Greenwood, Sue ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8573-3585 (2018) Public space or public sphere? An examination of Facebook as a new space for political talk through online ethnographic study of citizen engagement during a UK general election. Doctoral thesis, Staffordshire University. Downloaded from: http://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/4580/ Research at York St John (RaY) is an institutional repository. It supports the principles of open access by making the research outputs of the University available in digital form. Copyright of the items stored in RaY reside with the authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may access full text items free of charge, and may download a copy for private study or non-commercial research. For further reuse terms, see licence terms governing individual outputs. Institutional Repository Policy Statement RaY Research at the University of York St John For more information please contact RaY at [email protected] PUBLIC SPACE OR PUBLIC SPHERE? AN EXAMINATION OF FACEBOOK AS A NEW SPACE FOR POLITICAL TALK THROUGH ONLINE ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT DURING A UK GENERAL ELECTION SUSAN GREENWOOD A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement of Staffordshire University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy November 2018 Copyright Sue Greenwood, 2018 i Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................... 1 List of tables and figures ................................................................................................. 3 Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................... 5 1.1 Why Facebook? ..................................................................................................... 5 1.2 Scope of research ................................................................................................... 5 1.3 Chapter outlines ..................................................................................................... 9 1.4 Facebook’s sphere of influence ........................................................................... 14 Chapter 2: Theoretical and historical context .......................................................... 24 2.1 How the internet got social .................................................................................. 25 2.2 The rise of Facebook ........................................................................................... 28 2.3 Social capital and the pull of the network .......................................................... 36 2.4 A merging of online and offline worlds .............................................................. 42 2.5 Technological determinism, trajectories and the pull of the network ................. 46 2.6 Technological determinism and the Facebook effect on society ......................... 60 2.7 Political talk, the public sphere, and Facebook ................................................... 68 2.8 Facebook in the political sphere .......................................................................... 89 2.9 Towards a public sphere test for social media ..................................................... 93 2.10 Summary ............................................................................................................ 99 Chapter 3: Research strategy ................................................................................... 102 3.1 Introduction to Facebook and its difficulties ..................................................... 102 3.2 Comparable research methodology ................................................................... 114 3.3 Identifying research groups and methods .......................................................... 127 Chapter 4: Data collection and key results ............................................................. 135 4.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 135 4.2 Data stage one: Surveys ..................................................................................... 155 ii 4.3 Data stage two: The 2015 ethnographic study .................................................. 166 4.4 The search for enabled political talk ................................................................. 165 4.5 Data stage three: The 2017 intervention ............................................................ 182 Chapter 5: Analysis and conclusions ....................................................................... 204 5.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 204 5.2 Facebook as new media paradigm ..................................................................... 209 5.3 Facebook as new (social) public sphere ............................................................ 215 5.4 Facebook and political talk ................................................................................ 223 5.4.1 Want to talk, daren’t talk .................................................................... 233 5.4.2 We’re all Friends here (comfortable spaces) ...................................... 239 5.4.3 Politics over, nothing scary happened (engaged openers and supportive policers) ....................................................................................................... 244 5.4.4 Like-minded strangers ........................................................................ 267 5.4.5 Visibly there ....................................................................................... 279 5.4.6 Visibly managed ................................................................................. 293 5.6 Architectural bias ............................................................................................... 304 5.6.1 Visibility of content ............................................................................ 306 5.6.2 Pay to play .......................................................................................... 314 5.6.3 The in-between years .......................................................................... 321 5.7 Back to the public sphere future ........................................................................ 328 Chapter 6: Conclusions ............................................................................................ 333 6.1 Publications and further research ...................................................................... 340 6.2 Facebook in the public....................................................................................... 342 References ................................................................................................................. 346 Papers, journals and books ...................................................................................... 346 Media and reports .................................................................................................... 363 Author interviews .................................................................................................... 367 Appendices ................................................................................................................. 368 iii Appendix 1: Rejected (politician) survey ................................................................ 368 Appendix 2: Final Facebook users’ survey ............................................................ 377 Appendix 3: Additional comparative survey results ............................................... 390 Appendix 4: 2015 candidates lists and information ................................................ 397 Appendix 5: 2017 case study: selected posts .......................................................... 404 Acknowledgements I am grateful for the support of my supervisors during the lengthy course of this project – Professor Mick Temple, Dr Alan Russell, and Dr Carmel Thomason. Professor Temple in particular for guiding me through multiple missteps and potential wrong turns, and his continuing support, even after his retirement, was central to my being able to complete my work. I am also eternally grateful for the patience and understanding of my family and my husband, Greg Finney, in giving me the space and support I needed to work – often at the expense of time spent with them. Copyright The author, Sue Greenwood, is the copyright owner of this thesis. Please contact [email protected] regarding permissions to use or reproduce any part of it. iv Abstract: This thesis considers the place of Facebook within the public sphere by focusing on whether the social network provides new, distinct spaces for political discussion. In doing so, the study makes an original contribution to knowledge by assessing the role of Facebook in enabling or limiting political debate. It considers whether the corporate cultural development of Facebook’s architecture influences such debate, set against broader interpersonal political communication and social capital theory. While other studies have considered Facebook’s contribution to the public sphere by studying the role of the internet generally or of social media more broadly, this research focuses on Facebook itself, arguing that the scale, reach and corporate ecology of Facebook necessitates studying it as a political actor in its own right. The research hypothesised that Facebook’s corporate ambition and its global scale and dominance of online social