Personal Relationships and Intimacy in the Age of Social Media

This book examines how intimate relationships are built, negotiated and maintained through social media. The study takes a cross-platform approach, analysing three social media platforms of different genres Badoo, Couchsurfing and Facebook and exploring two interactive forces that shape the way people communicate through social media: the platforms architecture and policies, and actual practises of use. Combining analysis of the political economy of social media with users perspectives of their own practises as well as exploring the tensions between the two the book provides a detailed picture of intimacy as a complex structure of continuity and change.