UCL Press has just launched a great series of eleven free open access volumes of ethnographic research based on the ‘Why we Post’ project, a global anthropological research project on the uses and consequences of social media. Most of the books are available for download in pdf format, on epub or as paperback or hardback options.
For more information on the project, visit ucl.ac.uk/why-we-post For an overview, take a look at the comparative book ‘How the World Changed Social Media’. For those with a particular interest in social media and China, Xinyuan Wang’s ‘Social Media in Industrial China’ shown below, contains fascinating chapters on ‘Visual Material on Social Media’ and ‘The Social Media Landscape in China’. Tom McDonald’s ‘Social Media in Rural China’ also has a great section on ‘Visual postings: Idealising family- love, marriage and ‘little treasures’. A full list of the titles in the series is shown below.
Why We Post
Why do we post on social media? Is it true that we are replacing face-to-face relationships with on-screen life? Are we becoming more narcissistic with the rise of selfies? Does social media create or suppress political action, destroy privacy or become the only way to sell something? And are these claims equally true for a factory worker in China and an IT professional in India? With these questions in mind, nine anthropologists each spent 15 months living in communities in China, Brazil, Turkey, Chile, India, England, Italy and Trinidad. They studied not only platforms but the content of social media to understand both why we post and the consequences of social media on our lives. Their findings indicate that social media is more than communication – it is also a place where we now live.
This series explores and compares the results in a collection of ground-breaking and accessible ethnographic studies. As with all UCL Press titles, they will be available as free PDF downloads, and a in low-cost print.
Recently Published
How the World Changed Social Media
A summary of the findings of ethnographic research undertaken in eight countries around the world.
Social Media in Industrial China
Groundbreaking ethnographic study that examines social media usage in a factory town in southeast China.
Social Media in Rural China
Absorbing ethnographic study by Tom McDonald that examines social media use in a small rural Chinese community.
Titles in the Why We Post series include:
- Social Media in Southeast Italy
- Social Media in Northeast Brazil
- Social Media in South India
- Social Media in Trinidad
- Visualising Facebook
The Mediated Image 