Why We Post: The Anthropology of Social Media

Description

All our films are subtitled in the following languages: English, Turkish, Spanish, Portuguese, Tamil, Hindi, and Simplified Chinese. Click on the subtitles menu within the YouTube player to select your language.

Please note, the latest and most updated version of the course "Why We Post" can be found on FutureLearn at https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/anthropology-social-media

This free online course is based on the work of nine anthropologists who each spent 15 months in fieldsites in Brazil, Chile, industrial and rural China, England, India, Italy, Trinidad, and Turkey.

The course offers a new definition of social media which concentrates on the content posted, not just the capabilities of platforms. It examines the increasing importance of images in communication and the reasons that people post memes, selfies and photographs.

What are the consequences of social media?

Over five weeks you will explore the impact of social media on a wide range of topics including politics, education, gender, commerce, privacy, and equality. You will come to understand how the consequences of social media vary from region to region.

Take a comparative and anthropological approach to social media.

The course will be taught by the same nine anthropologists who carried out the original fieldwork and who are publishing eleven books on the research.

You will meet many of our informants through our films, engage with our team through video discussions and lectures, and encounter our ideas through animations, infographics and text.

Adopting an anthropological and comparative approach, we strive to understand not only how social media has changed the world, but how the world has changed social media.

The only requirement is an interest in social media and people.