1. Author: Dustin Kidd Chapter 2: The Social Structure of Social Media
Social Media Freaks
Author: Dustin Kidd
Chapter 2: The Social Structure of Social Media
Instructors: be sure to use this notes section throughout to see my ideas on how to use these slides. You can also add in your own additional notes to use in class. If you print them to have in front of you during class, be sure to select “Layout: Notes” rather than slides, handouts, or outline.
Feel free to send your ideas and feedback to me!
-Dustin
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

2. Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.
Overview
In this lesson, we will…
Examine the issue of media deregulation and its impact on social media,
Tour the major corporations that control social media, focusing on the demographics of those in power,
Review the history of social media, and
Examine the use of The Internet Archive as a research tool.
But first, an invitation…
This is broad overview of the slides that follow. Before proceeding, tell your students how they should consume the lecture/discussion. Talk about taking notes and what they should take notes about. Definitions are available in the glossary but it may be worth encouraging them to write them down as a learning tool.
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

3. Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.
Invitation
Use this slide as an opportunity to get the students engaged in a discussion about whether we control social media or social media controls us. Some prompts include:
Why does the author include an image of a puppet master control social media icons?
Who is the puppet master? Us? Social media corporations? Someone else?
If we are in charge of social media, what can we use it to do?
How can corporations use social media to control us?
Think about the hand in this image. What kind of hand is it? How would things be different if that hand changed (a woman’s hand, a person of color, a person with a disability, etc.).
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

4. Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.
Invitation
Does social media promote democracy?
(from Merriam Webster)
DEMOCRACY 1a: government by the people; especially: rule of the majority 1b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
2: a political unit that has a democratic government
3: the common people especially when constituting the source of political authority
4: the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges
This is a general discussion question. Get students thinking about whether social media encourages broad political participation and civic engagement. This is an opportunity to discuss the role of Twitter in recent political administrations, and especially its use by Donald Trump. Does social media help common people achieve political authority? Does social media help to minimize arbitrary class distinctions or privileges? Does it matter who controls social media?
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

5. Media Landscape Media Deregulation and Concentration
Across the past several decades, and pre-dating social media, the media industry has been deregulated leading to greater concentration of ownership by a dwindling number of companies.
Ask students why media deregulation matters. Could media deregulation be connected to the proliferation of fake news? Does it matter that news outlets and entertainment media are owned by the same companies?
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

6. Media Landscape 3 Types of Media Integration
Horizontal Integration: The tendency for corporations to expand their share of the market within the field.
Vertical Integration: The tendency for corporations to expand their share of the production and distribution process.
Diagonal Integration: The tendency for corporations to expand their holdings into new sectors.
Review the definitions and give students examples.
Pick a student at the left end end of the front row and designate that student as a start-up running a photo app. If the start-up decides to horizontally integrate, it will buy or merge with other similar photo app companies (the other students across the front row. If it decides vertically integrate, it will buy or merge with larger social media platforms that use photo apps, such as Facebook or Twitter (the students sitting directly behind the original student, to the back of the room). If the company decides to horizontally integrate, it will buy or merge with a range of other types of companies such as a film studio, web marketplace, and a magazine (the students who make a diagonal line from the first student in the front of the room at the left to a student at the back of the room on the right).
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

7. Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.
Media Landscape
Visit: List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Facebook. Identify each Facebook acquisition as horizontal, vertical, or diagonal.
VERTICAL INTEGRATION
DIAGONAL INTEGRATION
Many acquisitions do not fit neatly into just one of the three categories. It’s useful for students to see this reality. But here are some examples.
Horizontal Integration: ConnectU, Instagram, WhatsApp (acquiring other social media platforms).
Vertical Integration: Chai Labs, Hot Potato, Snaptu (acquiring services they would otherwise contract for).
Diagonal Integration: Spaceport, SportStream, Oculus VR (acquiring assets in new fields—gaming, sports media, and virtual reality).
HORIZONTAL INTEGRATION
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

8. Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.
Media Landscape
Corporate Interlocks: Points of connection between corporations that undermine competition and instead promote interconnectedness and a sense of shared interests. Homophily: The sociological tendency to associate based on similarities, including cultural and racial similarities.
Corporate interlocks reveal a corporate elite who collectively control the massive corporations, in social media as well as all other industries, that produce the goods we consume and dominate the economy. One effect of corporate interlocks is that they reduce the overall number of people who are in power across these corporations, which in turn reduces the likelihood of diversity.
Homophily is necessarily associated with social media or corporations, but helps to explain why there is so little diversity in the leadership of social media corporations.
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

9. Social Media Landscape
Ask students what platforms they use. How has social media changed since it first appeared? What do you think will happen with social media in the years ahead?
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

10. Social Media Landscape
SOCIAL MEDIA LEADERSHIP DIVERSITY PROFILES
United States
Facebook
Twitter
Google
Yahoo
Yelp
LinkedIn
Management 5 10 20 16 8
Board of Directors 9 11 7
Combined 12 17 28 23 14
Percent Male
49.2 83 88 79 70
Percent White
61.6
100 94 96 93
Percent Straight
96.5 92
Percent Cisgender
99.7
Percent Nondisabled
81.3
Why do the demographics of the social media industry matter? First, they demonstrate a set of inequalities within the labor force for these fields. Second, they indicate that the tools we use to tell our own stories are not control by leaders who reflect our diversity. Third, they raise questions about the value of social media as a tool for addressing these inequalities.
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

11. Social Media Landscape
Social Networking: Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, Google + Microblogging: Twitter Blogging: Blogger, WordPress, Tumblr Social Images: Flickr, Picasa, Instagram Social Video: YouTube, Vevo, Vimeo Short-form Video: Vine, Instagram Geosocial Networking: Foursquare, Swarm, Yelp Media-based Social Media: TVTag, Goodreads Curation: Pinterest Social Media Underworld: 4chan, Reddit, Secret Social Media Overworld: LinkedIn, Academia.edu, ResearchGate
This is a nice summary of the platforms that have dominated social media history, many of which have shut down or re-organized. This slide offers an opportunity for the instructor to discuss their own history with social media and invite students to discuss their histories. Discuss the value of these different types of platforms. What are the characteristics of the most influential platforms?
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

12. Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.
Virtual Ethnography
The Internet Archive Internet Archive: The name of both a digital library and the organization that maintains it. Wayback Machine: A specific application of the Internet Archive that allows users to view archived copies of websites from across time. Robots Exclusion Standard: A protocol on websites that determines how an automated system can search and index the site, published on the site as a robots.txt document.
I recommend visiting the Internet Archive and looking at past versions of your school’s website and perhaps other sites as requested by students. You can also click on the icon in the top right corner.
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

13. Discussion Social Media Diversity
Watch:
Watch the video, making sure to turn on the closed captions. The video is two minutes and 04 seconds long (2:04). After the video ends, discuss the arguments for and against Twitter’s diversity problem. What steps can Twitter and others take to address this problem?
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

14. Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.
Discussion
Social Media Literacy
Watch:
Watch the video, making sure to turn on the closed captions. The video is two minutes and 46 second long (2:46). After the video ends, discuss how this approach to media literacy differs from others that emphasize skills like checking sources and avoiding fake news. Could becoming a media maker actually increase those other skills? Ask students what kind of media makers they would like to become and invite them to embrace media making as a way to respond to the material from the course.
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

15. Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.
Wrap-Up
Key terms, concepts, and names from this unit:
Horizontal integration
Vertical integration
Diagonal integration
Corporate Interlocks
Homophily
Google
Yahoo
Yelp
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Foursquare
Pinterest
Academia.edu
ResearchGate
Internet Archive
Wayback Machine
Robots Exclusion Standard
Friendster
MySpace
Google+
Blogger
WordPress
Tumblr
Instagram
YouTube
Redditors
Social media diversity profile
Social networking
Microblogging
Blogging
Use this slide to review the concepts and quiz students on what they learned and what they recall.
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

16. Resources To explore these topics further:
Watch the film Silicon Valley (available through Kanopy Streaming)
Write your own social media history, using screen captures and revisiting archive sites, like the one that closes chapter 2.
Storify is a nice resource for this.
Explore archived versions of your most used sites on the Wayback Machine
This slide can be removed if you actually plan to incorporate some or all of these into the syllabus.
Check to see if your library has access to Kanopy. If not, your library may have this film in its holdings.
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.