Abstract
Mapping networked sponsorship economy: An analysis of Facebook partnership networks related to climate change
Introduction/Background:
Despite the significance of digital platforms as tools for climate engagement, online communication has not shown adequate promise for climate-related deliberation and impact within a broader public (Schäfer, 2012). While different types of actors use social media for climate engagement (Belotti, Donato, Bussoletti, & Comunello, 2022; Chen et al., 2023; Vu et al., 2021), climate scientists and scientific institutions play a limited role in digital debate surrounding the topic (Schäfer, 2012). To some extent, this may relate to the fact that social media are ‘uneven’ landscapes where sponsored content gains a visibility advantage, which allows actors who run funded social media campaigns to ‘curate’ attention among general social media users. The current business model used by main social media platforms, which is designed to generate profits by maximising engagement, is a major problem that needs to be taken into account in the struggle to avert climate catastrophe (Couldry, 2023). This can result in the climate change debate being a vehicle for certain actors to promote their own agenda that may not relate to the climate crisis, as opposed to social media being used as a tool for deliberation, awareness building and activism.
Although a wide variety of studies examine the use of social media for climate communication, current research overlooks the fact that engagement within popular social network sites is intertwined with revenue-generating mechanisms. In particular, there is a dearth of work that pays attention to the fact that business models used by platforms allow relations that can ‘bypass’ content rankings via payment options. This should be understood within the context that, although social media are essential sites and objects of research on climate communication, the business models and preferences of platforms, along with societal pressures shape and organise research (Pearce, Niederer, Özkula, & Sánchez Querubín, 2019).
Involvement of different actors, such as governments, business organisations, non-profit organizations, educational institutes, as well as the general public is crucial for achieving targets set forth in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 13 (Climate Action). Examining the above-mentioned disparity is relevant within this context as the paid partnerships can allow some actor types to dominate social media spaces, shaping the public understanding of the climate crisis and the measures taken to address the issue. Accordingly, this study stresses the need for academic work that examines what can be called the ‘networked sponsorship economy’ related to climate communication on social network sites. Examining involvement of actors who invest financial resources for promoting climate messages and the social media pages that attract such sponsors can provide a relational approach to understand the positionality of different actors within the digital climate communication landscape.
Objective(s)/Research Question(s):
The study pays special attention to the paid partnership option (or branded posts) on Facebook as it allows creators to form partnerships with brands, advertisers, marketers, or sponsors. The brand marketplace allows creators to discover partnership opportunities, control information, source new deals and manage partnerships (https://www.facebook.com/). This system also enables brands to expand reach and measure performance of branded content. This is a double-edged sword as partnerships can benefit climate change discourse or allow brands to use the debate to achieve commercial interests. Accordingly, examining structures of Facebook partnerships can provide useful insight into how various interests permeate the climate change discourse on the platform. The study has a special emphasis on how such interests manifest within branded Facebook content that reflect the desirable climate related outcomes and indicators identified by the United Nations.
Accordingly, the objective of this study is to examine networked patterns of sponsorships related to climate messages on Facebook. The study focuses on relationships among Facebook pages, sponsors as well as the self-reported categories that characterise their position within the system.
Method:
A sample of 8,005 sponsored English language Facebook posts were analysed using a bipartite network analysis approach. The sample was selected based on 43 keywords related to the 13th UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) (e.g., climate crisis, climate resilience, climate-related hazards, national disaster risk reduction, local disaster risk reduction, climate change measures, greenhouse gas emissions, climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, climate impact reduction). The keywords were primarily identified based on the indicators related to the 13th sustainable development goal (i.e., Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts).
Three bipartite networks were constructed using the sample: 1) page name-sponsor category (PNSC) network (3260 nodes, 4205 edges), 2) page category-sponsor name (PCSN) network (3736 nodes, 4112 edges), and 3) page category-sponsor category (PCSC) network (692 nodes, 2292 edges). These networks were used to examine page-sponsor relationships from three different perspectives. The first network was used to identify leading branding categories that invest in partnerships and identify the positionality of creators (pages) within page-sponsor category relationships. The second network was used for examining leading creator categories that attract partners and examine their interactions with different sponsors. The third network was used to examine relationships among page categories and sponsor categories.
Preliminary analysis examines degree values and network structures using the Louvain method (Blondel, Guillaume, Lambiotte, & Lefebvre, 2008). Our goal at this stage is to identify top sponsors and sponsor categories that invest in branded content related to the topic and examine the extent of interaction among different page and sponsor categories. This allows us to identify approaches for more fine-grained analysis.
