I read yours as a question about terminology and less about concepts, & since so far most of the answers have appeared to be about concepts i thought i'd weigh in about terms. i often investigate terminological questions (in English) by reference to the Oxford English Dictionary, which tries to track words by their earliest appearances, and etymology/origin if known. It does not yet have an entry for "social media" (not necessarily indicative of anything, other than its likely being a fairly new term). I've been looking into some related questions recently, and found these interesting entries under two closely related terms. note the amazingly early use of "social network." *social network* *n.* a system of social interactions and relationships; a group of people who are socially connected to one another; (now also) a social networking website; the users of such a website collectively; cf. *social networking* n. *1845* J. B. GOUGH *Autobiogr.* I. 35, I again became involved in a dissipated *social network. *1958* *Los Angeles Times* 4 Dec. IV. 16/1 It's not where you live, it's the ‘social network’ to which you belong which determines your drinking habits. *1993* M. IGNATIEFF *Scar Tissue* 65 Patients with a strong will to live and a supportive social network are likely to survive traumatic illness better than those who are fatalistic and alone. *1998* *Business Wire* (Nexis) 26 Jan., Visitors can form online communities by exchanging information and experiences in chat rooms, forums, and online social networks. *2007* *Guardian* 17 Nov. 17/5 The hundreds of millions of people using the booming..social networks such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook. *social networking* *n.* the use or establishment of social networks or connections; (now *esp.*) the use of websites which enable users to interact with one another, find and contact people with common interests, etc. (freq. *attrib.*). *1973* *Public Admin. Rev.* *33* 529/1 Through the process of consciousness raising and *social networking, he becomes aware of the organization and environmental forces impinging upon him. *1998* *Boston Globe* (Nexis) 24 May E4 Venture capitalists ponied up money for..a provider of Internet-based social networking services. *2008* *Nature* 10 Jan. 128/3 Social networking sites such as MySpace have allowed artists to promote their music without a record label intermediary. another source is wikipedia, which does not list or quote any uses prior to 2007: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media with some google searching (this plus corpus searching will probably give you the best results), i can find some uses in 2007, e.g.: http://www.webpronews.com/blogtalk/2007/06/29/the-definition-of-social-media DG On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 4:45 AM, Davide Bennato <d.bennato@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi, My name is Davide and I'm trying to reconstruct the history of the terms linked with Web 2.0. I wondering: where the term "social media" come from? Can you help me?
Thanks
Davide
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