Social Media

A Critical Introduction

Christian Fuchs

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781529752748
  9781529752755
• Edition: 3
• eBook ISBN:
  9781529756012
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Never look at social media the same way again.

Social media are an integral part of contemporary society. From news and politics to language and everyday life, they have changed the way we communicate, use information and understand the world. So we have to ask critical questions about social media. We have to dig deeper into issues of ownership, power, class and (in)justice. 

This book equips you with a critical understanding of the complexities and contradictions at the heart of social media's relationship with society. The revised and expanded

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Acknowledgements
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Illustration List
• Table List
• About the Author
• Preface
• I Foundations
• 1 What is a Critical Introduction to Social Media?
• 2 What are Social Media?
• 3 Big Data Capitalism
• II Applications
• 4 The Power and Political Economy of Social Media
• 5 Google: Good or Evil Search Engine?
• 6 Facebook and WhatsApp: Surveillance in the Age of Fake News
• 7 Influencer Capitalism: Reified Consciousness in the Age of Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat
• 8 Twitter and Democracy: A New Public Sphere?
• 9 Right-wing Authoritarianism on Social Media
• 10 Weibo: Power, Ideology, and Social Struggles in China
• 11 The Sharing Economy of Airbnb, Uber, and Upwork
• 12 Platform Capitalism
• 13 Wikipedia: A New Democratic Form of Collaborative Work and Production?1
• III Futures
• 14 Capitalist Social Media’s Major Problems and Alternatives
• 15 A Manifesto for Truly Social Media
• References
• Index