First look — Social Media: Communication, Sharing and Visibility

Hi all. My book Social Media: Communication, Sharing and Visibility is published in February 2016 by Routledge. I’m very happy to accept the invitation to share a first look at some of the book with all of you at Culture Digitally. Part of what I try to do in this book is to balance a critical take on some of the worst aspects of the sharing industry with an understanding of the very real pleasures that social media can bring their users. The extract below, the first ten pages of Chapter 6, draws on a series of case studies to describe an emerging form of distributed citizenship. Other chapters look at memes and remix, at citizen journalism and convergent news, at visibility and privacy from selfies to Snowden, among other aspects of social media. I hope you find it useful, and I’d be interested to hear any responses. Cheers, gm

Photo by Sara Kurfeß on Unsplash