research-article

The Social Structuration of Six Major Social Media Platforms in the United Kingdom: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Google+ and Pinterest

Authors:

Grant Blank and

Christoph LutzAuthors Info & Claims

SMSociety '16: Proceedings of the 7th 2016 International Conference on Social Media & Society

July 2016

Article No.: 8, Pages 1 - 10

https://doi.org/10.1145/2930971.2930979

Published: 11 July 2016 Publication History

Abstract

Sociological studies on the Internet have often examined digital inequalities. These studies show how Internet access, skills, uses and outcomes vary between different population segments. However, we know more about social inequalities in general Internet use than in social media use. Especially, we lack differentiated statistical evidence of the social profiles of distinct social media platforms. To address this issue, we use a large survey data set in the United Kingdom and investigate the social structuration of six major social media platforms. We find that age and socio-economic status are driving forces of several -- but not all -- of these platforms. Aggregating platform adoption into a general measure of social media use blurs some of the subtleties of more fine-grained indicators, namely platform uses and specific activities, such as status updating and commenting.

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Cited By

Matassi MMitchelstein EBoczkowski P(2022)Social media repertoires: Social structure and platform useThe Information Society10.1080/01972243.2022.202820838:2(133-146)Online publication date: 31-Jan-2022
https://doi.org/10.1080/01972243.2022.2028208
Krishnan NGu JTromble RAbroms L(2021)Research note: Examining how various social media platforms have responded to COVID-19 misinformationHarvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review10.37016/mr-2020-85Online publication date: 15-Dec-2021
https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-85
Mayoh JJones I(2020)Young People’s Experiences of Engaging with Fitspiration on Instagram: A Gendered Perspective (Preprint)Journal of Medical Internet Research10.2196/17811Online publication date: 14-Jan-2020
https://doi.org/10.2196/17811
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cover image ACM Other conferences

SMSociety '16: Proceedings of the 7th 2016 International Conference on Social Media & Society

July 2016

220 pages

ISBN:9781450339384

DOI:10.1145/2930971

Editors:
Anatoliy Gruzd
Ryerson University
,
Jenna Jacobson
University of Toronto
,
Philip Mai
Ryerson University
,
Evelyn Ruppert
University of London
,
Dhiraj Murthy
University of London

Copyright © 2016 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 11 July 2016

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SMSociety '16

SMSociety '16: 2016 International Conference on Social Media & Society

July 11 - 13, 2016

London, United Kingdom

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Cited By

Matassi MMitchelstein EBoczkowski P(2022)Social media repertoires: Social structure and platform useThe Information Society10.1080/01972243.2022.202820838:2(133-146)Online publication date: 31-Jan-2022
https://doi.org/10.1080/01972243.2022.2028208
Krishnan NGu JTromble RAbroms L(2021)Research note: Examining how various social media platforms have responded to COVID-19 misinformationHarvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review10.37016/mr-2020-85Online publication date: 15-Dec-2021
https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-85
Mayoh JJones I(2020)Young People’s Experiences of Engaging with Fitspiration on Instagram: A Gendered Perspective (Preprint)Journal of Medical Internet Research10.2196/17811Online publication date: 14-Jan-2020
https://doi.org/10.2196/17811
Hargittai EShaw A(2020)Comparing Internet Experiences and Prosociality in Amazon Mechanical Turk and Population-Based Survey SamplesSocius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World10.1177/23780231198898346(237802311988983)Online publication date: 9-Mar-2020
https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023119889834
Sullivan MRobinson SLittnan C(2019)Social media as a data resource for #monkseal conservationPLOS ONE10.1371/journal.pone.022262714:10(e0222627)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2019
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222627
Pearce KRice R(2017)Somewhat Separate and Unequal: Digital Divides, Social Networking Sites, and Capital-Enhancing ActivitiesSocial Media + Society10.1177/20563051177162723:2(205630511771627)Online publication date: 21-Jun-2017
https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305117716272
Al-Sabti DSingh AJha S(2017)Impact of social media on society in a large and specific to teenagers2017 6th International Conference on Reliability, Infocom Technologies and Optimization (Trends and Future Directions) (ICRITO)10.1109/ICRITO.2017.8342510(663-667)Online publication date: Sep-2017
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRITO.2017.8342510

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