Researching Social Media

As I am researching Social Media I am finding it difficult to find scholary research on the topic. It seems like popular press is taking more notice to Social Media then the academic community. When I searched Social Media on google my search returned 148,000,000 results and 17 notes. When I was looking through academic research I had a hard time finding 25 results. The results were very scattered and did not focus on any one aspect. Many articles focused on the use of social media in politics, mostly the latest presidential election. I found some articles on how PR can use tactics involving social media but these did not include any research or were not based on communication theories so I am not sure where these could fall into my research. I would like to know why social media has had such an impact, in relation to communication. I know the power social media has in regard to its use in PR but why. How did social media take a front row seat in today's society? Does this form of communication have an impact on interpersonal relationships? Has Web 2.0 taken over for face-to-face communication? The academic community needs to catch up with the rest of society and realize the impact social media is having on society and communication today.