A state of flux: Histories of social media research

Abstract

This article sets out to map the broad contours of social media research, teasing out in particular the ways in which the scholarly literature in the fields of media and communication research has addressed social media as a phenomenon since the emergence of the term ‘social media’ in the early 2000s. As a communicative phenomenon and research object, social media would appear to be in flux. Changes to existing services, the emergence of new services, and the disappearance of previously popular services testify to the sense of social media as a moving target. Researchers of social media seem to accept change, rather than continuity, as a condition for the study of social media. This is evident in our choice of research topics and data sources, but also in our discourses on social media. By examining the sense of flux of social media research in a historical perspective, this article aims to provide useful directions for future media and communication research on social media. Specifically, it suggests ways to stabilise social media as an object of study and to install a greater historical awareness in social media research.