The general distrust among the citizens over information produced by mainstream media has meant vocal critiques have taken to SNS like Facebook to provide their subjective opinions. Although the findings of this study show that such forums can help identify ‘fake news’ and help citizens discuss and debate the truth, it can also become an avenue to manage propaganda among the ‘unaware’ citizens. This paper flags up the issues and benefits of using SNS based forums and in conclusion relates them to similar occurrences of the past to make society aware of the pitfalls of SNS managed propaganda.
Originality/value: The paper takes lead in investigating the use of SNS from the citizens perspective, which is comparatively marginalised despite their prominence against the number of studies taking place which investigate the organizations use of SNS.
Methodology: The paper adopts a ‘netnographic’ approach to investigation and the data is analysed via suggested manual coding (Kozinets, 2010).
Findings: The study provides insights on the value created by innovative alternate media development by citizens via effective leverage of Social Networking Sites (SNS), its role in the political discourse and its purpose.
Research limitations: The study utilizes a qualitative, netnographic approach and the emerging insights cannot be generalised. The emergent findings are specific to the context of this study and researchers are encouraged to test the propositions emerging from this research further in varied contexts.
Social implications: The study helps highlight the role SNS forums can play in informing the political discourse within a region. The general distrust among the citizens over information produced by mainstream media has meant vocal critiques have taken to SNS like Facebook to provide their subjective opinions. Although the findings of this study show that such forums can help identify ‘fake news’ and help citizens discuss and debate the truth, it can also become an avenue to manage propaganda among the ‘unaware’ citizens. This paper flags up the issues and benefits of using SNS based forums and in conclusion relates them to similar occurrences of the past to make society aware of the pitfalls of SNS managed propaganda.
Originality/value: The paper takes lead in investigating the use of SNS from the citizens perspective, which is comparatively marginalised despite their prominence against the number of studies taking place which investigate the organizations use of SNS.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Journal of Research in Marketing and Entrepreneurship |
| Publication status | Submitted - 6 Dec 2018 |
Keywords
- Social media
- Hybridised New media
- Entrepreneurial Marketing
- Political Marketing