Local Communities

Local Platformized Utopias? Corporate Discourse, Community Groups, and Volunteer Moderation on Facebook, Reddit, and NextDoor

Through analysis of 849 company documents (2012-2023), this paper traces how Facebook, Reddit, and NextDoor rhetorically position local groups as platformized utopias while obscuring unequal burdens of volunteer moderation labor.

Who Will Tell the Stories of Health Inequities? Platform Challenges (and Opportunities) in Local Civic Information Infrastructure

The study explores the impact of declining local news on community information access, focusing on COVID-19 health disparities. It shows limited discussion on Facebook, mostly from local news outlets.