City Research Online

Abstract

Social media platforms, once hailed as potential champions of dialogue, have evolved into commodified spaces in which their business models incentivize hate speech, misinformation, polarization, and the political fragmentation of society, benefiting corporate and political elites while eroding democracy. The existing market and technological conceptualizations of social media platforms offer only partial analysis of and solutions to these issues. This paper advances a political perspective grounded in deliberative democracy, arguing that social media companies are political actors responsible for maintaining a well-functioning public sphere. We argue that transforming social media platforms into true facilitators of democratic discourse requires enhancing their deliberative capacity. Beyond the capacities of the public sphere suggested by the market and technology perspectives (1) transparency and accountability and (2) openness and inclusiveness; we propose that fostering deliberative capacity also requires (3) conduciveness to argumentation and (4) consequentiality. We thus contribute to understanding how management theories can explain and address current threats to democracy.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Castello-Molina, I. , Colleoni, E., Scherer, A. G. & Trittin-Ulbrich, H. (2025). Social Media are a Threat for Democracy! – A Political Perspective for Analyzing and Diminishing Harm. Journal of Management Studies, , which will be published in final form at onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14676486. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. This article may not be enhanced, enriched or otherwise transformed into a derivative work, without express permission from Wiley or by statutory rights under applicable legislation. Copyright notices must not be removed, obscured or modified. The article must be linked to Wiley’s version of record on Wiley Online Library and any embedding, framing or otherwise making available the article or pages thereof by third parties from platforms, services and websites other than Wiley Online Library must be prohibited.
Publisher Keywords:	1503 Business and Management, 1505 Marketing, Business & Management, 3505 Human resources and industrial relations, 3507 Strategy, management and organisational behaviour
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) J Political Science > JA Political science (General)
Departments:	Bayes Business School Bayes Business School > Faculty of Management
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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