Social media penetrate our lives: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and many other platforms define daily habits of communication and creative production. This book studies the rise of social media, providing both a historical and a critical analysis of the emergence of major platforms in the context of a rapidly changing ecosystem of connective media.
Author José van Dijck offers an analytical prism that can be used to view techno-cultural as well as socio-economic aspects of this transformation as well as to examine shared ideological principles between major social media platforms.
This fascinating study will appeal to all readers interested in social media.
Table of Contents Acknowledgments Chapter 1: Engineering Sociality in a Culture of Connectivity 1.1 Introduction 1.2 From Networked Communication to Platformed Sociality 1.3 Making the Web Social: Coding Human Connections. 1.4 Making Sociality Saleable: Connectivity as a Resource 1.5 The Ecosystem of Connective Media in a Culture of Connectivity Chapter 2: Disassembling Platforms, Reassembling Sociality 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Combining Two Approaches 2.3 Platforms as Techno-cultural Constructs 2.4 Platforms as Socio-economic Structures 2.5 Connecting Platforms, Reassembling Sociality Chapter 3: Facebook and the Imperative of Sharing 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Coding Facebook: The Devil is in the Default 3.3 Branding Facebook: What You Share Is What You Get 3.4 Shared norms in the Ecosystem of Connective Media Chapter 4: Twitter and the Paradox of Following and Trending 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Asking the Existential Question: What is Twitter? 4.3 Asking the Strategic Question: What Does Twitter Want? 4.4 Asking the Ecological Question: What Will Twitter Be? Chapter 5: Flickr between Communities and Commerce 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Flickr Between Connedtedness and Connectivity 5.3 Flickr Between Commons and Commerce 5.4 Flickr Between Participatory and Connective Culture Chapter 6: YouTube: The Intimate Connection between Television and Video-sharing 6.1 Introduction 179-215 6.2 Out of the Box: Video-sharing Challenges Television 6.3 Boxed In: Channeling Television into the Connective Flow 6.4 YouTube as A Gateway to Connective Culture Chapter 7: Wikipedia and the Principle of Neutrality 7.1 Introduction 7.2 The Techno-cultural Construction of Consensus 7.3 A Consensual Apparatus between Democracy and Bureaucracy 7.4 A Nonmarket Space in the Ecosystem? Chapter 8: The Ecosystem of Connective Media: Locked In, Fenced Off, Opt Out? 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Locked In: The Algorithmic Basis of Sociality 8.3 Fenced Off: Vertical Integration and Interoperability 8.4 Opt Out? Connectivity as Ideology Bibliography Index
Jose van Dijck is a professor of Comparative Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam, where she also served as the Dean of Humanities. She has a PhD from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and previously taught at the Universities of Groningen and Maastricht. Her work covers a wide range of topics in media theory, media technologies, social media, television and culture. She is the author of five books, three co-edited volumes and many journal articles.
Reviews for The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media
<br> An invaluable guide to today's fast morphing social media ecosystem. Van Dijck cuts through the blur of online search, sociability, entertainment and commerce to reveal the underlying historical, cultural and economic dynamics that shape our expectations and underpin our vulnerabilities. --William Uricchio, Professor & Director, MIT Comparative Media Studies<p><br> Unlike so many other contributions, Jose van Dijck's superb book treats the 'social' in social media with the seriousness it deserves. It's critical, intelligent, clearly written and remarkably comprehensive. I'm going to force everyone I know who's interested in digital media to read it. --David Hesmondhalgh, University of Leeds<p><br> Jose van Dijck's The Culture of Connectivity provides us with a balanced and thought-provoking account of the role of social media in shaping human interaction and sociality. She offers a multi-layered model for thinking critically about social media. The particular strength of this work is that it illuminates many of the current debates concerning digital culture through a much-needed critical history that contextualises the rise of social media. This timely and important book is a must read for anyone interested in digital culture. --John Banks, Senior Lecturer, Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of Technology<p><br> Jose van Dijck's Culture of Connectivity is a rich and much-needed critical history of the online platforms that, in hardly more than a decade, have become household names, such as Facebook. Essential reading if we are to comprehend the intricately intertwined political-economic and technological designs behind the meteoric rise of so-called 'social media'. --Ien Ang, Institute for Culture and Society, University of Western Sydney<p><br>
