In the humanities, the field of "social knowledge creation" has helped
define how social media platforms and other collaborative spaces have
shaped humanistic critique in the twenty-first century. The ability to
access and organize information and people has been profoundly
liberating in some online contexts, but social media also presents many
issues which come to light in the often-overlapping domains of politics,
media studies, and disinformation.
While these countervailing influences are all around us, the essays
collected in this volume represent a humanistic ethics of generosity,
compassion, and care. Social knowledge creation refreshingly returns to
humanist values, emphasizing that people matter more than networks,
facts matter more than opinion, and ideas matter more than influence. As
a result, the speed and scale of digital culture has challenged
humanists from many disciplines to more clearly define the values of
education, collaboration, and new knowledge in pursuit of human justice
and equality. In short, online culture has presented a new opportunity
to define how and why the humanities matter in the age of social
media.