Books like Understanding social media by Hinton, Sam (Lecturer in media)

Shoshana Zuboff explains how digital data is turned into a new market form—surveillance capitalism—where corporations predict and shape behavior for profit, reshaping power, privacy, and democracy in the digital age.

Jaron Lanier examines how digital networks concentrate money and power, endangering privacy, the middle class, and the economy, and proposes an information economy that rewards ordinary users.

Platform Capitalism explains how tech giants like Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Uber, and Airbnb have reshaped the economy by becoming multi‑sided platforms that provide infrastructure for others to build on, ushering in a new era of capitalist competition.

Exposes how modern digital technologies create behavioral addictions and offers practical strategies for regaining control over screens and social media.

Drawing on a wide range of social and psychological theories, Castells presents original research on political processes and social movements. He applies this analysis to numerous recent events - the misinformation of the American public on the Iraq War, the global environmental movement to preventclimate change, the control of information in China and Russia, Barak Obama's internet-based presidential campaigns, and (in this new edition) responses to recent political and economic crises such as the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement. On the basis of these case studies he proposes a newtheory of power in the information age based on the management of communication networks.

Presents an analysis of social media, discussing how a technology which was once heralded as democratic, has evolved into one which promotes elitism and inequality and provides companies with the means of invading privacy in search of profits.

"Spreadable Media" maps fundamental changes taking place in the contemporary media environment, a space where corporations no longer tightly control media distribution. This book challenges some of the prevailing frameworks used to describe contemporary media.

"From Facebook to the iPhone, from YouTube to Wikipedia, from Grand Theft Auto to Second Life - this book explores new media's most important issues and debates in an accessible and engaging text for newcomers to the field." "With technological change continuing to unfold at an incredible rate, Digital Cultures rounds-up major events in the media's recent past to help develop a clear understanding of the theoretical and practical debates that surround this emerging discipline." "Each chapter includes a case study which provides an interesting and lively balance between the well-trodden and the newly emerging themes in the field. Digital Cultures is an essential introductory guide for all media and communication studies students, as well as those with a general interest in new media and its impact on the world around us."--Jacket.

In *Rewire*, Ethan Zuckerman examines how the Internet’s connectivity promises can fall short, analyzing why digital reach often fails to foster true global understanding and outlining innovations that can bridge cultural gaps.

Within the past ten years, social media such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, and others have grown at a tremendous rate, enlisting an astronomical number of users. Social media have inevitably become an integral part of the contemporary classroom, of advertising and public relations industries, of political campaigning, and of numerous other aspects of our daily existence. Social Media: Usage and Impact, edited by Hana S. Noor Al-Deen and John Allen Hendricks, provides a comprehensive and scholarly analysis of social media. Designed as a reader for upper-level undergraduate and graduate level courses, this volume explores the emerging role and impact of social media as they evolve. The contributors examine the implementation and effect of social media in various environments, including educational settings, strategic communication (often considered to be a merging of advertising and public relations), politics, and legal and ethical issues. All chapters constitute original research while using varied research methodologies for analyzing and presenting information about social media. Social Media: Usage and Impact is a tremendous source for educators, practitioners (such as those in advertising, P.R., and media industries), and librarians, among others. This collection is an essential resource for any media technology course. With the rapid proliferation and adoption of social media, it is a juggernaut that must be addressed in the higher education curriculum and research.