The work refers to the topical issues of studying social media in modern social-humanitarian science. The authors point out that the demand for studies in the field of social media is connected not only with scientific inquiry but with the necessity to solve applied problems in the society. For this reason, the authors study the current state of theoretical analysis of social media and empiric researches in this field. Comparing and analyzing the results of various researches the authors come to the conclusion that theoretical researches in the field of social media are very fragmented and don’t make a necessary conceptual basis for empiric measurements. Empiric researches are focused on pragmatic aspects and do not contribute much to solving the existing problems in developing the theory of social media.