Social media penetrate our lives: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and many other platforms define daily habits of communication and creative production. This book studies the rise of social media, providing both a historical and a critical analysis of the emergence of major platforms in the context of a rapidly changing ecosystem of connective media. Author Jos? van Dijck offers an analytical prism that can be used to view techno-cultural as well as socio-economic aspects of this transformation as well as to examine shared ideological principles between major social media platforms. This fascinating study will appeal to all readers interested in social media.

Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Engineering Sociality in a Culture of Connectivity
1.1 Introduction
1.2 From Networked Communication to Platformed Sociality
1.3 Making the Web Social: Coding Human Connections.
1.4 Making Sociality Saleable: Connectivity as a Resource
1.5 The Ecosystem of Connective Media in a Culture of Connectivity
Chapter 2: Disassembling Platforms, Reassembling Sociality
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Combining Two Approaches
2.3 Platforms as Techno-cultural Constructs
2.4 Platforms as Socio-economic Structures
2.5 Connecting Platforms, Reassembling Sociality
Chapter 3: Facebook and the Imperative of Sharing
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Coding Facebook: The Devil is in the Default
3.3 Branding Facebook: What You Share Is What You Get
3.4 Shared norms in the Ecosystem of Connective Media
Chapter 4: Twitter and the Paradox of Following and Trending
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Asking the Existential Question: What is Twitter?
4.3 Asking the Strategic Question: What Does Twitter Want?
4.4 Asking the Ecological Question: What Will Twitter Be?
Chapter 5: Flickr between Communities and Commerce
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Flickr Between Connedtedness and Connectivity
5.3 Flickr Between Commons and Commerce
5.4 Flickr Between Participatory and Connective Culture
Chapter 6: YouTube: The Intimate Connection between Television and Video-sharing
6.1 Introduction 179-215
6.2 Out of the Box: Video-sharing Challenges Television
6.3 Boxed In: Channeling Television into the Connective Flow
6.4 YouTube as A Gateway to Connective Culture
Chapter 7: Wikipedia and the Principle of Neutrality
7.1 Introduction
7.2 The Techno-cultural Construction of Consensus
7.3 A Consensual Apparatus between Democracy and Bureaucracy
7.4 A Nonmarket Space in the Ecosystem?
Chapter 8: The Ecosystem of Connective Media: Locked In, Fenced Off, Opt Out?
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Locked In: The Algorithmic Basis of Sociality
8.3 Fenced Off: Vertical Integration and Interoperability
8.4 Opt Out? Connectivity as Ideology
Bibliography
Index

José van Dijck is Professor of Comparative Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam, where she also served as Dean of Humanities.