ABSTRACT
This first chapter considers the object of study which is our main interest social media and its relationship to other forms of computer-mediated communication. It discusses the term social media to refer to Internet-based sites and services that promote social interaction between participants. The chapter focuses on the factors relating to 'social' factors and the second considers characteristics related to 'media'. It discusses how both meanings of 'media' can categorise social media platforms, beginning with the factors which relate to media as a semiotic mode. The communicative norms which emerge in a given social media site can also be influenced by whether the context of the interaction is private or public. The chapter explores to have placed social media in its chronological context and compared it with other web genres. It argues that the affordances of social media are best understood as developing from and overlapping with earlier forms of communication.