Results (Preliminary or Final):
Preliminary results showed that the PNSC network had an average degree of 1.29 and a modularity value of 0.731, indicating the presence of 143 communities (subgraphs). Non-profit, government organizations, energy companies, products and services and environmental conservation emerged as top sponsor categories in this network. Guardian Labs, INQUIRER,net, The Scotsman, The Star, Mwebantu and Custom Content from WSJ had the highest number of partnerships representing different sponsor categories. In degree and outdegree values of the PCSN network (average degree: 1.101, modularity: 0.818, 180 communities) showed that media and news companies, news sites, non-profits, newspapers, and magazines attracted the highest number of sponsors. Sponsors such as Providr, Protect Our Winters, HSBC, Sneider Electric, Abotiz Power Corporation emerged as top sponsors in this network.
Page category-sponsor category network had an average degree of 3.31 and a modularity value of 0.301 (20 communities). The analysis further confirmed the above results that media and news pages attract more partnerships than other categories and that non-profits, government organizations, energy companies and commercial product or services tend to sponsor partnerships. The preliminary results are alarming to some extent as it shows that commercial interests, involvement of energy companies in particular drive branded content on Facebook, and that media and news appear as vehicles that lead the dissemination of climate-related content. The sponsorship market does not seem to adequately demonstrate the potential of social media to provide space for alternative voices and actors.
Future Work:
Future analysis will examine all three networks in detail. We will use the first two networks (PNSC and PCSN) to conduct an ego-network analysis of top actors. This will allow us to expose the sponsorship strategy used by such actors in terms of the nature and the diversity of categories and pages that receive sponsorships.
The PCSC network will be used to discuss the overall structure of what we call the ‘sponsorship economy’ on Facebook. Nominal assortativity will be used to examine the extent of cross-category interaction. Link Community analysis (Ahn, Bagrow, & Lehmann, 2010) will be used to examine the extent to which sponsors and pages permeate different categories for partnerships. This will allow us to provide useful insight into the climate politics of pages organizations that use sponsorship as a communication strategy. A qualitative analysis of posts will be used to support the above analysis, providing more context in terms of the nature of posts included in the sample.
References
Ahn, Y.-Y., Bagrow, J. P., & Lehmann, S. (2010). Link communities reveal multiscale complexity in networks. Nature, 466(7307), 761-764. doi:10.1038/nature09182
Belotti, F., Donato, S., Bussoletti, A., & Comunello, F. (2022). Youth activism for climate on and beyond social media: Insights from FridaysForFuture-Rome. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 27(3), 718-737. doi:10.1177/19401612211072776
Blondel, V. D., Guillaume, J.-L., Lambiotte, R., & Lefebvre, E. (2008). Fast unfolding of communities in large networks. Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment, 2008(10), P10008. doi:10.1088/1742-5468/2008/10/P10008
Chen, K., Molder, A. L., Duan, Z., Boulianne, S., Eckart, C., Mallari, P., & Yang, D. (2023). How climate movement actors and news media frame climate change and strike: Evidence from analyzing Twitter and news media discourse from 2018 to 2021. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 28(2), 384-413. doi:10.1177/19401612221106405
Couldry, N. (2023). On social media, solidarity, and the catastrophe of climate change. Social Media + Society, 9(2), 20563051231177907. doi:10.1177/20563051231177907
https://www.facebook.com/. About Branded Content. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/business/help/213206196141623?id=491898788154026
Pearce, W., Niederer, S., Özkula, S. M., & Sánchez Querubín, N. (2019). The social media life of climate change: Platforms, publics, and future imaginaries. WIREs Climate Change, 10(2), e569. doi:https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.569
Schäfer, M. S. (2012). Online communication on climate change and climate politics: a literature review. WIREs Climate Change, 3(6), 527-543. doi:https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.191
Vu, H. T., Blomberg, M., Seo, H., Liu, Y., Shayesteh, F., & Do, H. V. (2021). Social media and environmental activism: Framing climate change on Facebook by global NGOs. Science Communication, 43(1), 91-115. doi:10.1177/1075547020971644
Introduction/Background:
Despite the significance of digital platforms as tools for climate engagement, online communication has not shown adequate promise for climate-related deliberation and impact within a broader public (Schäfer, 2012). While different types of actors use social media for climate engagement (Belotti, Donato, Bussoletti, & Comunello, 2022; Chen et al., 2023; Vu et al., 2021), climate scientists and scientific institutions play a limited role in digital debate surrounding the topic (Schäfer, 2012). To some extent, this may relate to the fact that social media are ‘uneven’ landscapes where sponsored content gains a visibility advantage, which allows actors who run funded social media campaigns to ‘curate’ attention among general social media users. The current business model used by main social media platforms, which is designed to generate profits by maximising engagement, is a major problem that needs to be taken into account in the struggle to avert climate catastrophe (Couldry, 2023). This can result in the climate change debate being a vehicle for certain actors to promote their own agenda that may not relate to the climate crisis, as opposed to social media being used as a tool for deliberation, awareness building and activism.
