RT Journal Article
T1 Out-of-place content: How repetitive, offensive, and opinion-challenging social media posts shape users' unfriending strategies in Spain
A1 Jordá, Beatriz
A1 Cañedo Ramos, Azahara
A1 Bene, Martón
A1 Goyanes Martínez, Manuel
AB Filtering strategies enable social media users to remove undesired content from theirfeeds, potentially creating homophilic environments. Although previous studies have addressed theindividual-level factors and content features that influence these decisions, few have solely focusedon users’ perceptions. Accordingly, this study applies social exchange theory to understand howusers socially construct the process of unfriending. Based on 30 in-depth interviews with youngSpaniards, we identify a widespread pattern of rejection over repetitive, opinion-challenging, andoffensive posts, which we conceptualize as out-of-place content, a type of social media stimulus thathinders substantive online exchanges and challenges users’ understanding of social reality andindividual values. This study contributes to current literature on unfriending by suggesting thatfiltering strategies are implemented gradually when posts overwhelm users’ tolerance threshold.Our findings also suggest that their deployment hinges on the closeness of the relationship betweenpeers and social commitments formed in specific platforms. Future research is needed to assess towhat extent the patterns identified in our interviews are present in the overall population.
PB MDPI AG
SN 2076-0760
YR 2021
FD 2021-12
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10016/34806
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10016/34806
LA eng
NO This work was supported by the National Program of I+D+I (RTI2018-096065-B-I00)oriented to the Challenges of Society and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) about“Nuevos valores, gobernanza, financiación y servicios audiovisuales públicos para la sociedad deInternet: contrastes europeos y españoles.”Azahara Cañedo receives funding from the EuropeanRegional Development Fund (ERDF), call 2020/3771. Márton Bene is a recipient of the Bolyai JánosResearch Fellowship awarded by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (BO/334_20).
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RD 1 sept. 2024