Social Media: A Critical Introduction

Citation

Fuchs, C. (2017). Social Media: A Critical Introduction (2nd ed.). SAGE.

Chapter Summary

The second edition has twelve chapters in three parts (Foundations, Applications, Futures) and about 355 pages of text before the references. The publisher's description says the book gives students the critical thinking needed to ask the right questions about the business and politics of social media and "lays bare the structures and power relations" of the media landscape; the second edition adds a new chapter on the sharing economy of Uber and Airbnb and a chapter on social media in China. The sample chapter shows a consistent chapter format: key questions and key concepts at the start, an overview, a conclusion with main results, and group activities with suggested readings at the end.

Chapter 1: What Is a Critical Introduction to Social Media?

The opening chapter explains the approach in four sections: "What Is Social about Social Media?", "What Is Critical Thinking and Why Does it Matter?", "What Is Critical Theory?" and "Critical Theory Approaches". It sets out the standpoint from which the later chapters judge social media.

Part I: Foundations (Chapters 2–4)

Chapter 2: What Are Social Media and Big Data?

The chapter asks what is social about social media and argues that answering requires social theory. It introduces four concepts of sociality (Durkheim's social facts, Weber's social action and social relations, Marx's co-operative work and Tönnies's community), uses them to build a model of social media communication, and ends with a section on big data.

Chapter 3: Social Media as Participatory Culture

The chapter examines the notion of participation and participatory culture, online fan culture and politics, and the work of Henry Jenkins, including a section on Jenkins and digital labour and one on his response to criticisms.

Chapter 4: Social Media and Communication Power

Sections cover social theory in the information age, communication power in the network society, communication power and mass self-communication on social media, and communication power in the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement.

Part II: Applications (Chapters 5–11)

Chapter 5: The Power and Political Economy of Social Media

The chapter turns to political economy: social media as ideology and the limits of the "participatory social media hypothesis", the cycle of capital accumulation, capital accumulation and social media, and "Free Labour and Slave Labour".

Chapters 6–8: Google: Good or Evil Search Engine?; Facebook: Surveillance in the Age of Edward Snowden; Twitter and Democracy: A New Public Sphere?

Three platform case studies. The Google chapter looks at the company's political economy, ideology, work and relation to the state, including monopoly power and tax avoidance. The Facebook chapter covers financial power, privacy, ideology and the surveillance-industrial complex after Snowden. The Twitter chapter begins with Habermas's concept of the public sphere and goes on to political and uncivil communication and Twitter's political economy.

Chapters 9–11: Weibo: Power, Ideology and Social Struggles in Chinese Capitalism; Airbnb and Uber: The Political Economy of Online Sharing Platforms; Wikipedia: A New Democratic Form of Collaborative Work and Production?

The Weibo chapter starts with China's capitalism before turning to the platform's political economy, ideologies and social struggles. The Airbnb and Uber chapter compares the two firms' models, discusses the "sharing economy" as an ideology and asks about an alternative beyond capitalism. The Wikipedia chapter considers the communist idea, communication and communism, Wikipedia's political economy and criticisms of it.

Part III: Futures (Chapter 12)

Chapter 12: Conclusion: Social Media and its Alternatives – Towards a Truly Social Media

The conclusion returns to the book's argument in three sections: social media reality, ideologies and exploitation; social media alternatives; and "Towards a Truly Social Media and a New Society".

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–4: Approach and foundations

• Critical theory: the standpoint explained in Chapter 1 and applied throughout.
• Sociality: the Durkheim, Weber, Marx and Tönnies concepts used in Chapter 2 to define what is "social" in social media.
• Big data: the chapter-2 discussion of the term and its implications for society and academia.
• Participatory culture and communication power: the organising ideas of Chapters 3 and 4.

Chapters 5–11: Political economy and cases

• Capital accumulation and free labour: the Chapter 5 framework for explaining how social media generate profit.
• Ideology: a section heading in the Google, Facebook, Weibo and sharing-economy chapters.
• Surveillance and privacy: the core of the Facebook chapter.
• Public sphere: Habermas's concept in the Twitter chapter.
• Sharing economy: the subject of the Airbnb and Uber chapter.

Chapter 12: Alternatives

• A "truly social media": the goal named in the conclusion's title and in its last section, "Towards a Truly Social Media and a New Society".

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A consistent critical framework. Chapter 1 explains critical theory before the case studies begin, and chapters 5 to 11 keep returning to political economy, ideology and power, so the book reads as a single argument.
• Theory before cases. The Foundations part gives conceptual tools (sociality, participation, communication power) that the application chapters then use.
• Learning aids. The sample chapter opens with key questions and key concepts and ends with group activities, each pairing a suggested text with discussion tasks. The publisher says the second edition adds a sharing-economy chapter and material on China.
• Praised by media scholars. The author's page quotes Vincent Mosco, Jack Qiu and Janet Wasko on the second edition, calling it essential, a useful guide for users who want a more democratic internet, and a thorough resource.

Limitations

• A specific standpoint. The book is a critical-theory introduction that argues for alternatives to commercial social media; readers wanting a neutral survey of platform research or a how-to for social media practice need another book.
• Platforms of its date. The case studies are Google, Facebook, Twitter, Weibo, Uber and Airbnb, and Wikipedia, as they stood around 2016. The contents have no chapters on other major platforms, and the facts about each company will have changed.
• Demanding for beginners. Chapter 2 draws on Durkheim, Weber, Marx and Tönnies together, and later chapters on Habermas and political economy, so students new to social theory may need support.

Where It Fits in the Course

This book is a critical, theory-driven text about one subject, social platforms. David Croteau, William Hoynes and Clayton Childress's Media/Society is a full introductory textbook on the sociology of media, built on a model of technology, industries, content and users, and is the broader place to start; Claire Pollard and Julian McDougall's Media Studies: The Basics is a brief introduction to media-studies concepts and methods. Denis McQuail and Mark Deuze's McQuail's Media and Mass Communication Theory is a comprehensive reference text on the traditions of media theory and is useful for placing Fuchs's approach within the wider field of media theory.

Nick Couldry and Andreas Hepp's The Mediated Construction of Reality is a theoretical study of how media construct social reality in the age of digital platforms and data, and a natural companion for Chapter 2. Erving Goffman's The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life is a classic of face-to-face interaction that can be read alongside discussions of online self-presentation, although the sample chapter's framework draws on Durkheim, Weber, Marx and Tönnies rather than Goffman.

How to Use This Book

The book suits undergraduates in sociology, media studies and communication, and others who want a critical-theory account of social media. An introductory sociology or media course helps, and some acquaintance with Marx and Habermas makes the application chapters easier.

A practical plan:

• Core: Chapter 1 for the method, Chapter 2 for the concepts, and Chapter 5 for the political-economy argument, which the later chapters assume.
• By interest: one or two case chapters from 6 to 11 (Google, Facebook, Twitter, Weibo, Airbnb and Uber, Wikipedia); they can be read independently once Chapters 1 and 5 are done.
• Finish: Chapter 12, comparing its proposals with the alternatives raised in the Wikipedia and sharing-economy chapters.

Use the key questions at the start of each chapter as a reading guide, and attempt the group activities at the end. Update each case study with recent material, since the facts date from about 2016.