Social Media and Society: Introduction to the Special Issue

As a scholarly domain, social media research has come a long way since the term “social media” first appeared in the literature in the early 2000s. Since then, researchers across disciplines have been actively examining the impact of social media on society. According to Web of Science, there are currently over 19,000 academic articles that include the term “social media.” This special issue of American Behavioral Scientist adds to this rapidly growing body of social media research with a focus on exploring (1) networked influence, (2) transmission of (mis)information, and (3) online and offline, which points to an unstated struggle between top-down attempts by governments and large organizations to influence society and bottom-up citizen articulations of needs and actions.