A field of
study that uses sociological, anthropological, political, and economic frameworks to analyze how social media platforms shape human behavior, community formation, power dynamics, and cultural production. It examines phenomena
like algorithmic governance, influencer economies, digital labor, online identity formation, and the transformation of public discourse. By applying social
science tools—ethnography, network analysis, surveys, critical theory—to social media, it moves beyond superficial engagement metrics to understand how platforms mediate social life, reproduce inequality, and create
new forms of belonging and exclusion.
Social Sciences Applied to Social Media Example: “Her
research applied sociology to
TikTok, showing how the algorithm’s preference for controversy pushed creators toward increasingly extreme content—a social
science lens revealing the structural drivers of online polarization.”