Social media transparency reports
Longitudinal content analysis of news coverage
Keywords:
social media, big tech, transparency report, corporate social responsibility (CSR), news coverage, framing, content analysisAbstract
Our research offers a longitudinal content analysis of news coverage and framing of social media ‘transparency reports.’ For over a decade, major social media companies (like Google, Facebook, and Twitter) have used these reports to disclose how often governments around the world are requesting user data or content removals. These voluntary disclosures aim to signal good corporate citizenship and thus are situated within the genre of CSR reporting. In addition, civil society organizations laud these disclosures as an important accountability mechanism for government surveillance efforts. Yet this accountability mechanism may be in jeopardy. As a complement to research identifying a decline in transparency reporting practices among social media companies, our findings suggest that news coverage is similarly declining. This finding is problematic because meaningful transparency and accountability require more than a few companies providing information. Transparency reports need interpreters to translate them for the relevant publics; if news coverage wanes, it risks that translation and attention wanes. To hold the powerful accountable, the fourth estate has an indispensable role to play.
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