Search results for ""author nancy k. baym""

The internet and the mobile phone have disrupted many of our conventional understandings of ourselves and our relationships, raising anxieties and hopes about their effects on our lives. In this second edition of her timely and vibrant book, Nancy Baym provides frameworks for thinking critically about the roles of digital media in personal relationships. Rather than providing exuberant accounts or cautionary tales, it offers a data-grounded primer on how to make sense of these important changes in relational lifeFully updated to reflect new developments in technology and digital scholarship, the book identifies the core relational issues these media disturb and shows how our talk about them echoes historical discussions about earlier communication technologies. Chapters explore how we use mediated language and nonverbal behavior to develop and maintain communities, social networks, and new relationships, and to maintain existing relationships in our everyday lives. The book combines research findings with lively examples to address questions such as: Can mediated interaction be warm and personal? Are people honest about themselves online? Can relationships that start online work? Do digital media damage the other relationships in our lives? Throughout, the book argues that these questions must be answered with firm understandings of media qualities and the social and personal contexts in which they are developed and used.This new edition of Personal Connections in the Digital Age will be required reading for all students and scholars of media, communication studies, and sociology, as well as all those who want a richer understanding of digital media and everyday life.

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Explains what happened to music—for both artists and fans—when music went online. Playing to the Crowd explores and explains how the rise of digital communication platforms has transformed artist-fan relationships into something closer to friendship or family. Through in-depth interviews with musicians such as Billy Bragg and Richie Hawtin, as well as members of the Cure, UB40, and Throwing Muses, Baym reveals how new media has facilitated these connections through the active, and often required, participation of the artists and their devoted, digital fan base. Before the rise of social sharing and user-generated content, fans were mostly seen as an undifferentiated and unidentifiable mass, often mediated through record labels and the press. However, in today’s networked era, musicians and fans have built more active relationships through social media, fan sites, and artist sites, giving fans a new sense of intimacy and offering artists unparalleled information about their audiences. However, this comes at a price. For audiences, meeting their heroes can kill the mystique. And for artists, maintaining active relationships with so many people can be both personally and financially draining, as well as extremely labor intensive. Drawing on her own rich history as an active and deeply connected music fan, Baym offers an entirely new approach to media culture, arguing that the work musicians put in to create and maintain these intimate relationships reflect the demands of the gig economy, one which requires resources and strategies that we must all come to recognize and appreciate.

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Explains what happened to music—for both artists and fans—when music went online. Playing to the Crowd explores and explains how the rise of digital communication platforms has transformed artist-fan relationships into something closer to friendship or family. Through in-depth interviews with musicians such as Billy Bragg and Richie Hawtin, as well as members of the Cure, UB40, and Throwing Muses, Baym reveals how new media has facilitated these connections through the active, and often required, participation of the artists and their devoted, digital fan base. Before the rise of social sharing and user-generated content, fans were mostly seen as an undifferentiated and unidentifiable mass, often mediated through record labels and the press. However, in today’s networked era, musicians and fans have built more active relationships through social media, fan sites, and artist sites, giving fans a new sense of intimacy and offering artists unparalleled information about their audiences. However, this comes at a price. For audiences, meeting their heroes can kill the mystique. And for artists, maintaining active relationships with so many people can be both personally and financially draining, as well as extremely labor intensive. Drawing on her own rich history as an active and deeply connected music fan, Baym offers an entirely new approach to media culture, arguing that the work musicians put in to create and maintain these intimate relationships reflect the demands of the gig economy, one which requires resources and strategies that we must all come to recognize and appreciate.

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The sometimes surprising, often humorous story of the forces that came together to shape the central role Twitter now plays in contemporary politics and culture Is Twitter a place for sociability and conversation, a platform for public broadcasting, or a network for discussion? Digital platforms have become influential in every sphere of communication, from the intimate and everyday to the public, professional, and political. Since the scrappy startup days of social media in the mid-2000s, not only has the worldwide importance of platforms grown exponentially, but also their cultures have shifted dramatically, in a variety of directions. These changes have brought new opportunities for progressive communities to thrive online, as well as widespread problems with commercial exploitation, disinformation, and hate speech. Twitter’s growth over the past decade, like that of much social media, has far surpassed its creators’ vision. Twitter charts this trajectory in the format of a platform biography: a new, streamlined approach to understanding how platforms change over time. Through the often surprising, fast-moving story of Twitter, it illuminates the multiple forces—from politics and business to digital ideologies—that came together to shape the evolution of this revolutionary platform. Jean Burgess and Nancy K. Baym build a rich narrative of how Twitter has evolved as a technology, a company, and a culture, from its origins as a personal messaging service to its transformation into one of the most globally influential social media platforms, where history and culture is not only recorded but written in real time.

