Creating Connections in Social Media’s Viral Networks

Abstract

Social media, as the latest technological and communications revolution, has changed the way that people connect with each other. In social media, the experience of connection is mediated, prompting doubts about the authenticity of such connections. However, I argue that such connections are not any less real than offline ones. Instead, the nature of connection is simply different, shaped as they are by the networked structures of social media and Jean Baudrillard’s sense of the simulation. These structures have allowed for the entrance of the virus and the viral network into social media, which then also changes methods of social organisation. Through viral transmission, infection and replication, the virus organises the spread of content on social media platforms and in so doing shapes the way that the senses of community and self are created online. Finally, I consider the difficulty of reconciling the individual with the community in viral networks by drawing links between viral mutations as forms of individual expression and the way that Michel Serres develops the concept of the parasite.