Unplatformed Design: Reconceptualising Social Media Technologies as Tools for Coordinated Action, Participation and Engagement

Abstract

Social media technologies are becoming more and more enmeshed in our personal, professional and civic lives. Increasingly, we are just as likely to use social media to book a doctor’s appointment as we are to make plans with friends. This ever-widening context of use is a testament to the versatility and flexibility of these types of technology, and points to their potential for shaping, structuring and supporting new ways of participation, engagement and interaction. The aim of this thesis is to explore this idea through designing with, investigating and reconceptualising social media technologies. With respect to existing literature around the appropriation of technologies and the materiality of information, I argue that social media can be conceptualised as a ‘design material’ from which other forms of participation can be created. To support this, I undertake the design, deployment and evaluation of a large-scale social media-based participatory engagement, ‘WhatFutures’. From insights generated in this design process, and with an accompanying analysis of other empirical examples of appropriation of social media for participation, I then propose the model for ‘unplatformed design’. This conceptual model details the material qualities of social media technologies in respect to how they can be appropriated in the coordination of participation. Lastly, I put this model into practice in two design-led case studies: in the design and deployment of a peer support system for people undergoing extreme weight loss as part of managing diabetes; and in the formulation of design considerations for a social media-based language learning system. There are multiple outcomes from this is conceptual, empirical and design-led inquiry. I fully detail the final designs and corresponding design processes of two full large-scale, social media-based engagements. I present and interpret a variety of design decisions around the appropriation of social media for coordinating participation. Crucially, I introduce the novel model of unplatformed design, identifying four material qualities of social media technologies, and how they may be configured or augmented towards coordinating participation. This model fundamentally reimagines the role and possibilities of social media technologies within design, it looks past existing perceptions and ingrained usage patterns, and proposes a more constructive and participatory orientation of social media to our lives.