How does our identity change when the first thing others learn about us is the contents of our social network profiles? Do we really live in a “small world” in which we are all connected to one another? And how do we recognize the truth, if it actually exists, amidst the endless sea of fabrications, deceptive news, unsupported opinions, wilful misinformation and propaganda that afflict the Internet? These are the three key questions addressed by this book. In a world in which the Internet plays an essential role in our everyday lives, we need to find a way to manage our on-line presence, assess the social capital consisting in our “friends” and decide how much worth to assign to whatever we happen to read.

Luciano Paccagnella teaches Sociology of Communication and Sociology of Knowledge and Networks at the University of Turin.

Agnese Vellar is a social media consultant at I3P in Turin and teaches Social Media at the University of Turin.