Research Portfolio Post #8: Qualitative Data Sources for Interpretivist Research
I am studying how regime types influence discussion surrounding the composition of cyber institutions because I want to find out how discourses shape the idea of ‘best cyber practices’ in order to help my reader understand how power is constructed when defining strong internet governance models.
The reporters of the “Facebook Dilemma” essentially argue that Facebook is in way over its head in terms of the power they have been dealt to maintain a platform that can cause consequential movements away and towards democracy.[1] The reporters cite examples such as the crucial role Facebook played in the Arab Spring, the Ukrainian revolution and the 2016 American election. They allude to the idea that Facebook has an immense amount of power due to their business model to monitor populist movements, but they have done a minimal amount to control their platform that other nations are weaponizing and criminals are manipulating. This video series led me to the puzzling idea of how the media portrays the ‘proper way’ to manage cyberspace.
In this qualitative data source, the reporters represent the executives at Facebook, as being unprepared and unequipped to deal with the management of privacy protections. There is an implied understanding in this video series that the top executives of the company were negligent in safeguarding the power over privacy that their social media platform had granted them. The system of internet governance that Facebook had constructed to monitor their platform was represented as uncontrollable and “part of the problem” of privacy infringements and of unmanageable dissemination of disinformation.[2]
In the video series, the identities of the executives in the company are constructed as being young and naive about the power their algorithms provide over enacting change in democratic regimes abroad and domestically. There is implied meaning that only those with experience (in the government) can properly govern such a powerful tool.
This text is connected to the overarching political questions, who should manage the internet and how should it be managed? This video series is deeply linked with the political debates happening throughout the world on how to best construct cyber norms. The “Facebook Dilemma” offers just one discourse that portrays the media’s concern over what values should be prioritized when establishing internet norms.
In Interpreting International Politics, Lynch asserts, “contestations over discursive forms of power and struggles to delegitimize some meanings and create new ones matter.”[3] In the “Facebook Dilemma,” I analyze that there is a contestation by the media to delegitimize Facebook’s executives attempt to “fundamentally [rewire] the world from the ground up” by “connecting all the people.” [4]
This data source indicates a rupturing point—the rise of the internet, particularly social media as being a tool that regimes need to have control over. Scholars have already analyzed the impact social media has on connecting people to enact change, I, on the other hand, want to explain how constructions of historically understood ‘successful’ regime types are causing intersubjective meanings about the ‘best’ model of internet governance and the role companies have in this constructing or reshaping these norms.
[1] “The Facebook Dilemma – Transcript,” FRONTLINE, accessed November 10, 2018, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/facebook-dilemma/transcript/.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Celia Lynch, “Interpretive Concepts, Goals, and Processes in International Relations,” in Interpreting International Politics (Routeledge, 2014). Pg 18.
[4] “The Facebook Dilemma – Transcript.”
Hannah,
I think that you’ve done a great job here of outlining several discourses surrounding Facebook and cyber norms, with one lambasting Facebook as irresponsible in managing the power it holds as opposed to others which praise Facebook for its capacity to connect people and make change. From here, something I might suggest is probing this documentary for references to other texts in order to start to map how these discourses are created and promulgated. Your focus here is on Facebook, for example, but how are people in government talking about Facebook and how does that relate to the discourse you describe here? That question will be essential if your focus is on regime type and government policy. In addition, it might be worth asking who exactly is making these meanings, and therefore (implicitly) who is not. That search for exposure could lead to some fruitful areas of exploration regarding who is really in the conversation, here. Lastly, I think you’re right that social media has fundamentally changed how governments view cyber capabilities, but I would be careful about pinpointing a rupturing point too soon. The ten or fifteen years that social media has been around are probably a good place to start looking if you want to continue in this direction, but I think it will be worth looking for a specific instance to focus on (e.g. Britain’s revision of the poor laws from Carabine) as you continue to map these discourses. Great post and looking forward to seeing this project evolve!
Overall an excellent job her Hannah! Just make sure to keep the focus of the investigation on the ways that meanings, identities, and symbols (and thus power) are created/reproduced as you go forward. The middle part of your revised problem statement — “…because I want to find out how discourses shape the idea of ‘best cyber practices’ in…” — hints more at a neopositivist cause-effect logic than a logic focused on analyzing the construction of meaning. Overall that revised problem statement is quite good, but keep the focus of the middle part (the part that is, in effect, your question) on meaning. For instance, Carabine might have written something like “I am researching social policy and lone mothers in 1830s Britain because I want to find out why lone mothers were constructed as immoral individuals in order to help my reader understand why lone mothers were stigmatized, isolated, and even institutionalized in the 1800s (and beyond).” Notice how the middle part focuses precisely on the discourses/meanings to be understood? Keep reading and researching with these things in mind and you should be in good shape!