Fluidity of Power Structures Underpinning Public Discourse on Social Media: A Multi-case Study on Twitter Discourse in India

In this article we present the results of a study on the impact of social media on power structures underpinning public discourse. The power of gatekeepers to control the flow of information in a discourse is considered as central to the power structure. Studies on Internet-based media show that although new media helps by-passing traditional media gatekeepers, the structure of the Internet itself helps replicate traditional media power structures in the new media as well. We argue that because of certain technology features of social media the power structures are partially replicated, but also become fluid in terms of the participants occupying key positions in the power structure. We present the results of a multi-case research study of Twitter discourse on various issues of public interest in India. Our results support the propositions made. We discuss the implication of our results and limitation of our methods