Den fördelade makten i vardagsrummet
Social mediaPowerMichel FoucaultCritical discourse analysisSociala medierMaktMichel FoucaultKritisk diskursanalys
The purpose of this study was set against the background that social media today are used as an platform for companies to communicate with their customers, as well as communicate their brand. Therefore it was interesting to examine this phenomenenon through a critical point of view and try to put light on the different forms of power that is produced on this arena.The overall aim of this study was to examine how PR-consultants talk about social media as a communication channel. The empirical data consisted of five interviews with PR-consultants on five different PR-agencies. The theoretical framework was based on a social constructional perspective and Foucault?s theory of power. A critical discourse analysis was used for analysing the data.The analysis resulted in two different discourses; the friendly relationship in the social livingroom and the professional relationship on the homeparty. These two discourses showed that social media is a platform that allows companies to create different and more personalized relations with their followers. The result also showed that the power relations between company and follower is distributed between them both, and that the power, in some ways, tend to be more invisible when the dividing line between commercial and private is blurred. Furthermore, due to result, the followers, the potential consumer, in some ways, are constructed in ways of how to be and how to act on the social media arena.