Social Media Governance Research Network
Summary
Yale Law School’s Justice Collaboratory has launched a new research network within their Social Media Governance Initiative. The Research Network is a consortium of scholars working together to examine the sociocultural impacts of digital technologies on contemporary social life. The Network’s specific focus on governance is rooted in the challenge of creating pro-social interaction online and ensuring that digital technologies effectively serve their users and communities.
Pro-social is a key term for us. In using this term, we mean to contrast currently-popular governance strategies rooted in identification and punishment of rule-breaking and instead promote strategies that enhance cooperation, engagement, and internalized rule-following.
The scholars in the Research Network represent a diverse range of social science and humanities disciplines, including psychology, law, human computer interaction, sociology, and anthropology. The purpose of the group is to create novel research and thought leadership opportunities that are not limited to a single discipline or field.
Approach
The initial work of the Research Network is to define the newly-emerging field of Social Media Governance. To date, social media governance has focused mainly on punitive and outcome-oriented governance. Building on previous work, the Network considers more pro-social approaches that expand the tools and methods to create healthy online conversations and connections.
The Network’s approaches are empirically-grounded and are evidence-informed. Its scholars will conduct foundational research and develop recommendations that can help scholars, policy makers, civic actors and those working in technology fields to promote pro-social interactions and contribute to the well-being of users and communities.
Research Topics
A partial list of research topics that group will explore include (but are not limited to):
Designing online environments that foster pro social interaction and communication.
Creating and implementing policies that both mitigate risk and engender healthy interaction within an organization, and between an organization and their constituents.
Cultivating productive relations between researchers and technology companies to advance thought leadership, training, and scientific study.
Publications
Out now: A special issue in Yale Journal of Law and Technology on online health governance
Researchers
SMGI Director, Yale University
SMGI Research Network, Co-Director, Walton Hale Hamilton Professor of Law and Founding Director of The Justice Collaboratory
Associate Director, Computational Social Science at IRiSS, Stanford University. Researcher, Facebook
Professor, Department of Anthropology, Oberlin College
Executive Director of The Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School
Sarita Schoenebeck
Associate Professor, School of Information, University of Michigan
SMGI Research Network, Co-Director, Macklin Fleming Professor of Law and Professor of Psychology and Founding Director of The Justice Collaboratory
SMGI Research Network, Co-Director, Williams B. Ransford Professor of Sociology, Columbia University