Media Innovation and its Influence on Policy-making in the Social Media Sector

Purpose: The social media industry has brought about numerous innovations in content development and publishing. Yet these innovations are the source of challenges in policy-making and regulation. The newly emerged Iranian social media companies are also facing regulation issues. This study analyzed media innovation's effects on content management, copyright, privacy, and data protection policies as viewed by the media industry’s players in the emerging Iranian social media market. Methodology: In this study, we surveyed the participants through a self-administered questionnaire. The statistical population included two groups of social media actors (the first of which consisted of policy-makers, media managers, and employees of social media companies, while the second group included social media users). Sampling was performed twice separately to select 128 and 580 individuals from the first and second groups. The research sample included 708 participants. Findings/Contribution: Findings reflect that media innovation does have significant effects on copyright, privacy, and data protection policies, but does not significantly affect content management policies in emerging social media markets.