In the mid-1970s, before you could buy a computer at the store and no one yet called them “personal,” tech enthusiasts in the U.S. gathered around newsletters and magazines to imagine a more computerized future. For the past two years, my research assistant Rahul Zalkikar and I have been systematically exploring the first five years […]
Fashion bloggers and Instagrammers seem to enjoy a coveted lifestyle–one replete with international jet-setting, designer-comped fetes, and countless other caption-worthy moments. Yet the attention lavished on these so-called “influencers” draws attention away from a much larger class of social media content creators: those aspiring to “make it” amid a precarious, hyper-competitive creative economy. I tell […]
We’re proud to announce the special issue of Social Media & Society, vol. 1 no. 2, curated by and drawing its contributions from Culture Digitally. Culture Digitally and Social Media & Society are, we like to think, cut from the same fabric. For five years now, we have endeavored to gather scholars and practitioners who […]
At the invitation of Culture Digitally and with the permission of my publisher, MIT Press, I am thrilled to provide the introduction of my just-out book, Low Power to the People: Pirates, Protest, and Politics in FM Radio Activism. (With bonus pictures not in the book!) Though the book is centered on FM radio activism, issues of digitality loom large. […]
The following post is excerpted from my recently published book Remake, Remodel: Women’s Magazines in the Digital Age with permission from the University of Illinois Press. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with leading magazine editors, publishers, and digital strategists, this book shows how magazine workers are adapting to the rhetoric and realities of digitization, audience interactivity, […]