Topologies of visibility: A space-sensitive approach to online visibility analysis

Online visibility has attracted considerable academic attention, focusing on the role of platform affordances as well as user practices in the constitution and management of visibility online. This article argues that further attention is needed to understand the topological character of this phenomenon – that is, the ways in which technological properties and user practices co-produce distinct social spaces through which online visibility is constituted. Understanding the topological character of online visibility is particularly important in designing methodological interventions that can trace the propagation patterns of these practices and shed light on their actual visibility effects. For this purpose, we: (1) Conceptualize online visibility as a complex and heterogeneous landscape, layered with diverse topologies, co-produced by user practices and medium affordances. We then (2) suggest visual network analysis as an apt methodology for online visibility analysis, (3) illustrate our approach by analyzing the remediation of the 2019 Eurovision song contest on Twitter and, (4) discuss the possibilities for the broader application of our approach across different online platforms.