Technical Communication Quarterly

ISSN: 1057-2252 (Print) 1542-7625 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/htcq20

The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of

Social Media by José Van Dijck

Heather Paquette

To cite this article: Heather Paquette (2015) The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History
of Social Media by José Van Dijck, Technical Communication Quarterly, 24:2, 192-195, DOI:
10.1080/10572252.2014.1001640

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2014.1001640

Accepted author version posted online: 06

Feb 2015.
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Technical Communication Quarterly, 24: 192–195, 2015
Copyright # Association of Teachers of Technical Writing
ISSN: 1057-2252 print/1542-7625 online
DOI: 10.1080/10572252.2014.1001640

BOOK REVIEWS

The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media. José Van Dijck. New York,
NY: Oxford University Press, 2013. 240 pp.

Reviewed by Heather Paquette

University of Central Florida

In the context of forming and maintaining connections, the use of social media has become per-
vasive in today’s society. Some use it to actively cultivate business relationships and follow or
set industry trends. Others use it to keep up with their network of friends in an online environ-
ment, through social platforms or gaming sites. Still others use it because they feel pressure to
connect in this manner, either overtly from well-meaning friends and colleagues, or implicitly
because ‘‘everyone is doing it.’’ Technical communicators can leverage these social connections
for prominence and profit, both for themselves and for their companies. An understanding of
how social media has evolved—from the beginning of the larger platforms to the advent of
Web 2.0—is crucial to understanding where we are headed with social media and how much
power and influence individuals and companies will have in shaping online identities and auth-
ority. José Van Dijck’s book, The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media,
provides an in-depth analysis of five social media giants: Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube,
and Wikipedia, offering a critical perspective on their origins, development, and influence.
Van Dijck (2013) explains that ‘‘the widespread presence of platforms drives people to move
many of their social, cultural, and professional activities to these online environments’’ (p. 4).
While studying these platforms individually allows one to see how different structures drive user
behavior, the premise of this book is that studying the interconnectedness of the platforms, and the
connectivity of people to the platforms, is essential. By doing so, we gain a broader view of the
ecologies of social media: ‘‘As a result of the interconnectedness of platforms, a new infrastruc-
ture emerged: an ecosystem of connective media with a few large and many small players’’ (p. 4).

TYPES OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Van Dijck (2013) first distinguishes the different types of social media into the following categories:

1. Social network sites (e.g., Facebook, Twitter)

2. User-generated content (e.g., YouTube, Flickr, Wikipedia)
 BOOK REVIEWS 193

3. Trading and marketing sites (e.g., Amazon, Craigslist)

4. Play and game sites (e.g., Angry Birds, Words With Friends)

The distinctions between the different types of social media are important, as each has a dif-
ferent goal and business model, plus disparate ways to capture and utilize metadata to achieve
business objectives. Van Dijck (2013) focuses on the platforms within the first two social media
types, providing an historical analysis of the five designated platforms and looking at each of
them ‘‘as if they were microsystems. All platforms combined constitute what I call the ecosys-
tem of connective media—a system that nourishes and, in turn, is nourished by social and cul-
tural norms that simultaneously evolve in our everyday world’’ (p. 21). Van Dijck (2013) returns
to this visual notion of connective media as an ecosystem throughout the book to illustrate the
interdependent nature of social media platforms, guiding an understanding of the connectivity
between social media and the communication disciplines.
Van Dijck (2013) further illustrates ‘‘the co-evolution of social media platforms and sociality
in the context of a rising culture of connectivity’’ (p. 28) by combining actor-network theory and
a political economy approach to analyze each platform through the following perspectives: tech-
nocultural constructs (technology, users=usage, content) and socioeconomic structures (owner-
ship, governance, business models).

TECHNOCULTURAL CONSTRUCTS

Van Dijck (2013) begins her analysis of each platform by looking at the varied technical
aspects of each, which encompass coding, algorithms, default settings, protocols, and internal
interfaces. She explains, ‘‘software helps translate our social actions into computer language,
and, vice versa, execute computer language into social action’’ (p. 29). In her analysis of
technical constraints, she explains that the inventors of Twitter initially settled on 140 char-
acters because of the amount of text that mobile devices could handle (p. 61) and that
technical inconsistencies with Flickr led to discontent (p. 93). Likewise, in her analysis of
current practices, she explains that uniform input on Facebook provides a consistent user
experience and data that are more accessible to businesses (p. 85) and that engineered social
order on Wikipedia structures collaboration (p. 139). This detailed explanation of constraints
and constructs adds to the current scholarship in the field of technical communication by
illustrating how these platforms both created and responded to the technical environment,
which communicators can use as historical guidance when developing and working within
new platforms.
While distilling the technocultural construct of users=usage, Van Dijck (2013) chooses to
‘‘concentrate on one specific type of user agency: articulated user responses’’ (p. 33) because
users of social media platforms encompass a wide demographic who are simultaneously consu-
mers and producers of content. In this analysis, the reader discovers that 10% of all users account
for more than 90% of all tweets on Twitter (p. 74), which may offer new perspective on that
platform. Similarly, 4% of all YouTube users provide almost three quarters of the content
(p. 116); the ratio is similar for Wikipedia. These users are providing a good portion of the content
and much of the influence on each of these platforms, offering valuable insight into user agency
as we see how the users affect and are affected by the social media platforms they use.
194 BOOK REVIEWS

