Lisa Schirch Social Media Impacts on Social & Political Goods 7 Social Media Impacts on Social & Political Goods: A Peacebuilding Perspective Lisa Schirch The Toda Peace Institute and the Alliance for Peacebuilding are hosting a series of policy briefs discussing social media impacts on social and political goods. Over the next several months, top experts and thought leaders will provide insight into social media’s threats and possibilities. The Executive Summary provides a conceptual overview and a set of policy recommendations to address social media threats to social and political goods. The Full Report provides a more in-depth literature review and explanation of key themes. Ideally, the Executive Summary and the Full Report are read together, as the policy recommendations are found in the Executive Summary. FULL REPORT An Introduction to Media Effects on Social and Political Goods 1. All forms of media hold the potential for both threatening and securing social and political goods. Media is, as its Latin root suggests, “in the middle”; it is a channel for communication between people to either achieve – or destroy – social and political goods. Social goods refer to actions, resources, or anything that benefits social relationships such as education, clean water, healthcare, safety, empathy, understanding, and a sense of community. 2. The fantasy of fixing social problems with technology has a long history. In Here Comes Political goods refer to the Everybody, Clay Shirky observes, “For a hundred institutions, rule of law, and years after it started, the printing press broke decision-making processes more things than it fixed, plunging Europe into a that protect and create soperiod of intellectual and political chaos that cial goods. ended in the 1600s. (Shirky, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations 2008, 73) Social media is a tool, and as with most tools, it can be used for both good and evil. In their book on Liberation Technology: Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy, Diamond and Plattner describe the internet as “a “cyberstew”; a widely divergent mix of actors and motives, where “liberation and control, transparency and deception, cooperation and predation, tolerance and extremism all vie with one another” both to “boost democracy” and “enable repression.” (Shirky, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations 2008, xiii) 3. Social media is distinct from other media in at least six ways known as the 6Vs: volume, variety, velocity, value, veracity, and variability. Social media significantly increases the ability for diverse people and groups to communicate, share, cooperate, and take collective action without the guidance of institutions