Social Networks ― From Text to Video

For students, Barnes (liberal arts, Rochester Institute of Technology) details the theoretical and historical background of computer-mediated communication, focusing on social networks, concepts associated with them, and how and why people use them. First, she discusses definitions, computer-mediated communication (CMC) genres, CMC as media environments, interactivity, conditions of attendance, synchronous and asynchronous communication, and hyperpersonal communication, as well as the three phases of Internet development. Subsequent chapters address the characteristics of social networking and CMC, the history of social networks, different types of social media, and social network analysis; personal presentation and branding online; the positive and negative aspects of online behavior and social norms; misbehavior like spamming, cyberterrorism, hate speech, and pornography; Internet relationships; virtual communities; commercialism and marketing; user-generated content and remix culture; relationships and social capital; social issues like privacy, sexual assaults, and employers' use of social networks; and social networking as a case study of technology and cultural change. Annotation c2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Susan B. Barnes is a full professor in the College of Liberal Arts and Associate Director of the Lab for Social Computing at the Rochester Institute of Technology. She has received numerous grants for both applied and theoretical research on the impact of computers in society. Her publications include Online Connections: Internet Interpersonal Relationships (2001) and Computer-Mediated Communication: Human-to-Human Communication Across the Internet (2003), Web Research: Selecting, Evaluating & Citing with Marie Radford and Linda Barr (2002), and Mediated Interpersonal Communication with E. A. Konijn, S. Utz, M. Tanis (2008). This last book was the winner of a CHOICE Award and called ?the most significant study or interpersonal communication to appear in the past 50 years?.