Purpose

Social media posts have been an integral part of our society’s communication and serve purposes from the personal to the national, from the mundane to the silly to the momentous. This study aims to examine social media posts as records, discussing how social media technology serves, perhaps unexpectedly, to reinforce traditional archival understandings of issues such as provenance, custody, access, disposition and preservation.

Design/methodology/approach

This study follows a four-step methodology. First, this study analyzes literature for a matching definition of the social media record. In the second step, we appraise three social media postings previously curated and cited in news articles by journalists to determine their characteristics – Are these social media posts “records?” Third, this study evaluates the sample records against two dominant theoretical record models, the life cycle and the continuum and attempt to apply the model specifications to the data samples. Finally, this study proposes appropriate records management solutions to address governance issues from the study findings in the conclusion section.

Findings

This study shows that, even by the most traditional of definitions, social media posts are records. The paper also demonstrates that platform mediation transforms simple narrative documents into records whose provenance, custody and control are dictated by platform logics and governance, outside of the control of their creators. Through appraisal of a small sample of “important” social media posts, this study illustrates that, rather than obsolete, traditional records management concepts and approaches are necessary to ensuring the ongoing accessibility, usability and evidentiary character of social media posts in the broader “platformized” context.

Research limitations/implications

This is exploratory, theoretical work. In future works, this study plans to expand and validate aspects of this study.

Originality/value

This paper tests existing theoretical frameworks, namely, the Records Life cycle and the Records Continuum for applicability to the social media record. The paper also offers a view of the potential for traditional archival and records management concepts in service of a just and inclusive recordkeeping, because such concepts allow us to demonstrate the centralized, elite-serving, bureaucratic structures which underpin social media records are obscured by the seemingly decentralized, participatory nature of social media.

中文翻译：

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社交媒体中的记录：对记录管理的新（旧）理解

目的

社交媒体帖子已经成为我们社会沟通的一个组成部分，服务于从个人到国家、从平凡到愚蠢到重大的目的。本研究旨在将社交媒体帖子作为记录进行研究，讨论社交媒体技术如何（也许出人意料地）加强对出处、保管、访问、处置和保存等问题的传统档案理解。

设计/方法论/途径

本研究遵循四步方法。首先，本研究分析文献，以获得社交媒体记录的匹配定义。第二步，我们评估记者之前在新闻文章中策划和引用的三个社交媒体帖子，以确定它们的特征——这些社交媒体帖子是“记录”吗？第三，本研究根据两种主要的理论记录模型（生命周期和连续体）评估样本记录，并尝试将模型规范应用于数据样本。最后，本研究提出了适当的记录管理解决方案，以解决结论部分的研究结果中的治理问题。

发现

这项研究表明，即使按照最传统的定义，社交媒体帖子也是记录。该论文还表明，平台中介将简单的叙述性文档转化为记录，其来源、保管和控制由平台逻辑和治理决定，不受其创建者的控制。通过对一小部分“重要”社交媒体帖子样本的评估，本研究表明，传统的记录管理概念和方法非但没有过时，而且对于确保社交媒体帖子在更广泛的“平台化”中持续的可访问性、可用性和证据特征是必要的。 “ 语境。

研究局限性/影响

这是探索性的理论工作。在未来的工作中，本研究计划扩展和验证本研究的各个方面。

原创性/价值

本文测试了现有的理论框架，即记录生命周期和记录连续体对社交媒体记录的适用性。本文还提出了传统档案和记录管理概念在服务于公正和包容性记录保存方面的潜力，因为这些概念使我们能够展示支撑社交媒体记录的集中化、服务精英的官僚结构，这些结构被社交媒体记录所掩盖。社交媒体看似分散、参与的性质。