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The sometimes surprising, often humorous story of the forces that came together to shape the central role Twitter now plays in contemporary politics and culture Is Twitter a place for sociability and conversation, a platform for public broadcasting, or a network for discussion? Digital platforms have become influential in every sphere of communication, from the intimate and everyday to the public, professional, and political. Since the scrappy startup days of social media in the mid-2000s, not only has the worldwide importance of platforms grown exponentially, but also their cultures have shifted dramatically, in a variety of directions. These changes have brought new opportunities for progressive communities to thrive online, as well as widespread problems with commercial exploitation, disinformation, and hate speech. Twitter’s growth over the past decade, like that of much social media, has far surpassed its creators’ vision. Twitter charts this trajectory in the format of a platform biography: a new, streamlined approach to understanding how platforms change over time. Through the often surprising, fast-moving story of Twitter, it illuminates the multiple forces—from politics and business to digital ideologies—that came together to shape the evolution of this revolutionary platform. Jean Burgess and Nancy K. Baym build a rich narrative of how Twitter has evolved as a technology, a company, and a culture, from its origins as a personal messaging service to its transformation into one of the most globally influential social media platforms, where history and culture is not only recorded but written in real time.

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Explores new perspectives on social media entertainment There is a new class of cultural producers—YouTube vloggers, Twitch gameplayers, Instagram influencers, TikTokers, Chinese wanghong, and others—who are part of a rapidly emerging and highly disruptive industry of monetized “user-generated” content. As this new wave of native social media entrepreneurs emerge, so do new formations of culture and the ways they are studied. In this volume, contributors draw on scholarship in media and communication studies, science and technology studies, and social media, Internet, and platform studies, in order to define this new field of study and the emergence of creator culture. Creator Culture introduces readers to new paradigms of social media entertainment from critical perspectives, demonstrating both relations to and differentiations from the well-established media forms and institutions traditionally within the scope of media studies. This volume does not seek to impose a uniform perspective; rather, the goal is to stimulate in-depth, globally-focused engagement with this burgeoning industry and establish a dynamic research agenda for scholars, teachers, and students, as well as creators and professionals across the media, communication, creative, and social media industries. Contributors include: Jean Burgess, Zoë Glatt, Sarah Banet-Weiser, Brent Luvaas, Carlos A. Scolari, Damián Fraticelli, José M. Tomasena, Junyi Lv, Hector Postigo, Brooke Erin Duffy, Megan Sawey, Jarrod Walzcer, Sangeet Kumar, Sriram Mohan, Aswin Punathambekar, Mohamed El Marzouki, Elaine Jing Zhao, Arturo Arriagada, Jeremy Shtern, Stephanie Hill

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Explores new perspectives on social media entertainment There is a new class of cultural producers—YouTube vloggers, Twitch gameplayers, Instagram influencers, TikTokers, Chinese wanghong, and others—who are part of a rapidly emerging and highly disruptive industry of monetized “user-generated” content. As this new wave of native social media entrepreneurs emerge, so do new formations of culture and the ways they are studied. In this volume, contributors draw on scholarship in media and communication studies, science and technology studies, and social media, Internet, and platform studies, in order to define this new field of study and the emergence of creator culture. Creator Culture introduces readers to new paradigms of social media entertainment from critical perspectives, demonstrating both relations to and differentiations from the well-established media forms and institutions traditionally within the scope of media studies. This volume does not seek to impose a uniform perspective; rather, the goal is to stimulate in-depth, globally-focused engagement with this burgeoning industry and establish a dynamic research agenda for scholars, teachers, and students, as well as creators and professionals across the media, communication, creative, and social media industries. Contributors include: Jean Burgess, Zoë Glatt, Sarah Banet-Weiser, Brent Luvaas, Carlos A. Scolari, Damián Fraticelli, José M. Tomasena, Junyi Lv, Hector Postigo, Brooke Erin Duffy, Megan Sawey, Jarrod Walzcer, Sangeet Kumar, Sriram Mohan, Aswin Punathambekar, Mohamed El Marzouki, Elaine Jing Zhao, Arturo Arriagada, Jeremy Shtern, Stephanie Hill

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