Manipulation and the Afective Realm of Social Media

Abstract

As digitally manifest realms of affectivity in which rational persuasion plays a secondary role for many users, social networks offer a potential for manipulation which political, economic, and also private agents try to use. This chapter focusses on conceptualizing the phenomenon of (online) manipulation and differentiating it from other types of influence in order to gain a neutral account of manipulation. According to this Pleasurable-Ends-Model of manipulation, a manipulator tries to modulate an agent’s affectivity by rendering an end as pleasurable/unpleasurable which modifies its attractivity and thus the likeliness to be chosen or not. Consequently, the feeling of a desire or an aversion might arise which in turn triggers our more complex affectivity and by that motivates (but neither through forceful coercion, nor rational conviction) the manipulated to act in a certain way. But the manipulated remains free to act according to the manipulative attempt or not. After this concept of manipulation has been established, social media will be characterized in a general sense as a realm of affectivity to shed more light on how the assumed potentials of manipulation result not only from designing affective messages but also from social media’s affectively engaging design.