ABSTRACT
The referent of the label ‘social media’ is as vast as it is difficult to define. With this in mind, the entry will begin with an attempt to specify what constitutes social media and their relationship to social networking sites. While accepting that contemporary social media are by no means the first media forms to be social, it will examine the ways in which they differ from earlier forms, particularly with regard to shifting social and communicative hierarchies and increasing possibilities for user participation. This will include an exploration of the emergence of social media along with the development of “web 2.0” during the early 2000s, paired with a review of the evolution of scholarship on the topic, including discussions on techno-optimism and pessimism, the notion of the echo chamber, and the increased visibility and importance of ‘empty signifiers’ and highly affective approaches to communication. The latter part of the entry will examine the uses of social media as they pertain to citizen media, focusing on three key issues: the performance of collective identities and the rise of “citizenism” (Gerbaudo 2017); the transmission of news and information; and, more controversially, the organisation and coordination of protest.
