Global Social Media Design

Book excerpt: Social media users fracture into tribes, but social media ecosystems are globally interconnected technically, socially, culturally, and economically. At the crossroads, Sun presents theory, method, and case studies to uncover the global interconnectedness of social media design and to bridge differences. She articulates a critical design framework with design tools to redress asymmetrical relations in everyday practice, and provides three cross-cultural social media design and use cases: Facebook Japan, Weibo, and global competition of WhatsApp, WeChat, LINE, and KakaoTalk. She calls to reshape the crossroads into a design square where differences are nourished as resources, where diverse discourses interact for innovation, and where alternative epistemes thrive.