As social media scholarship pervades the communication discipline, it is time to reflect on the good, bad, and ugly of social media. The theme for this special issue is inspired in part by the 1966 film, “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.” Like its portrayal of the American Civil War, we again face deep divisions. The question is what role is social media helping us to heal those divides versus fragmenting us further? The seven articles in this issue reflect the complexity of the answer. Although we aimed for diversity, this issue focuses on the Global North. This reflects the field and the need to decenter Western epistemology. Nevertheless, the articles help us see that social media is not easily reduced to simplistic framings, but instead enables new connections and collective action, while also risking further fragmentation of our information environment and greater polarization—while technology companies profit.

中文翻译：

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社交媒体特刊介绍：好的，坏的，丑陋的

随着社交媒体研究遍及传播学科，是时候反思社交媒体的好、坏和丑陋了。本期特刊的主题部分灵感来自 1966 年的电影《好坏与丑陋》。就像它对美国内战的描绘一样，我们再次面临深刻的分歧。问题是社交媒体在帮助我们弥合这些分歧与进一步分裂我们之间扮演什么角色？本期的七篇文章反映了答案的复杂性。尽管我们的目标是多元化，但本期杂志的重点是全球北方。这反映了该领域和对西方认识论进行去中心化的需要。尽管如此，这些文章帮助我们看到社交媒体并不能轻易简化为简单的框架，而是可以促成新的联系和集体行动，