Content is provided by the users of these platforms in tandem with the technical requirements.
For example, LinkedIn, a platform mentioned but not detailed fully, imposes a resume=CV lay-
out on every home page, and the author notes that ‘‘some degree of standardization is important
to facilitate connectedness—helping people find content—but also to enhance connectivity’’
(p. 35). In this technocultural context, technical communicators can help us to better understand
how content can be influenced and controlled by structure.

SOCIOECONOMIC STRUCTURES

Ownership is a key element in socioeconomic structures and can change over time, as evidenced
by small startups such as Facebook and Twitter, which grew into large, global companies. Valu-
ation of the platforms is also considered here, and ‘‘a large, active, and demographically inter-
esting user base is usually a platform’s most precious asset’’ (p. 36). Distinctions between
ownership of software and hardware are discussed, as well as partnerships that can enhance
the user experience and profit margin, such as agreements between Facebook and Skype.
Ownership, and the limits of what owners do and do not have rights to, plays a large part in
the issue of governance. As Van Dijck (2013) explains, ‘‘since online platforms are a relatively
new space for social traffic, the law does not yet cover all corners of this territory; consequently,
the boundaries of what the law allows and what users accept are constantly tested’’ (p. 39).
Terms of service statements adjust for national customs in different areas, can be complex,
and can change regularly. Facebook has detailed terms of service, but while that platform
encourages individuals to share information, these same provisions do not apply to the owners,
who are rarely transparent with their plans to share data for profit (p. 61). Twitter, in contrast,
did not attempt to be private about that platform’s intentions, as its focus is on self-promotion
(p. 83).
The differences in business models serve to highlight the focus and overarching goals of each
platform. They are also used to showcase the connections between the platforms: ‘‘Friending,
liking, following, trending, and favoriting are all subject to their respective site’s engineering
mechanisms of filtering, selecting, and promoting certain users and content over others’’
(p. 129). The analysis of the socioeconomic structures of ownership, governance, and business
models offers a detailed and well-reasoned look at how those structures contribute to a site’s
success or failure.

CONCLUSIONS

After reading her full and detailed analysis of each of the five platforms, I was anxious to see
what conclusions Van Dijck (2013) would draw in regard to their connectedness, and how that
would affect the connectivity of users. Although she does not draw any substantive deductions,
she summarizes connectivity as a whole through the familiar perspectives of technocultural con-
structs and socioeconomic structures, allowing readers to draw their own conclusions and dis-
cover ‘‘how the larger constellation of connected platforms informs and shapes sociality,
creativity, and knowledge’’ (p. 153). She also asks some probing questions for future study, such
as why platforms are not legally required to offer opt-in defaults rather than opt-out defaults for
privacy settings and information shared with third parties (p. 172).
 BOOK REVIEWS 195

Van Dijck (2013) also briefly brings back a real-life scenario of a family of users that she
opened the book with, to help organize the analysis in terms of how the connected ecosystem
of social media affects a typical family. However, this scenario had been almost forgotten by
the end of the book, as it was not mentioned in any of the main chapters. Another minor criticism
is the use of some clunky metaphors regarding marriage, stepchildren, and adoption to define
certain levels of platform connectedness.
However, the book offers an interesting and informative historical analysis of five major
social media platforms that the reader can use for knowledge and guidance as social media con-
tinues to become more pervasive in today’s society. For technical communicators, it provides
historical insight into the imbricated nature of writer, reader, and text and the growing sociality
of all the communication disciplines. The extensive ‘‘Notes’’ section is also not to be missed
because it provides valuable examples and understanding of the depth of the critical history
offered. This study will help technical communicators and others to postulate how social media
will continue to affect us in the future. As Van Dijck (2013) states in the final chapter, ‘‘many of
the mechanisms and economics explained in the previous chapters are as of yet under-examined
and call for more and more thorough critical inspection’’ (p. 175). This book is an excellent first
step toward that inspection.