Transformative communication technologies have always called for regulatory innovation. Theodor Vail’s vision of “one policy, one system, universal service” preceded more than one-hundred years of innovative regulations aimed at connecting all Americans to a single telephone network. The sinking of the Titanic, caused in part by “chaos in the spectrum” led to the Radio Act of 1912 and the creation of a command and control model designed to regulate broadcast radio (Nuechterlein & Weiser, 2013, p. 89). Safe-harbor hours were put in place after a father and son heard George Carlin’s “seven dirty words” routine over the radio in their car. The fairness doctrine and the minority tax certificate program were designed to address inequalities in the broadcast television industry. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act responded to intellectual property concerns raised by a global Internet and the FCC’s 700 MHz auction was the result of demand for smarter mobile phones. Now we must consider the role of regulatory innovation in response to the emergence of social media.

This special issue of Telecommunications Policy entitled, “The Governance of Social Media” brings together contributions from leading communication policy scholars to address a variety of regulatory challenges raised by social media. These include: social media and the public interest (Philip Napoli), social media governance by platform design and policy (Laura DeNardis and Andrea Hackl), youth and social media surveillance (Kathryn C. Montgomery), policy and virtual economies (Edward Castronova, Isaac Knowles and Travis L. Ross), social media and social justice (Amit M. Schejter and Noam Tirosh) and social media as online intermediaries (Milton Mueller).

This introductory contribution begins with a definition of social media that informs all contributions in this special issue. A section describing the governance challenge is presented next, followed by an overview of the various articles included in this special issue.