According Scott and Orlikowski (2014) social media platforms are novel forms of knowledge production and engagement that provide deep entanglement of social and technical, which makes social media interesting area of studying sociomateriality in practice. Sociomateriality is a new way of examining and theorizing information system (IS) phenomenon in organisation and society at large. The study of sociomateriality has nurtured a new stream of research in IS named relational ontology (Cecez-Kecmanovic, et al. 2014). Orlikowski (2007) defines sociomateriality as a recursive intertwining of human and technology in practice. The emergency of sociomateriality has extended and challenged the prevailing knowledge among IS scholars and practitioners on the ontological relationship between technology and social (Kautz and Jensen 2013). For years IS scholars have struggled to figure out the recursive intertwining of human and technology in practice with thought-provoking theories that have extended and challenged the conventional distinction between social and the material, such theories include actor networks, mangle of practice and sociotechnical. As means shifting from the traditional framing of social and material as a separate factors even when they interact Orlikowski (2007) suggest sociomaterial an approach that views organisation practices as inherently inseparable between technical and social.  The study of sociomateriality has originated from agential realist philosophy developed by Barad (2003). Agential realism is unique as it views actors and objects as self-contained entities that influence each other to composite and shifting assemblages. Thus relationship between actor (social) and object (material) is relational and it’s ontological (Orlikowski 2007). Thus with agential realism social and material are inherently inseparable.  Although most of empirical work by Scott and Orlikowski in sociomateriality has been grounded on agential realism, they as pioneers of sociomateriality have made it clear that the idea of sociomateriality does not imply any theoretical foundation.  This means sociomateriality can be grounded in different theoretical foundations. Profoundly, Mutch (2013) criticised agential realism as theoretical foundation for grounding sociomateriality study whilst suggesting critical realism as a better theoretical foundation for footing sociomateriality.  Following Mutch’s criticism and suggestion this paper intends to explore implication of using agential or critical realism as a philosophical foundation for sociomateriality an approach that’s deemed suitable for studying social media phenomena. The aim of this paper is to gain understanding of agential or critical as theoretical foundation for sociomateriality material lens and also to highlight social media literature that has used sociomaterial perspective.

Mutch (2013) argues that critical realism philosophy is helpful in providing conceptual clarity about the nature of the world in order for researcher to build or amend substantive theories of particular domain. Substantial theories assume that social and material exist as separate and self-contained element that interact and affect each other (Cecez-Kecmanovic, et al. 2014). Substantial theories are a result of different position that give different conceptualization on entanglement of social and material in everyday practices.  According to Mutch (2013), ‘critical realism offers an alternative set of resources one which can encompass the interesting insights that have been gained through much of the work that goes under the great banner of sociomateriality … [he] suggest that a more productive route is through revisiting and refreshing the insights from the socio-technical tradition, with its emphasis on a non-conflationary approach, in which the social and the material are held apart for the purpose of exploring  their interplay’.

Comparing and contrasting agential and critical realism, they both agree reality exist apart from how human perceive it. Also, they agree on the ontological nature of realism and they acknowledge a great deal of empirical constructivism. In contrast they extremely differ in conceptualization of interpenetration (Leonardi 2013). For instance with agential realism entanglement is not a simple intertwining of separate entities but it’s a lack of independence and self-contained existence. Whereas critical realist would argue social and material are separate entities brought into relationship with one another and appear to be inseparable through human activity over time. This difference has lots of practical consequence for instance; critical realist can talk of technology while agential realist cannot.

Furthermore, critical realist i.e. Mutch and Leonardi claim that they can bring time into analysis of sociomaterial. Considering time in analyses is important, as certain circumstances are more enduring and resilient to change than other. For instance, Leonardi (2013) considers time by using the term imbrication to explain how social and material come together to form sociomateriality in that social agency is imbricated with material agency over time. In contrast the agential realist argue that social and material are inherently inseparable and their practices are enacted in the intra-action and thus they argue for cuts (agential cuts). And agential cuts can be conducted at any point and will have different results depending on where the cuts have happen and to agential realist there is no bad or good cut. In words ofLeonardi (2013), ‘An agential realist stance on sociomateriality exacerbates the problem of being able to explain why certain actions occur when they do because it focuses so much on how certain actions are performed in practice. Consequently, it becomes difficult for the analyst to understand what role the sociomaterial plays in the constitution and perpetuation of organizations. By introducing time and by focusing on the process of the imbrication of agencies through it, the critical realist perspective provides better explanation of organizing as a process (rather than simply action) and, consequently, more points of articulation with extant theories of organization’.

