Platforms Aren’t Prepared for Content Structural Dissonance
Creators posting tragic images reveal social media’s contrast to traditional media structures
On February 23, followers of the Instagram account @sweetminidollhouse witnessed some of the first posts from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The SweetMiniDollHouse account is run by artist Svetlana Pavlova. She uses the account to be the storefront of her long-running Etsy shop where she sells tiny cookie cutters and tiny tools for miniature artists. Svetlana used to live in Kharkov, Ukraine. As the Russian military destroyed her town, Svetlana documented the horror on her SweetMiniDollHouse account, instantly transforming a storefront into a real-time war account.
Since the start of Russia’s invasion, hundreds of niche accounts have pivoted away from their standard content to posting eyewitness images from the devastating war in Ukraine. What the situation has revealed is that platforms are not designed for this type of “structural dissonance,” or the shift in content form from the platform’s typical behavior. Journalist Luke Bailey coined the term to describe how social media doesn’t have the…
