Elements of practices in digital publics: a model for identifying collective doings on social media platforms

Abstract

Abstract Studies of public communication in digitally networked spaces have increasingly adopted the notion of practice to make sense of patterned doings in such spaces. They have identified and theorized about practices ranging from highly mundane and intimate doings to more collective and organized instances of grassroots platform governance to doings likely to result in harm. Despite this, it remains unclear how doings in networked publics must look, what properties they must have, who needs to engage in them, and for how long, to be considered practices. By synthesizing insights from practice theory and interdisciplinary Internet studies, I develop a model of practices in digital publics and outline interrelated elements of such sustained doings—action, language, materiality, collectivity, knowledge, and normativity. This model can enable future empirical studies to define, identify, and differentiate practices more systematically within and across digitally networked spaces and consider their broader impact on digital citizenship.

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