Table 1.
Summary of the results of the meta-study.
| Key findings: meta-theory | Key findings: meta-method | Key findings: meta-data-analysis | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First block | Hashtag studies | The media are identified as connective media and affordances are the conceptual framework that is most used to explain the actions of users especially on twitter | These are theoretical studies whose main objective is to theorize the changes in the meaning and use of hashtags | The main results consist in having identified an awareness of the use of hashtags by users within social media |
| Hashtag activism | The Twittersphere enters the identification processes of digital platforms. Through the use of hashtags, those who do not have access to traditional forms of power have the ability to create compelling narratives that cannot be ignored outside digital environments. Online and offline merge within the platform society | These are theoretical and empirical studies that underline the role of hashtags as demonstrative forms of protest | The hashtag becomes a flag, the symbol and manifesto of a movement | |
| Second block | Descriptive measures | The first operational indications are drawn on how to work with tweets considering its features | These are studies on metrics called vanity metrics | They are identified different areas of metrics in the study of twitter hashtag datasets: user metrics, temporal metrics, combined metrics |
| Behavioral data | The connection process undergoes a metamorphosis, and we enter in the platformization. In addition to twitter, instagram is also studied | The metrics now become “critical analytics”, linking this conceptualization, relating to metrics, to the changes in social media, which are no longer the same environment as 5 or 10 years ago | Difficulties emerge with respect to “what to measure” on social media to extract “what type of information”. The works on alt-metrics and that of 3 l perspective that serves as a form of “critical analytics” for social media research by locating issue networks and creating indicators that are alternatives to marketing-like measures |