Why we need to examine multiple social network sites

Abstract

The hyper-concentration of research on mainstream social media sites like Facebook and Twitter comes at the cost of lesser emphasis on, if not the exclusion of, other platforms and practices. How might our conceptualizations of social media and social interaction change if we were to explore a wider range of systems to enrich our theorizing? This piece considers three examples of how looking beyond the usual suspects may broaden our understanding of how social media sites play into privacy management, identity work, and interpersonal relationships. I argue that our theorizing of social media and the practices that surround them gains strength from exploring varied sites of study.