Why We Post Series

How the World Changed Social Media is the first book in Why We Post, a book series that investigates the findings of anthropologists who each spent 15 months living in communities across the world. This book offers a comparative analysis summarising the results of the research and explores the impact of social media on politics and gender, education and commerce. What is the result of the increased emphasis on visual communication? Are we becoming more individual or more social? Why is public social media so conservative? Why does equality online fail to shift inequality offline? How did memes become the moral police of the internet? Supported by an introduction to the project’s academic framework and theoretical terms that help to account for the findings, the book argues that the only way to appreciate and understand something as intimate and ubiquitous as social media is to be immersed in the lives of the people who post. Only then can we discover how people all around the world have already transformed social media in such unexpected ways and assess the consequences. Praise for How the World Changed Social Media 'A topic ripe for anthropological study, then. And such a study, the “Why We Post” project, has just been published by nine anthropologists, led by Daniel Miller of University College, London.' The Economist 'This week, the project has culminated in the start of an online course and the launch of three of the books, which are open-access and translated into multiple languages.' LSE Review of Books 'Chileans love 'footies', Chinese people dare to use ever increasing optical illusions in selfies and in India they aren’t keen on seeing a selfie stick. Anthropologists from the University College London investigated how selfies look globally by living with the locals for 15 months.' Het Laatste Nieuws (HLN)

This book presents an ethnographic study of social media in Mardin, a medium-sized town located in the Kurdish region of Turkey. The town is inhabited mainly by Sunni Muslim Arabs and Kurds, and has been transformed in recent years by urbanisation, neoliberalism and political events. Elisabetta Costa uses her 15 months of ethnographic research to explain why public-facing social media is more conservative than offline life. Yet, at the same time, social media has opened up unprecedented possibilities for private communications between genders and in relationships among young people – Costa reveals new worlds of intimacy, love and romance. She also discovers that, when viewed from the perspective of people’s everyday lives, political participation on social media looks very different to how it is portrayed in studies of political postings separated from their original complex, and highly socialised, context. Praise for Social Media in Southeast Turkey 'This ethnographic study presents an opportunity to listen the stories of people in Mardin, for instance, we get chance to read about the state violence from a victim’s perspective; we listen a woman telling about her husband who took their children and left her for another woman he met online. While reading the book sometimes it feels like watching a documentary and it should read by not just academics but also by the ones who would like to touch the other’s lives.' Kadın/Woman 2000, Journal for Women’s Studies 'This is a highly recommended book that will broaden readers’ horizons on social media and its uses and consequences in a distinct cultural context. A stimulating and vivid read, it will invite both social media scholars and anthropologists to see the relations between social media and social life in a new light. Because of the particular nature of this research project, readers who intend to explore these issues further from a theoretical point of view, are recommended to consult the other books of the series.' Social Media & Society 'Costa captures and sustains the attention of the reader when describing events, characters, and places. Her monograph is revealing and immensely contributes to anthropological understanding that media is appropriated differently in different settings' New Media & Society 'the book’s contribution to social media research is immensely important since it provides a nuanced approach to digital technologies by tracing their particular use in a local context... one of the most comprehensive studies on social media anthropology in Turkey' Reflektif Journal of Social Sciences

Based on 15 months of ethnographic research in the city of Alto Hospicio in northern Chile, this book describes how the residents use social media, and the consequences of this use in their daily lives. Nell Haynes argues that social media is a place where Alto Hospicio’s residents – or Hospiceños – express their feelings of marginalisation that result from living in city far from the national capital, and with a notoriously low quality of life compared to other urban areas in Chile. In actively distancing themselves from residents in cities such as Santiago, Hospiceños identify as marginalised citizens, and express a new kind of social norm. Yet Haynes finds that by contrasting their own lived experiences with those of people in metropolitan areas, Hospiceños are strengthening their own sense of community and the sense of normativity that shapes their daily lives. This exciting conclusion is illustrated by the range of social media posts about personal relationships, politics and national citizenship, particularly on Facebook. Praise for Social Media in Northern Chile 'Provides valuable insight into the ordinary lives of a community that is certainly marginalized, but not helpless ... The book would resonate with readers seeking to understand the pervasiveness of social media even among communities assumed most likely not to have access.' Journal of Latin American and Caribbean anthropology '[This book makes] a necessary intervention in a field that has been traditionally focused on Western contexts and by extension, Western platforms.' Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society

