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.
<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>