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Social Media and Platform Historiography: Challenges and Opportunities Cover

Social Media and Platform Historiography: Challenges and Opportunities

Open Access
|Nov 2019

Figures & Tables

Figure 1a

Availability of archived web sources (N = 110 URLs) in Memento-compatible web archives (N = 21): cumulative. X-axis: breadth of availability (no. of archives); Y-axis: depth of availability (no. of days); size: by no. of Mementos held; colour-coding: by platform owner (brand colour).

Figure 1b

Availability of archived web sources (N = 110 URLs) in Memento-compatible web archives (N = 21): by user group (1b). X-axis: breadth of availability (no. of archives); Y-axis: depth of availability (no. of days); size: by no. of Mementos held; colour-coding: by platform owner (brand colour).

Figure 2

Screen capture of business.twitter.com (October 2, 2010). Source: Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

Figure 3

Screen capture of Facebook Marketing API audience targeting specifications at developers.facebook.com/docs/marketing-api/targeting-specs/ (February 25, 2017), including the ‘ethnic_affinity’ field (now disabled). Source: Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

Table A-1

Issues and challenges of social media archiving.

Issues88challengesapproaches (sample)privileged histories (sample)
‘high-speed updating and APIs’

general:

  • database-driven and dynamic content (e.g., JavaScript)89

  • customisation and personalisation (e.g., personalised content and interfaces)

API-related:

  • data volume and velocity90

  • presentism due to content and data recency biases91

  • data access restrictions and terms of service92

  • data completeness, reliability, and sampling93

  • privacy and ethical concerns94

general:

  • alternative web crawling technologies (e.g., Brozzler)

  • de-personalised (or defaulted) archiver profiles to enable web crawling beyond logins (e.g., IA’s Facebook user, Charlie Archivist)

API-related:

  • API-based archiving95

  • re-using previously collected data sets (often limited due to data re-sharing restrictions), including donated data sets (e.g., Library of Congress Twitter Archive)

  • collecting data sets individually (often limited due to API specifications and data storage limitations)

  • purchasing data sets commercially, either directly or through resellers (often limited due to pricing and recency bias)

general:

  • histories of ‘empty structures’96

API-related:

  • (big) data-driven histories of user content and interactions, public figures, media events, and large organisations (e.g., thematic collections of public pages, groups, hashtags, and user profiles) and of selectively tracked topics or accounts97

‘inaccessibility’ and fenced off content

general:

  • robots.txt exclusion standards

  • private user profiles, logins, and password-protected sites

  • API-related:

  • data access restrictions (e.g., blocking)

general:

  • subscription-based solutions (e.g., Archive-It)

  • micro-archiving (e.g., downloading personal content and data archives, data access requests under GDPR)98

  • archiving screen captures and recordings

  • creating or purchasing data sets commercially

general:

  • histories of selectively tracked personal accounts or topics and histories of openly accessible or published data99

  • auto-biographical histories and ‘screencast documentaries’100

  • premium histories with paid-for content and data

‘integrated digital media environments’

general:

  • syndicated and embedded user content101

general:

  • historical source code analysis102

  • historical partnership analysis103

general:

  • histories of relationship networks (e.g., hyperlink networks, ecosystem evolution)

Table A-2

User groups of social media platforms.

user grouparchived resources (sample)afforded histories (sample)
end users
  • graphical user interfaces and ‘empty’ frames

  • sign up and registration procedures

  • about and feature pages

  • data and privacy policies

  • terms of service and use

  • end-user license agreements (EULA)

  • account security pages

  • help pages

  • language support

  • self-description histories104

  • feature and practice histories105

  • ‘stakeholder politics’ histories106

  • revenue model histories107

  • data and privacy policy histories

  • terms of service and use histories108

developers
  • tools and product pages

  • application programming interfaces (APIs) and endpoints

  • software development kits (SDKs)

  • integrated development environments (IDEs)

  • software and developer tools and frameworks

  • guides for app development, best practices, app review, and privacy and consent

  • online training courses for developers

  • developer support, help pages, and frequently asked questions (FAQs)

