Towards a Post-Social Media Studies

Törnberg, P., & Rogers, R. (2026). Towards a Post-Social Media Studies. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/6nue7_v1

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Summary

This is a conceptual/theoretical essay arguing that the “social media” paradigm — which has organized two decades of digital communication scholarship around user-generated content circulating through social networks — is dissolving. Törnberg and Rogers identify three interlocking dynamics driving the rupture: a shift from social-graph to interest-based algorithmic recommendation, the rise of generative AI producing synthetic content, and user retreat into private/closed spaces. In place of the old configuration, they propose three distinct “post-social” formations — algorithmic broadcasting platforms, semi-private spheres/micro-communities, and AI-mediated communication — each requiring analytically distinct concepts, methods, and normative frameworks. The paper is fundamentally a call for a paradigmatic reorientation of the field.

Key Contributions

• Proposes “post-social media” as a conceptual framework marking a rupture in the organizing assumptions of digital communication research.
• Articulates a typology of three post-social formations: algorithmic broadcasting platforms, semi-private spheres/micro-communities, and AI-mediated communication.
• Introduces or consolidates concepts such as algorithmic publics, imitation publics, and user-spectator to replace networked publics.
• Outlines a differentiated research agenda: flow analysis and rhythmanalysis for broadcasting platforms; ethnography and bounded-place theory for semi-private spheres; AI auditing and experimental methods for chatbot media.
• Identifies cross-cutting normative stakes around power concentration, epistemic fragmentation, and democratic communication.

Methods

Conceptual synthesis rather than empirical demonstration. The authors reconstruct the “social media paradigm” through a review of foundational scholarship (networked publics, participatory culture, platformization, surveillance capitalism), then offer a diagnostic reading of contemporary developments. A legal filing by Meta in the FTC antitrust case serves as a key illustrative case, supplemented by secondary evidence (Pew, Gallup, Elon University AI usage surveys, and prior empirical work on declining posting rates). The three emergent formations are compared to derive corresponding methodological implications.

Findings

• Meta’s court-submitted data shows only 7% of Instagram time and 17% of Facebook time involves content from friends/followed accounts — evidence that platforms have ceased to function primarily as social networks.
• Recommendation systems privilege passive metrics (watch time, dwell time, completion rate) over active social signals (likes, shares, follows), redefining engagement.
• TikTok’s “For You Page” model drove industry-wide convergence toward interest-based, algorithmically curated feeds.
• Posting and viewing on Facebook and Twitter/X dropped nearly 50% between 2020 and 2024.
• AI chatbot use (52% of US adults in 2025) now exceeds active posting on major social platforms.
• Synthetic content (e.g., “Shrimp Jesus”) scales within engagement-optimized systems that have limited incentive to distinguish human from AI content.
• Established methods — network analysis, content analysis, API-based collection — are increasingly misaligned with post-social structures.

Connections

This essay is a keystone platform-critique piece: Helmond2026-ll shares its platformization lineage, while Gerbaudo2026-fo directly engages the “algorithmic media” and broadcasting-platform shift the paper theorizes. Its diagnosis of generative AI severing platforms from human content production connects to work on synthetic circulation and AI-mediated communication such as Brady2026-ln and Gilardi2026-hw, and its concern with eroded epistemic infrastructure resonates with Bak-Coleman2026-mk and Lewandowsky2026-ob. The retreat-into-semi-private-spheres thread aligns with Marwick2026-ss and Baym2026-tr on bounded and relational online spaces.

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