This thesis makes a timely contribution to the interdisciplinary field of digital governance by examining its construction in relation to social media platforms (SMPs) in India and the United Kingdom (UK). The adaptation of nation-state governance into digital governance accelerated from the mid-1990s with the rise of the internet and expanded in the 2000s with Web 2.0 and SMPs. They prompted creation of new laws and regulations, developed new technologies, and transformed public participation in the digital sphere. Unlike traditional state-centric governance, digital governance operates within a multi-stakeholder environment that is shaped by the intertwined engagement of various actors, including states, companies, users, and technology. To explain this, the thesis introduces ‘the structuration model of digital governance’, highlighting the interplay of technology, structure, and agency in different contexts. This framework offers a holistic approach to study the complexities of digital governance in the two countries. Acknowledging nondemocratic actions of democratic states in the digital governance literature, this research project sought to understand: ‘How do India and the UK construct their digital governance in relation to social media platforms?’ And ‘What is the broader significance of this for democracies and digital governance?’ To address these, three sets of sub-research questions were formulated: (1) What are the existing digital dual-use operations involving social media platforms in India and the UK? Who conducts these operations? (2) How do legal frameworks inform the regulation of digital dual-use operations and stakeholders? What legal concerns are raised regarding the digital governance of social media platforms? (3) What implications and concerns do experts raise regarding the digital governance of social media platforms and their impact on the public of India and the UK? To answer these questions, this research employed a comparative case study design. It focused on two democracies’ digital governance, India and the UK, through two SMPs, Facebook and Twitter. It adopted a multimethod design consisting of three stages: (1) secondary analysis of Freedom on the Net and transparency reports from Facebook and Twitter, (2) 22 semi-structured online interviews with digital rights activists, journalists, lawyers, and experts, and (3) theme synthesis and data source triangulation for validation. This analysis generated three themes — -veillance, content control, and shaped discourse — each of which examined four aspects of digital governance: operations, the role of social media platforms, legal frameworks, and experts’ concerns and views of their influence on the public. My findings revealed that both countries had both digitally democratic and authoritarian features in how they governed SMPs, leading to development of the digital hybrid regime concept. By distinguishing state governance from digital governance, I identified three categories of digital hybrid regime: democratic-digital hybrid, full-scale digital hybrid, and authoritarian-digital hybrid. Based on my empirical findings, I classified India as a full-scale hybrid and the United Kingdom as a democratic-digital hybrid regime. This thesis advances understanding of the complex nature of digital governance, acknowledging the divergence between political regimes at state and digital levels. It bridges the gap between digital democracy and authoritarianism, reigniting discussions on democratic backsliding and contributes to hybrid regimes in the digital sphere.
Seher Kurt (Thu,) studied this question.