Poell and Van Dijck

I confess, this reading turned out to be harder to wrap my mind around than I initially thought. Understanding that the terms Poell and Van Dijck use, acceleration and personalization, are essentially market research tools was not the problem. It is the idea that these markers of social media posts are inherently negative. Acceleration, according to the authors, described rapid information exchange as potentially problematic. This was because social media posts would likely focus on negative aspects of events like fights or police activity, as opposed to the message. Personalization was a term I found less relevant. So much of activism relies on personal stories and perspectives.