ABSTRACT
No other popular medium in recorded history has penetrated public life as rapidly as Internet-based social media. Research on the impact of their use has, however, focused mainly on crisis contexts (see, for example, Farrell and Drezner, 2008; Maratea, 2008; Etling et al., 2010), including especially the ‘Arab Spring’ (see, for example, Breuer, 2012; Howard and Parks, 2012; Shirky, 2011; Aday et al., 2010). Only one study so far has investigated their effects on economic policy-making (McKenzie and Özler, 2011). In light of this empirical dearth, we seek to demonstrate that incorporating analyses of social media content into research on international development policy formulation is a promising avenue for understanding the reproduction of elite-driven practices of global governance more generally. At the same time, our chapter also provides an opportunity to critically appraise recent assertions that social media has contributed to the formation and sustenance of a global civil society (Thörn, 2007). By focusing on social media coverage of the 2010 United Nations High-Level Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly on the Millennium Development Goals (MDG Summit) in New York City, we present an empirical case and explore its ramifications for the reproduction of exclusive networks in global policymaking.
