The Art of Governance in Social    
Media

One could argue that social media expanded the public sphere, which Habermas defined as 'a network for communicating information and points of view' (Habermas 1996). However, the concept of the public sphere has been righteously contested (e.g. Fraser 1992). Applying the concept to the world wide web has also been criticized (e.g. Dean 2003). While I argue that social
media constitute an extension of the traditional public sphere, I want to address the problem of platform governance. With reference to Foucault's notion of governmentality (2006), this paper investigates how governance is employed by platform providers to constitute a perception of legitimacy and how they further have put in place hybrid apparatus of control that has far reaching effects on user activities. Reviewing the platform embedded systems to control and channel user activities, this paper analyses to what extent the population of users is subject to the corporate platform provider's "art of governance." This aspect raises critical questions concerning the public sphere quality of social media and concerning the trend of public administrations to structurally embed such platforms into their own agenda of governance and citizen participation I conducted a comprehensive study of social media use of Dutch municipalities and a comparative analysis of social media policing practices and monitoring tools. Through frequent participation in expert to meetings Dutch government advisory boards I gained insight in the latest discussion on policy making for social media. Based on this research, this paper discusses the challenges for establishing a public sphere within state and corporate governmentality.