Social media industries: bridging the gap between theory and practice

This study investigates emerging roles in social media work across a range of professions and organisations, and the transforming media and communications environment associated with digital technologies, big data and social media platforms. We use the umbrella term 'social media industries' to point to the emergence of a distinctive site of services, products, markets, audiences, professions and forms of labour that revolve around social media (Alberran, 2013). As a snapshot and 'moment in time' study, we examine job market data and report on in-depth interviews with 18 specialists in social media communications from 12 different organisations. To better understand the implications of these changes for universities we conducted focus group interviews with students. Our participants emphasized that this is a fast moving field and we acknowledge that this research must be ongoing. However, as well as informing media and communication curriculum design, the analysis presented also tells us a great deal about emerging contexts for what we might call social media work.