According to Leonardi (2013) ‘when one adopts critical realism as a foundation for the study of sociomateriality they are directed to explain process and the ways in which the sociomateriality emerges and presents itself as indivisible, holistic, and a natural state of affairs. Consequently, analysts are given their methodological marching orders: explain how and why imbrication occurs, why certain practices come to take on the shape they do, and why people think those practices had to occur as they did. Here there are clear methodological implications. Researchers need to specify what they mean by “social” and “material.” They need to present mechanisms by which imbrication occurs. They need to show the role actors play in the creation of the sociomaterial over time. And, they need to explore what actors do with a world that presents itself as though it were "sociomaterial". They also need to examine how people come to understand, interpret and deal with the materiality that pre-exists their interaction with technology and how this existing materiality becomes imbricated with the social contexts into which it is introduced. By fleshing out these processes, scholars will be in a strong position to be able to talk about the role that materiality plays in organizational life without resorting to deterministic thinking and without treating materiality as though it does not exist on its own. They will also be well poised to understand the role that materiality plays in the ongoing process of organizing and the constitution of organization over time.’

As well, agential realism provides ontological position and theoretical apparatus of examining entanglement and enactment, which offers a conceptual and analytical power for making sense of the world and its possibilities in new ways.   For example Scott and Orlikowski (2013)counters Mutch (2013) criticism by arguing, ‘TripAdvisor distinguishes itself on its website as: “… the most popular and largest travel community in the world, with … 36 million marketable members.” This phenomenon can be investigated from multiple perspectives, but poses challenges for approaches that are premised on identifying bounded social systems and technologies with discrete properties. In particular, where would they locate “36 million marketable members,” given that there is no such thing as “marketable members” separate from networks, relational databases and algorithms? A sociomaterial perspective would focus on the specific details of the apparatus that produces “marketable members” through the entangling of 60 postings/min, relational databases, algorithms, and multiple revenue opportunities in Internet-worked economies’. Thus with this example one can note that agential realism intends to break with the dichotomy established by substantial realism and social constructivism, both of which agree to separatism and representationalism. By breaking the dichotomy established with substantial theories the agential realism focus on practices that are not task undertaken by people in roles but they are social practices enacted with technical that instantaneously constitute and organise phenomena.

Lastly,  there are several social media studies that have adopted sociomaterial perspective in their analysis, two of them used agential realism.  These are conducted by Scott and Orlikowski in the travel sector the first one Scott and Orlikowski (2012) examined the materialisation of social media in travel sector and the second oneScott and Orlikowski (2014) examined performing anonymity through social media in hotel evaluation. These studies are  significant as they are illustration of  social media studies that adopted sociomaterial perspective with agential realism as philosophical foundation. On the other hand, there are few social media studies that use sociomaterial perspective footed on critical realism, most of them they go under the banner of affordance theory these are: First, Treem and Leonardi (2012)  explored the affordance of social media to organisation and found out they were four affordance that were simultaneously and consistently afforded by social media which were not afforded by previous form of IT, the affordances are visibility, editability, persistence and association. Second, Cabiddu et al  (2014) explored affordance of social media that enable customer engagement in tourism sector to find out social media allows persistent engagement, customized engagement and triggered engagement. And finally,Mohajerani et al (2015)  used the affordance theory to explore the role of social media in importing logics across social  context. All this studies underscore the importance of sociomaterial perspective enriching our understanding of using agential or critical realism as philosophical background for understanding social media phenomena in organisation context. The table below provides a summary of these studies

In conclusion, this paper has highlighted the discussion that is centred on sociomateriality, an approach that is considered suitable for studying social media, which has great influence of both technology and social aspects. Social media studies highlighted above stand as evidence that indicate sociomaterial perspective as considerable lens of understanding the implication of social media within organisation.  The theoretical foundation agential and critical realism have similarities and differences which are worth understanding as the have wide implication on methodological approach and results. Conclusively, comparing both foundation this paper does not favour one foundation over the other as appropriate foundation of sociomateriality as it acknowledges the role of both foundations in examining IS phenomena but from different perspectives with the end result of increasing our understanding of technology and organisation since both agential and critical realism agree that reality exist apart from how human perceive it.

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