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.”