Introduction

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.