Facebook, Friendship, and the Search for Real Community

Cultural sociologist Felicia Wu Song delivered the Spring 2012 Alan and Linda Beimfohr Lecture at Cornell on April 10, 2012. Song is an assistant professor at the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University, where she teaches courses in mass media, advertising and persuasion. She is the author of "Virtual Communities: Bowling Alone, Online Together" (2009), which examines the social and cultural effects of the Internet on community, identity and the public sphere. Beimfohr Lectures bring intellectuals to campus to address issues related to faith in a pluralistic society and are sponsored by Chesterton House, the Christian studies center affiliated with Cornell United Religious Work.