Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity, and Branding in the Social Media Age

Social media, once heralded as revolutionary and democratic, have instead proved exclusionary and elitistSocial media technologies such as YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook promised a new participatory online culture. Yet, technology insider Alice Marwick contends in this insightful book, Web 2.0 only encouraged a preoccupation with status and attention. Her original researchwhich includes conversations with entrepreneurs, Internet celebrities, and Silicon Valley journalistsexplores the culture and ideology of San Franciscos tech community in the period between the dot com boom and the App store, when the city was the worlds center of social media development. Marwick argues that early revolutionary goals have failed to materialize: while many continue to view social media as democratic, these technologies instead turn users into marketers and selfpromoters, and leave technology companies poised to violate privacy and to prioritize profits over participation. Marwick analyzes statusbuilding techniquessuch as selfbranding, microcelebrity, and lifestreamingto show that Web 2.0 did not provide a cultural revolution, but only furthered inequality and reinforced traditional social stratification, demarcated by race, class, and gender.