Description
Facebook has fundamentally changed how the world connects. No other company has played a greater role in the history of social networking online. Yet Facebook is no longer simply a social networking site or social media platform. Facebook is Facebook.
Taina Bucher shows how Facebook has become an idea of its own: something that cannot be fully described using broader categories. Facebook has become so commonplace that most people have a conception of what it is, yet it increasingly defies categorization. If we want to understand Facebook's power in contemporary society and culture, Bucher argues, we need to start by challenging our widespread conception of what Facebook is. Tracing the development and evolution of Facebook as a social networking site, platform, infrastructure and advertising company, she invites readers to consider Facebook anew. Contrary to the belief that nobody uses Facebook anymore, Facebook has never been more powerful.
This timely book is important reading for students and scholars of media and communication, as well as anyone seeking to understand the Facebook phenomenon.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Facebook is Facebook
1 Framing Facebook: The many metaphors at work
2 Of electric lighting and chairs: Facebook as infrastructure
3 Grounded in reality: How Facebook programs sociality
4 Engineering a platform: Facebook’s techno-economic evolution
5 Monetizing You: Facebook’s advertising ecosystem
6 Personalized politics: Facebook’s data-driven profiling machinery
Conclusion: The many faces of Facebook
Notes
References
Index
