LOCALIZED VOLUNTEER MODERATION AND ITS DISCURSIVE CONSTRUCTION

Abstract

The social media industry has begun more prominently positioning itself as a vehicle for tapping into local community. Facebook offers hundreds of region-specific community groups, proudly touting these in nation-wide commercials. Reddit has hundreds of subreddits focused on specific states, cities, and towns. And Nextdoor encourages users to sign up and “Get the most out of your neighborhood.” In these locally oriented digital spaces, users interact, discuss community issues, and share information about what is happening around them. Volunteer moderators with localized knowledge are important agents in the creation, maintenance, and upkeep of these digital spaces. And, as we show, Facebook, Reddit, and Nextdoor create strategic communication to guide this localized volunteer moderator labor to realize specific goals within these spaces. In this work, we ask: “What are the promises the social media industry make about local community groups, and how do they position volunteer moderators to help realize those promises?” Through a qualitative content analysis of 849 documents produced by Facebook, Reddit, and NextDoor, we trace how platforms position their version of local community as slightly different utopian spaces, and channel volunteer moderator labor both through direct instruction and appeals to civic virtue.