Daniel Miller spent 18 months undertaking an ethnographic study with the residents of an English village, tracking their use of the different social media platforms. Following his study, he argues that a focus on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram does little to explain what we post on social media. Instead, the key to understanding how people in an English village use social media is to appreciate just how ‘English’ their usage has become. He introduces the ‘Goldilocks Strategy’: how villagers use social media to calibrate precise levels of interaction ensuring that each relationship is neither too cold nor too hot, but ‘just right’. He explores the consequences of social media for groups ranging from schoolchildren through to the patients of a hospice, and he compares these connections to more traditional forms of association such as the church and the neighbourhood. Above all, Miller finds an extraordinary clash between new social media that bridges the private and the public domains, and an English sensibility that is all about keeping these two domains separate. Praise for Social Media in an English Village 'The book has definitely lived up to my expectations and changed the way I think about social media. ... a truly illuminating and recommendable [reading] experience.' New Horizons in English Studies 'This fine study is located in anthropology, and there will therefore be some jarring interpretations for scholars in internet, media, communication and cultural studies. This disciplinary dissonance is productive and potent. The concept of “polymedia” proposed throughout the book will hold a currency far beyond this monograph and series. This concept describes how a network of social media platforms is used to build a communication system. Further, the key and under-recognised change in social media in the past five years – the intensification of visuality in social media through Instagram and Snapchat – is handled well. Miller also captures the social function of mobile phone cameras: “Taking a photograph has become rather like holding a drink – a key mode by which everyone acknowledges how much fun they are having.” ...Delicately textured case studies entwine around this local study, such as the use of social media for people with terminal illnesses and resident in hospices. Patients can continue conversations with family and friends, particularly with the use of a webcam to offer (digital) face to (digital) face support. Miller’s rich research unearths how the local use of digital media reveals opportunities, strategies and challenges for guarding and freeing the spaces between public and private communication.' Times Higher Education 'This thought-provoking publication will appeal to both the curious layperson and media scholars, no doubt igniting introspection about our own use of social media.' LSE Review of Books 'Based on rich ethnographic data, the book offers vivid examples of the ground-breaking discoveries made in digital anthropology in the past two decades. Miller – a recognised pioneer in this field of study – is profoundly concerned not only with the change that social media have brought to people's lives but also the change that people make through and with social media. By situating social media in the practices and socialities of people in a particular locality, this highly readable book achieves both empirical and theoretical depth and offers a valuable piece of social science literature for students and scholars interested in social media as ways of attaining ever new possibilities of human experience and social life.' Social Anthropology

Why is social media in southeast Italy so predictable when it is used by such a range of different people? This book describes the impact of social media on the population of a town in the southern region of Puglia, Italy. Razvan Nicolescu spent 15 months living among the town’s residents, exploring what it means to be an individual on social media. Why do people from this region conform on platforms that are designed for personal expression? Nicolescu argues that social media use in this region of the world is related to how people want to portray themselves. He pays special attention to the ability of users to craft their appearance in relation to collective ideals, values and social positions, and how this feature of social media has, for the residents of the town, become a moral obligation: they are expected to be willing to adapt their appearance to suit their different audiences at the same time, which is crucial in a town where religion and family are at the heart of daily life. Praise for Social Media in Southeast Italy ‘Social Media in Southeast Italy is an interesting read, especially valuable for scholars of contemporary Italian society, and for researchers interested in ethnography in a digital age. I applaud Nicolescu and the rest of the Why we Post team for humanizing social media use amid a growing gravitation toward “big data” research.’ New Media & Society

‘Life outside the mobile phone is unbearable.’ Lily, 19, factory worker Described as the biggest migration in human history, an estimated 250 million Chinese people have left their villages in recent decades to live and work in urban areas. Xinyuan Wang spent 15 months living among a community of these migrants in a small factory town in southeast China to track their use of social media. It was here she witnessed a second migration taking place: a movement from offline to online. As Wang argues, this is not simply a convenient analogy but represents the convergence of two phenomena as profound and consequential as each other, where the online world now provides a home for the migrant workers who feel otherwise ‘homeless’. Wang’s fascinating study explores the full range of preconceptions commonly held about Chinese people – their relationship with education, with family, with politics, with ‘home’ – and argues why, for this vast population, it is time to reassess what we think we know about contemporary China and the evolving role of social media. Praise for Social Media in Industrial China 'This is a wonderful book that opens a window on the life world of millions of migrant workers in China. It addresses one of the most important topics in contemporary communication and media studies, i.e. the impact of social media on the way people manage their social interactions with family members and peers.'Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief 'The two freely accessible books [Social Media in Industrial China and Social Media in Rural China] are conceived as introductions for the public at large, theoretical references being deliberately kept limited and relegated to the last parts. They offer the generalist reader very vivid and contextualised descriptions of social media usages in two very different milieus in China, but perhaps leave the more specialist readers craving more in terms of theoretical discussions and overviews of existing literature. They nevertheless represent an invitation to read the works of synthesis stemming from this collective research project, which ought to meet the demand for more theoretical generalisations.' China Perspectives

