A Field Guide to Social Media - Exploring the Pluriverse

A lively and comprehensive deep dive into the diverse world of social media, going well beyond the usual platforms that dominate our online landscape.

A beautiful volume with one-of-a-kind illustrations, inspired by field guides for birds.

A Field Guide to Social Media is an approachable introduction to social media written by leading scholars in the field. Chand Rajendra-Nicolucci and Ethan Zuckerman, along with several coauthors, argue that social media is, and should be seen as, a pluriverse—“a world where many worlds fit.” It encompasses everything from neighborhood forums to extremist message boards, from encrypted chat apps to professional networks, and from question-and-answer sites to algorithmically-driven video sharing platforms.

The authors go well beyond Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok to show that social media can and does represent many different values and business models, offer many different affordances, and serve many different audiences, from Brazil to Nigeria to Russia and China and more.

This book looks across different platforms and issues—including algorithms, child abuse, free speech, content moderation, memes, surveillance, and more—to offer a comprehensive overview of the space that lends itself to repeated use in different contexts, from classrooms to startups to policymaking. And finally, it offers an international perspective rarely found in contemporary discussions of social media.