Exploring the Effects of Social Media Discourse on Public Policy

Abstract

The advent of social media has provided non-authoritative users a space to spread ideas and information to vast audiences. Given this paradigm shift, public policy makers and public administrators can benefit from a deeper discussion on the effects of social media platforms and how meaning is contextualized and recontextualized at a rate that can potentially confound public messaging. This paper provides an analysis of social media discourse at the intersection of news dissemination and individual interpretation. Using the concept of grafting which allows language users to make language compatible to suit their goals, the study in this paper examines how language intended to characterize concepts and people in a negative light can be recontextualized to take on more positive meanings. The implications for this phenomenon on public policy and messaging will also be discussed to provide a starting point for the development of real-world applications for authoritative sources of information to address social media discourse.