[Air-L] Where the term "social media" comes from?

[David Golumbia]

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 at 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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-- 
David Golumbia
dgolumbia at gmail.com