Social Media Freaks: Digital Identity in the Network Society - Softcover

"I think [Social Media Freaks] is a much needed approach to social media. It's the approach I would take in my classroom to explain the significance of social media." -Janet Johnson, University of Texas at Dallas "The detailed analysis of the leadership and corporate structures of Facebook, Twitter, etc ... is especially clear and useful. The discussion of sexuality and social media ... is superb and much needed; especially valuable is the author's analysis of social media as tools for research into human sexual attitudes and behavior." -Paul Levinson, Fordham University

Social media has been transforming American and global cultural life for over a decade. It has flattened the divide between producer and audience found in other forms of culture while also enriching some massive corporations. At the core of Social Media Freaks is the question: Does social media reproduce inequalities or is it a tool for subverting them?

Social Media Freaks presents a virtual ethnography of social media, focusing on issues of identity and inequality along five dimensions-race, class, gender, sexuality, and disability. It presents original and secondary findings, while also utilizing social theory to explain the dynamics of social media. It teaches readers how to engage social media as a tool for social activism while also examining the limits of social media's value in the quest for social change.