NAVIGATING NEW MEDIA NETWORKS

Today s society is moving from being organized in social groups to a society based on networked individualism A networked society a concept developed by Rainie and Wellman allows individuals to develop the network connections that they need in order acquire the social resources and support needed to survive and thrive in the modern world While this type of social organization provides greater freedom it also puts greater pressure on the individual to conduct the communication work needed to form and maintain relationships as well as extract resources Communication technology can assist networked individuals complete these communication tasks but also introduce additional challenges for communicators to navigate This book introduces this premise and covers several challenges related to mediated interpersonal communication including identity performance privacy management relationship formation relational maintenance social support and the changes introduced by mobile devices