📌 WEEK 2 POST: We Need to Talk About Social Media (But Make It Academic) 👀
You ever scroll TikTok for "5 minutes" and suddenly it's 2am? Yeah. There's actually a whole field of social theory dedicated to explaining why that happens and what it means for society.
Week 2 lecture introduced us to social theory as a tool to understand how power, behavior, and communities work online. Think of it as the glasses that help you actually see what's going on beneath the surface of your For You Page.
Here are the theorists you genuinely need to know:
Rheingold said online communities create real social bonds, no physical presence needed. Reddit users raising money for strangers? That's his whole point.
Castells argued modern society runs on digital networks, information and power flow through them globally and instantly. One viral tweet can shift a news cycle. That's network society.
Danah Boyd introduced "networked publics", social media spaces that are shaped by the platform's own design. TikTok's algorithm decides what kind of "public" you're even part of (Ojala & Ripatti-Torniainen, 2024).
Henry Jenkins gave us participatory culture, users aren't just consumers, they're creators. Every meme you've remixed? That's participatory culture in action.
Axel Bruns called it produsage, you produce AND consume at the same time. Wikipedia editors and TikTok creators who also doom-scroll. That's all of us (O'Boyle, 2022).
Papacharissi pointed out that online spaces blur public and private life. Posting your 3am thoughts publicly? She predicted that.
Now here's the big question, is social media actually a public sphere where everyone can speak freely? Spoiler: not really. Surveillance, unequal access, and corporate algorithms all get in the way (Staab & Thiel, 2022). Especially in Malaysia, where social media shaped the GE15 election but also spread disinformation (Tapsell, 2023).
Social theory isn't just for textbooks. It explains your entire online life.
References
O'Boyle, N. (2022). Produsers: New media audiences and the paradoxes of participatory culture. In Communication theory for humans (pp. 175–204). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-02450-4_7
Ojala, M., & Ripatti-Torniainen, L. (2024). Where is the public of "networked publics"? European Journal of Communication, 39(1), 3–18. https://doi.org/10.1177/02673231231210207
Staab, P., & Thiel, T. (2022). Social media and the digital structural transformation of the public sphere. Theory, Culture & Society, 39(4), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/02632764221103527
Tapsell, R. (2023). Social media and Malaysia's 2022 election. Pacific Affairs, 96(2), 303–321. https://doi.org/10.5509/2023962303















