ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on online social media. Online social media are split between two periods—Web 1.0 and Web 2.0—and the features of social media change dramatically between them. The social media appearing in this era centered on people communicating on usenet groups, forums, and online discussion boards. A platform is a bounded system allowing people to interact online. Technological affordances and advertising drive these platforms and users’ potential engagements with them. Three key features of big data are their quantity, speed, and variety. The exact quantity separating big data from “regular” data is difficult to quantify. Privacy and surveillance are important considerations when conducting social-media research. Private users can engage in surveillance through social media, too, which can enable cyberstalking and cyberbullying and makes removing a digital presence a challenge. Social media provide a new set of tools and opportunities for conducting and expanding communication research.
