---
title: Digital & Social Media
description: This topic examines the technology, culture, and economics of online communication platforms. Learners will analyze how digital networks shape social interaction, political discourse, and identity, understanding the societal impacts of algorithmic curation and user-generated content.
category: social-sciences
subcategory: media-studies
difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced
url: /subject/digital-and-social-media
---

# Digital & Social Media

This topic examines the technology, culture, and economics of online communication platforms. Learners will analyze how digital networks shape social interaction, political discourse, and identity, understanding the societal impacts of algorithmic curation and user-generated content.

## Available Resources

2 Books • 1 Courses • 4 Websites

## Websites

### 1. Social Media Collective

Blog and publication archive of the Microsoft Research group in New England and New York studying the social and political dynamics of technology. Work by scholars including Nancy Baym and Mary Gray gives readers current empirical research on platforms and online culture.

**Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://socialmediacollective.org/

**Tags:** social-media, platform-studies, internet-research, digital-culture, sociotechnical-systems

### 2. Media Education Lab

Lesson plans, curriculum toolkits, and professional development from the digital and media literacy network founded by Renee Hobbs at the University of Rhode Island. Educators come away with classroom-ready methods for helping students analyze and create media messages.

**Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.mediaeducationlab.com/

**Tags:** media-literacy, digital-literacy, education, curriculum, critical-thinking

### 3. Pew Research Center - Social Media

Pew's topic hub collecting its survey-based reports on social media use in the United States: platform adoption by demographic, teen and adult usage patterns, news consumption, and public attitudes. Provides sourced numbers to cite instead of anecdote.

**Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.pewresearch.org/topic/internet-technology/social-media/

**Tags:** social-media, survey-research, internet-trends, demographics, public-opinion

### 4. shirky.com

Shirky.com is the personal site of media scholar Clay Shirky, featuring essays, articles, and talks about how digital and social media shape culture, collaboration, and public discourse. It offers accessible writings on internet-age media, online communities, and the societal impact of technology.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://shirky.com

**Tags:** websites, humanities-social-sciences, media-studies

## Books

### 1. The Filter Bubble

**Author:** Eli Pariser

Argues that personalization algorithms at Google and Facebook quietly narrow what each user sees, and traces the consequences for public debate. Readers gain a vocabulary for how ranking systems shape information exposure and why that matters politically.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0241954525?tag=edmonddante07-20

**Tags:** books, humanities-social-sciences, media-studies

### 2. Here Comes Everybody

**Author:** Clay Shirky

Examines how cheap coordination tools let groups organize without formal institutions, using cases from Wikipedia to flash mobs. Readers come away able to explain why transaction costs, not motivation, previously limited collective action online.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0141030623?tag=edmonddante07-20

**Tags:** books, humanities-social-sciences, media-studies

## Courses

### 1. Social Media

A ten-module BITS Pilani survey of social media platforms, their history, and theories such as uses and gratifications and media ecology. Covers digital identity, privacy, cyberbullying, and employment use; students finish able to analyze platforms critically.

**Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/online-social-media-odc

**Tags:** courses, humanities-social-sciences, media-studies

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