China’s distinctive social media platforms have gained notable popularity among the nation’s vast number of internet users, but has China’s countryside been ‘left behind’ in this communication revolution? Tom McDonald spent 15 months living in a small rural Chinese community researching how the residents use social media in their daily lives. His ethnographic findings suggest that, far from being left behind, many rural Chinese people have already integrated social media into their everyday experience. Throughout his ground-breaking study, McDonald argues that social media allows rural people to extend and transform their social relationships by deepening already existing connections with friends known through their school, work or village, while also experimenting with completely new forms of relationships through online interactions with strangers, particularly when looking for love and romance. By juxtaposing these seemingly opposed relations, rural social media users are able to use these technologies to understand, capitalise on and challenge the notions of morality that underlie rural life. Praise for Social Media in Rural China 'The two freely accessible books [Social Media in Industrial China and Social Media in Rural China] are conceived as introductions for the public at large, theoretical references being deliberately kept limited and relegated to the last parts. They offer the generalist reader very vivid and contextualised descriptions of social media usages in two very different milieus in China, but perhaps leave the more specialist readers craving more in terms of theoretical discussions and overviews of existing literature. They nevertheless represent an invitation to read the works of synthesis stemming from this collective research project, which ought to meet the demand for more theoretical generalisations' China Perspectives

Since the growth of social media, human communication has become much more visual. This book presents a scholarly analysis of the images people post on a regular basis to Facebook. By including hundreds of examples, readers can see for themselves the differences between postings from a village north of London, and those from a small town in Trinidad. Why do women respond so differently to becoming a mother in England from the way they do in Trinidad? How are values such as carnival and suburbia expressed visually? Based on an examination of over 20,000 images, the authors argue that phenomena such as selfies and memes must be analysed in their local context. The book aims to highlight the importance of visual images today in patrolling and controlling the moral values of populations, and explores the changing role of photography from that of recording and representation, to that of communication, where an image not only documents an experience but also enhances it, making the moment itself more exciting.

One of the first ethnographic studies to explore use of social media in the everyday lives of people in Tamil Nadu, Social Media in South India provides an understanding of this subject in a region experiencing rapid transformation. The influx of IT companies over the past decade into what was once a space dominated by agriculture has resulted in a complex juxtaposition between an evolving knowledge economy and the traditions of rural life. While certain class tensions have emerged in response to this juxtaposition, a study of social media in the region suggests that similarities have also transpired, observed most clearly in the blurring of boundaries between work and life for both the old residents and the new. Venkatraman explores the impact of social media at home, work and school, and analyses the influence of class, caste, age and gender on how, and which, social media platforms are used in different contexts. These factors, he argues, have a significant effect on social media use, suggesting that social media in South India, while seeming to induce societal change, actually remains bound by local traditions and practices. Praise for Social Media in South India 'Offers both valuable research sources and reliable investigative perspectives on the contemporary representations and constructions of global media (selfie) tribes.'Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 'The virtue of his study ... is that [it] forces us to acknowledge the limitations of some of the core conventions of media studies scholarship. ...The book would be of most interest to those requiring an introduction to the social media landscape of Tamil Nadu and who lack a background to the broader issues of South Asian anthropology.' Asian Ethnology '[This] fifteen month long ethnographic study gives a detailed description of the Indian social structure based on caste, class and family hierarchies related to age and gender. The book narrates well on how the same is reflected and reaffirmed in their online spaces.' Communication and Culture Review

Since the popularisation of the internet, low-income Brazilians have received little government support to help them access it. In response, they have largely self-financed their digital migration. Internet cafés became prosperous businesses in working-class neighbourhoods and rural settlements, and, more recently, families have aspired to buy their own home computer with hire purchase agreements. As low-income Brazilians began to access popular social media sites in the mid-2000s, affluent Brazilians ridiculed their limited technological skills, different tastes and poor schooling, but this did not deter them from expanding their online presence. Young people created profiles for barely literate older relatives and taught them to navigate platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp. Based on 15 months of ethnographic research, this book aims to understand why low-income Brazilians have invested so much of their time and money in learning about social media. Juliano Spyer explores this question from a number of perspectives, including education, relationships, work and politics. He argues that social media is the way for low-income Brazilians to stay connected to the family and friends they see in person on a regular basis, which suggests that social media serves a crucial function in strengthening traditional social relations. Praise for Social Media in Emergent Brazil '[This book makes] a necessary intervention in a field that has been traditionally focused on Western contexts and by extension, Western platforms.' Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society

Drawing on 15 months of ethnographic research in one of the most under-developed regions in the Caribbean island of Trinidad, this book describes the uses and consequences of social media for its residents. Jolynna Sinanan argues that this semi-urban town is a place in-between: somewhere city dwellers look down on and villagers look up to. The complex identity of the town is expressed through uses of social media, with significant results for understanding social media more generally. Not elevating oneself above others is one of the core values of the town, and social media becomes a tool for social visibility; that is, the process of how social norms come to be and how they are negotiated. Carnival logic and high-impact visuality is pervasive in uses of social media, even if Carnival is not embraced by all Trinidadians in the town and results in presenting oneself and association with different groups in varying ways. The study also has surprising results in how residents are explicitly non-activist and align themselves with everyday values of maintaining good relationships in a small town, rather than espousing more worldly or cosmopolitan values. Praise for Social Media in Trinidad ’This remarkable book is recommended for those interested in reading about social media in an accessible manner that centers on communities rather than individuals and seeks to further understanding on the subject.’ New West Indian Guide