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With social media changing how we use and understand everything from communication and the news to transport, more than ever it is essential to ask the right kinds of questions about the business and politics of social media. This book equips students with the critical thinking they need to understand the complexities and contradictions and make informed judgements.
This new edition:
- Lays bare the structures and power relations at the heart of our media landscape.
- Explores the sharing economy of Uber and Airbnb in a brand new chapter
- Takes us into the politics and economy of social media in China
- Puts forward powerful arguments for how to achieve a social media that serves the purposes of a just and fair world
This book is the essential, critical guide for all students of media studies and sociology. Readers will never look at social media the same way again.
List of contents
What is a Critical Introduction to Social Media?
I FOUNDATIONS
What are Social Media and Big Data?
Social Media as Participatory Culture
Social Media and Communication Power
II APPLICATIONS
The Power and Political Economy of Social Media
Google: Good or Evil Search Engine?
Facebook: Surveillance in the Age of Edward Snowden
Twitter and Democracy: A New Public Sphere?
Weibo and Chinese Capitalism
The Political Economy of Online Sharing Platforms in the Age of Airbnb and Uber
Wikipedia: A New Democratic Form of Collaborative Work and Production?
III CULTURES
Conclusion: Social Media and its Alternatives - Towards a Truly Social Media
About the author
Christian Fuchs is Professor at the University of Westminster, where he is the Director of the Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies and the Director of the Communication and Media Research Institute. His research fields are critical theory, critical media/communication studies, critical digital studies.
Fuchs is a critical theorist of communication and digital media. He is the author of many works about the roles of media, communcation, and the Internet in society.
His books include "Marxist Humanism & Communication Theory" (2021), "Communication and Captalism: A Critical Theory" (2020), "Marxism: Karl Marx¿s Fifteen Key Concepts for Cultural & Communication Studies"
(2020), "Nationalism on the Internet" (2020), "Rereading Marx in the Age of Digital Capitalism" (2019), "Digital Demagogue: Authoritarian Capitalism in the Age of Trump and Twitter" (2018), "Critical Theory of Communication" (2016), "Reading Marx in the Information Age" (2016), "Culture and Economy in the Age of Social Media" (2015), "OccupyMedia!"
(2014), "Digital Labour and Karl Marx" (2014), "Foundations of Critical Media and Information Studies" (2011), "Internet and Society" (2008).
@fuchschristian,
http://fuchsc.net
Summary
This book equips students with the critical thinking they need to understand the complexities and contradictions of social media and make informed judgements. The Second Edition explores the sharing economy of Uber and Airbnb and social media in China.
