Why We Post: The Anthropology of Social Media Course Trailer

When we hear the words ‘social media’ we think of Facebook and Twitter, WhatsApp and Instagram. But these are just platforms. Social media is the vast amount of content we have produced and its consequences for our lives. Yes, memes and selfies, but also tools for making and breaking relationships, a means for creating equality or reinforcing inequality, a ubiquitous feature of our lives today. Consider the claims that are being made. Social media is said to trivialise relationships or life itself, limit our attention span, become the only way to sell anything, and to be a sort of big brother that knows all our intimate details. But who are we actually talking about? Are these claims equally true for a factory worker in China and an IT professional in India? To answer these questions nine anthropologists spent 15 months each in places such as one of these new factory towns in China, a huge IT complex inserted between villages in India, and a politically volatile town on the Syrian-Turkish border. In this course you will see whether social media is a threat to privacy or for some their first experience of privacy. A distraction from education, or for some, an education. So in response to all these claims we invite you to come with us and see for yourselves what people all around the world actually do with social media.

Written by Michelle Gutierrez