The Globalisation of Facebook: Social Capital and Political Economy of Online Social Network Services in the United States and China

This thesis explores the factors that contribute to the success of Facebook and its Chinese counterpart, Renren, using social capital and political economy perspectives. Deploying meta-analysis and archival research from the perspective of both demand (users) and supply (owners) contributes to an understanding of their success in the US and China. It argues that the decline in social capital has been a factor in users migrating to online social networking (OSN) services but the reason for the global success of OSN is found primarily in its political economy where online platform owners make profits through the commodification of the users’ data.