Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 6
Social Media
Today, more people are better connected to one another, and the world, than at any
other time in human history. For vast segments of the world's population, mobile
phones, the internet and email, instant messaging, and various forms of digital
social media have become deeply woven into the fabric of daily life (Kellerman
2002
; Thrift and French
2002
; Dodge and Kitchin
2005
). All of these technologies
facilitate the easy exchange of information, which is a nonrival good increasingly
important to economic and social life. What are the implications of the rapid rise
and enormous popularity of digital communications systems for how people view
one another and themselves?
This chapter explores this issue in several ways. It begins by situating digital
communications networks within the wider theorization of the networked society,
and continues with a brief empirical overview of the popularity of technologies
that facilitate and expedite telemediated interpersonal interactions, including
mobile phones, the internet, and networking sites such as Facebook. Although
access to these technologies is socially and spatially uneven, vast (and rapidly
growing) numbers of people have ready access to mobile phones, texting, email,
and social networking services. Second, it delves into the implications of tele-
mediated connections for the construction of the self. Unlike the prevailing forms
of socialization prior to the microelectronics revolution, it argues, the self for many
people is increasingly constructed via an on-line web of interactions. In contrast to
the prevailing Western model of subjectivity, the autonomous individual, digital
media allow for a new type of self that is explicitly relational. In this context,
''weak'' ties that lack substantive emotional depth come to be more important than
intimate ''strong ties'' (Grannovetter
1985
). The argument is buttressed with dis-
cussions of on-line communities, cyborg selves, the blogosphere, and digital
panopticons. Finally, it summarizes some progressive uses of cyberspace and
social media.
