It is with both celebration and sadness that we announce that the Social Media Collective, our research team of critical, humanistic social sciences at Microsoft Research’s New England lab, is coming to a close.

Since 2008, the Social Media Collective has had the opportunity to critically examine the power dynamics of social media, the shifting contours and constraints of online public discourse, the precarious arrangements of digital labor, and the data infrastructures beneath an increasingly quantified public life. We remain grateful to Microsoft Research, for their unexpected willingness to invest in a team asking pointed, sociotechnical questions about Silicon Valley’s footprint. But MSR has shifted its priorities, and at this point it is time for the Social Media Collective to move on.

The enduring legacy of the Social Media Collective is undoubtedly the people we had the privilege to “collect” – postdocs, interns, research assistants, collaborators, and visitors. We are immensely proud of all the people who joined us in this research effort, whether they were with us for years, or just a few days – you can read about everyone and find links to their research here. The lasting significance of the SMC will be everyone who has been part of this research team, and the intellectual work that they have gone on to produce – marked, perhaps just a little, by their encounter with us.

Though this chapter of the Social Media Collective is ending, we know that its impact will persist. And we hope the networks we helped foster will continue to thrive.

danah boyd

Nancy Baym

Mary L. Gray

Tarleton Gillespie