Donghee Yvette Wohn
Brian J. Bowe
ABSTRACT
We propose Crystallization as a framework for understanding how reality is socially constructed in the age of social media by incorporating network attributes to agenda-setting theory. Reflecting the affordances of contemporary technology and the psychological underpinnings of social influence, Crystallization suggests that social media facilitates information produced or relayed by the members of our social networks, who become neo agenda setters. People's perceptions of reality will develop through their social networks and everyone will perceive that the information their social network produces reflects reality, but at the macro level, we will see an ever-diverging cacophony of socially constructed realities.
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Index Terms
- Crystallization: how social media facilitates social construction of reality
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