Although a wide variety of studies examine the use of social media for climate communication, current research overlooks the fact that engagement within popular social network sites is intertwined with revenue-generating mechanisms. In particular, there is a dearth of work that pays attention to the fact that business models used by platforms allow relations that can ‘bypass’ content rankings via payment options. This should be understood within the context that, although social media are essential sites and objects of research on climate communication, the business models and preferences of platforms, along with societal pressures shape and organise research (Pearce, Niederer, Özkula, & Sánchez Querubín, 2019).
Involvement of different actors, such as governments, business organisations, non-profit organizations, educational institutes, as well as the general public is crucial for achieving targets set forth in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 13 (Climate Action). Examining the above-mentioned disparity is relevant within this context as the paid partnerships can allow some actor types to dominate social media spaces, shaping the public understanding of the climate crisis and the measures taken to address the issue. Accordingly, this study stresses the need for academic work that examines what can be called the ‘networked sponsorship economy’ related to climate communication on social network sites. Examining involvement of actors who invest financial resources for promoting climate messages and the social media pages that attract such sponsors can provide a relational approach to understand the positionality of different actors within the digital climate communication landscape.
Objective(s)/Research Question(s):
The study pays special attention to the paid partnership option (or branded posts) on Facebook as it allows creators to form partnerships with brands, advertisers, marketers, or sponsors. The brand marketplace allows creators to discover partnership opportunities, control information, source new deals and manage partnerships (https://www.facebook.com/). This system also enables brands to expand reach and measure performance of branded content. This is a double-edged sword as partnerships can benefit climate change discourse or allow brands to use the debate to achieve commercial interests. Accordingly, examining structures of Facebook partnerships can provide useful insight into how various interests permeate the climate change discourse on the platform. The study has a special emphasis on how such interests manifest within branded Facebook content that reflect the desirable climate related outcomes and indicators identified by the United Nations.
Accordingly, the objective of this study is to examine networked patterns of sponsorships related to climate messages on Facebook. The study focuses on relationships among Facebook pages, sponsors as well as the self-reported categories that characterise their position within the system.
Method:
A sample of 8,005 sponsored English language Facebook posts were analysed using a bipartite network analysis approach. The sample was selected based on 43 keywords related to the 13th UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) (e.g., climate crisis, climate resilience, climate-related hazards, national disaster risk reduction, local disaster risk reduction, climate change measures, greenhouse gas emissions, climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, climate impact reduction). The keywords were primarily identified based on the indicators related to the 13th sustainable development goal (i.e., Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts).
Three bipartite networks were constructed using the sample: 1) page name-sponsor category (PNSC) network (3260 nodes, 4205 edges), 2) page category-sponsor name (PCSN) network (3736 nodes, 4112 edges), and 3) page category-sponsor category (PCSC) network (692 nodes, 2292 edges). These networks were used to examine page-sponsor relationships from three different perspectives. The first network was used to identify leading branding categories that invest in partnerships and identify the positionality of creators (pages) within page-sponsor category relationships. The second network was used for examining leading creator categories that attract partners and examine their interactions with different sponsors. The third network was used to examine relationships among page categories and sponsor categories.
Preliminary analysis examines degree values and network structures using the Louvain method (Blondel, Guillaume, Lambiotte, & Lefebvre, 2008). Our goal at this stage is to identify top sponsors and sponsor categories that invest in branded content related to the topic and examine the extent of interaction among different page and sponsor categories. This allows us to identify approaches for more fine-grained analysis.
