ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 focuses on platforms where digital shaming occurs. Digital media are easily taken for granted due to their ubiquity in personal and professional lives, yet they serve as ideologically-tinted windows to the world for many people. This reliance is especially acute in cases of social isolation, whether due to public health emergencies or cultural polarisation. With a co-constructivist approach to media technologies, this chapter approaches platforms as both instrumentalised by their user base, and operating in service of owners for financial gain and cultural influence. The court of public opinion is therefore a synthesis of engagement and reputation economies. Platforms operate as spaces that cultivate and contain reputational practices. Interview data addresses users’ troubling dependence on platforms that also lead to volatility in terms of visibility and reputational harm. These struggles shape users’ sense of belonging to – and exclusion from – social platforms. Reflecting on user experiences with these platforms leads to a practical reconsideration of notions of consent to exposure and control over one's image. These practical reflections in turn shape more fundamental understandings of ethics and harm through digital platforms.
