Advocacy Organizations’ Evaluation of Social Media Information for NGO Journalism: The Evidence and Engagement Models

Abstract

This article contributes to the emergent literature on the use of social media at advocacy organizations; while much of this literature focuses on how these organizations produce social media information, this article explores the complementary and relatively unexamined practice of how advocacy organizations consume social media information, particularly with respect to how they evaluate it as part of that consumption process. The article develops two theoretical models of how advocacy organizations evaluate social media information. These models differ according to the information values at their cores and according to how these values are evaluated; correspondingly the models interact differently with social media’s affordances. The key information value for the evidence model is the veracity of the information’s metadata, and this is largely evaluated through a time intensive corroboration process drawing on human expertise. In contrast, the key information value pertaining to the engagement model is participation, evaluated by measuring the volume of participants in the information’s production and transmission. In sum, the affordances of social media are often hindrances for the evidence model, as they can make metadata more difficult to verify. On the other hand, the engagement model builds on social media affordances, as these affordances facilitate participation and the evaluation of participant volume using digital analytics. In addition to shedding light on approaches to social media information evaluation at advocacy organizations, this article urge researchers and practitioners to keep their eyes peeled for barriers to pluralism as they use and study these approaches.