Results (Preliminary or Final):
Preliminary results showed that the PNSC network had an average degree of 1.29 and a modularity value of 0.731, indicating the presence of 143 communities (subgraphs). Non-profit, government organizations, energy companies, products and services and environmental conservation emerged as top sponsor categories in this network. Guardian Labs, INQUIRER,net, The Scotsman, The Star, Mwebantu and Custom Content from WSJ had the highest number of partnerships representing different sponsor categories. In degree and outdegree values of the PCSN network (average degree: 1.101, modularity: 0.818, 180 communities) showed that media and news companies, news sites, non-profits, newspapers, and magazines attracted the highest number of sponsors. Sponsors such as Providr, Protect Our Winters, HSBC, Sneider Electric, Abotiz Power Corporation emerged as top sponsors in this network.
Page category-sponsor category network had an average degree of 3.31 and a modularity value of 0.301 (20 communities). The analysis further confirmed the above results that media and news pages attract more partnerships than other categories and that non-profits, government organizations, energy companies and commercial product or services tend to sponsor partnerships. The preliminary results are alarming to some extent as it shows that commercial interests, involvement of energy companies in particular drive branded content on Facebook, and that media and news appear as vehicles that lead the dissemination of climate-related content. The sponsorship market does not seem to adequately demonstrate the potential of social media to provide space for alternative voices and actors.
Future Work:
Future analysis will examine all three networks in detail. We will use the first two networks (PNSC and PCSN) to conduct an ego-network analysis of top actors. This will allow us to expose the sponsorship strategy used by such actors in terms of the nature and the diversity of categories and pages that receive sponsorships.
The PCSC network will be used to discuss the overall structure of what we call the ‘sponsorship economy’ on Facebook. Nominal assortativity will be used to examine the extent of cross-category interaction. Link Community analysis (Ahn, Bagrow, & Lehmann, 2010) will be used to examine the extent to which sponsors and pages permeate different categories for partnerships. This will allow us to provide useful insight into the climate politics of pages organizations that use sponsorship as a communication strategy. A qualitative analysis of posts will be used to support the above analysis, providing more context in terms of the nature of posts included in the sample.
References
Ahn, Y.-Y., Bagrow, J. P., & Lehmann, S. (2010). Link communities reveal multiscale complexity in networks. Nature, 466(7307), 761-764. doi:10.1038/nature09182
Belotti, F., Donato, S., Bussoletti, A., & Comunello, F. (2022). Youth activism for climate on and beyond social media: Insights from FridaysForFuture-Rome. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 27(3), 718-737. doi:10.1177/19401612211072776
Blondel, V. D., Guillaume, J.-L., Lambiotte, R., & Lefebvre, E. (2008). Fast unfolding of communities in large networks. Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment, 2008(10), P10008. doi:10.1088/1742-5468/2008/10/P10008
Chen, K., Molder, A. L., Duan, Z., Boulianne, S., Eckart, C., Mallari, P., & Yang, D. (2023). How climate movement actors and news media frame climate change and strike: Evidence from analyzing Twitter and news media discourse from 2018 to 2021. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 28(2), 384-413. doi:10.1177/19401612221106405
Couldry, N. (2023). On social media, solidarity, and the catastrophe of climate change. Social Media + Society, 9(2), 20563051231177907. doi:10.1177/20563051231177907
https://www.facebook.com/. About Branded Content. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/business/help/213206196141623?id=491898788154026
Pearce, W., Niederer, S., Özkula, S. M., & Sánchez Querubín, N. (2019). The social media life of climate change: Platforms, publics, and future imaginaries. WIREs Climate Change, 10(2), e569. doi:https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.569
Schäfer, M. S. (2012). Online communication on climate change and climate politics: a literature review. WIREs Climate Change, 3(6), 527-543. doi:https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.191
Vu, H. T., Blomberg, M., Seo, H., Liu, Y., Shayesteh, F., & Do, H. V. (2021). Social media and environmental activism: Framing climate change on Facebook by global NGOs. Science Communication, 43(1), 91-115. doi:10.1177/1075547020971644
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publication status | Published - 18 Jul 2024 |
| Event | International Conference on Social Media and Society - London College of Communication, London, United Kingdom Duration: 16 Jul 2024 → 18 Jul 2024 https://socialmediaandsociety.org/schedule/ |
Conference
| Conference | International Conference on Social Media and Society |
|---|---|
| Country/Territory | United Kingdom |
| City | London |
| Period | 16/07/24 → 18/07/24 |
| Internet address |
Keywords
- climate change
- retail
- sponsorship
- social media