  • API reference documentation, version histories, and changelogs

  • developer news, blog posts, and blog archives

  • open source projects and code repositories

  • programming, query, and markup languages

  • bug reports

  • platform status

  • annual developer conferences

  • developers community groups, meetups and local developer communities

  • startup accelerator programmes

  • platform policies

  • careers

  • platform and privacy policies

  • cookies

  • terms of service and use

  • API-based data sharing histories109

  • data strategy and ‘intraoperability’ histories110

  • ‘programmability’ and app development histories111

  • app ecosystem histories

  • tracking technology histories

  • standards and protocol histories

  • ‘datastructuring’ histories112

  • platform architecture design and governance and control histories113

  • platform growth and embedding histories114

  • platform status, maintenance, repair, and ‘issue’ histories

  • platform and privacy policy histories115

business
  • ad creation and management tools and interfaces

  • tools and product pages

  • business news, blog pages, and archives

  • case studies, success stories, and insights

  • guides for marketers, creative tips, and inspiration

  • advertising and marketing tools, products, and services (e.g., ads and marketing APIs and SDKs)

  • webinars and online training courses for digital buyers, publishers, and marketers

  • industry insights and reports and series

  • insights newsletters

  • business certification programmes

  • common questions, advertiser help centres, and support

  • privacy policies

  • brand resources

  • tool and product histories

  • ad creation and targeting fields histories

  • platform growth and embedding histories116

  • revenue model histories117

partners
  • partner solutions and integrations

  • partner programmes and directories

  • about pages

  • partner news, blog posts, and archives

  • case studies and success stories

  • partner sign-up and registration procedures

  • partner certification programmes and badges

  • partner help centres and support

  • partner newsletters

  • partner summits and events

  • partnerships, partner solutions, and partner ecosystem histories118

  • strategic partnerships and strategic growth histories

  • platform growth and embedding histories119

creators
  • creator tools and products (e.g., for creating, managing, and monetizing content and communities)

  • webinars and online training courses for creators

  • guides for content production and monetisation

  • guides for community building and fan engagement

  • copyright guidelines

  • content and media format histories

  • content and media monetisation histories

  • platform and algorithm optimisation strategy histories

  • brand histories

media and publishers
  • media and publisher solutions and integrations

  • media and publisher partner programmes and directories

  • media and publisher help centres and support

  • guides for content production and monetisation

  • guides for community building and fan engagement

  • press releases, news, blog posts, and archives

  • analytics and measurement tools

  • webinars and online training courses for producing and discovering content and managing audiences

  • content and media format histories

  • content and media monetisation histories

  • platform and algorithm optimisation strategy histories

  • brand histories

investors
  • company information and company histories

  • financial information (e.g., quarterly earnings, annual reports, US SEC filings; webcasts, balance sheets, income statements, earnings call transcripts and slides)

  • stock information

  • education centres, success stories, business guides, and frequently asked questions (FAQs)

  • press releases, blog posts, and archives

  • annual meetings and investor events

  • corporate governance and responsibilities

  • investor newsletters

  • investor relations histories

  • corporate strategy and financial performance histories

  • founder manifestos, mission statements, and business discourse histories120

  • stock trading, stock price development, and analyst coverage histories

  • mobile platform strategy histories121

  • data privacy and ‘business-to-platform’ dependency histories122

  • ‘financialised histories’123

  • corporate governance structure histories

research
  • research areas

  • publications (e.g., conference proceedings, journal articles, technical reports, patent filings, white papers)

  • downloads

  • press releases, blog posts, and archives

  • academic programmes and scholarships

  • careers

  • intellectual and research area histories

  • technology design and innovation histories

  • algorithm design and maintenance histories124

  • platform architecture design and infrastructure histories125

  • ‘programmability’ design tendency and experimentation histories126

  • professional expertise, talent acquisition, and recruitment strategy histories

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18146/tmg.434 | Journal eISSN: 2213-7653
Language: English
Page range: 6 - 34
Published on: Nov 6, 2019
Published by: Sound & Vision
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

© 2019 Anne Helmond, Fernando N. van der Vlist, published by Sound & Vision
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.