Keynote summer school 2012 – José van Dijck

Social media and the engineering of everyday life

Keynote – Prof. dr. José van Dijck (UvA)

Date: Wednesday June 27th, 2012
Time: 14.00 – 16.30 (followed by drinks)
Venue: Universiteit Groningen, Academiegebouw – Senaatskamer
Open to: all
Registration

In 2011, 82% of the world’s Internet populations logged on to some type of social media, up from 6% in 2007. In less than five years, services like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn have come to deeply penetrate our daily habits of communication and socializing. While most sites started out as amateur-driven community platforms, half a decade later they have turned into large corporations that do not just facilitate global connections, but have become global data mining companies. This lecture will reflect on how social media have become normalized in everyday life: what has become the meaning of social activities such as “sharing”, “liking”, “following” and “trending” in a world dominated by Facebook and Twitter? And what are the implications of the fact that large portions of everyday life are increasingly commercialized and engineered through social media? Facebook’s and Twitter’s algorithms do not simply reflect our behavior and habits, but actively steer and manipulate social activities. At the heart of the social media’s industry’s surge is the battle over information control.