Extremely Online


Book Description

"For over a decade, Taylor Lorenz has been the authority on Internet culture, documenting its far-reaching effects on all corners of our lives. Her reporting is serious yet entertaining and illuminates deep truths about ourselves and the lives we create online. In her debut book, Extremely Online, she reveals how online influence came to upend the world, demolishing traditional barriers and creating whole new sectors of the economy. Lorenz shows this phenomenon to be one of the most disruptive changes in modern capitalism. By tracing how the Internet has changed what we want and how we go about getting it, Lorenz unearths how social platforms' power users radically altered our expectations of content, connection, purchasing, and power. Lorenz documents how moms who started blogging were among the first to monetize their personal brands online, how bored teens who began posting selfie videos reinvented fame as we know it, and how young creators on TikTok are leveraging opportunities to opt out of the traditional career pipeline. It's the real social history of the Internet. Emerging seemingly out of nowhere, these shifts in how we use the Internet seem easy to dismiss as fads. However, these social and economic transformations have resulted in a digital dynamic so unappreciated and insurgent that it ultimately created new approaches to work, entertainment, fame, and ambition in the 21st century. Extremely Online is the inside, untold story of what we have done to the Internet, and what it has done to us"--




Fake Accounts


Book Description

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOLLINGER EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE A wry, provocative and very funny debut novel about identity, authenticity and the self in the age of the internet ‘I loved it’ Zadie Smith ‘Brilliant, very funny’ Guardian ‘Prepare to feel very seen’ I-D




No One Is Talking About This


Book Description

FINALIST FOR THE 2021 BOOKER PRIZE & A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF 2021 WINNER OF THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE “A book that reads like a prose poem, at once sublime, profane, intimate, philosophical, witty and, eventually, deeply moving.” —New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice “Wow. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so much reading a book. What an inventive and startling writer…I’m so glad I read this. I really think this book is remarkable.” —David Sedaris From "a formidably gifted writer" (The New York Times Book Review), a book that asks: Is there life after the internet? As this urgent, genre-defying book opens, a woman who has recently been elevated to prominence for her social media posts travels around the world to meet her adoring fans. She is overwhelmed by navigating the new language and etiquette of what she terms "the portal," where she grapples with an unshakable conviction that a vast chorus of voices is now dictating her thoughts. When existential threats--from climate change and economic precariousness to the rise of an unnamed dictator and an epidemic of loneliness--begin to loom, she posts her way deeper into the portal's void. An avalanche of images, details, and references accumulate to form a landscape that is post-sense, post-irony, post-everything. "Are we in hell?" the people of the portal ask themselves. "Are we all just going to keep doing this until we die?" Suddenly, two texts from her mother pierce the fray: "Something has gone wrong," and "How soon can you get here?" As real life and its stakes collide with the increasingly absurd antics of the portal, the woman confronts a world that seems to contain both an abundance of proof that there is goodness, empathy, and justice in the universe, and a deluge of evidence to the contrary. Fragmentary and omniscient, incisive and sincere, No One Is Talking About This is at once a love letter to the endless scroll and a profound, modern meditation on love, language, and human connection from a singular voice in American literature.




Fundamentals of Public Communication Campaigns


Book Description

The most comprehensive and up-to-date textbook on public communication campaigns currently available Fundamentals of Public Communication Campaigns provides students and practitioners with the theoretical and practical knowledge needed to create and implement effective messaging campaigns for an array of real-world scenarios. Assuming no prior expertise in the subject, this easily accessible textbook clearly describes more than 700 essential concepts of public communication campaigns. Numerous case studies illustrate real-world media campaigns, such as those promoting COVID–19 vaccinations and social distancing, campaigns raising awareness of LGBTQ+ issues, entertainment and Hollywood celebrity campaigns, and social activist initiatives including the #MeToo movement and Black Lives Matter (BLM). Opening with a thorough introduction to the fundamentals of public communication campaigns, the text examines a wide array of different health communication campaigns, social justice and social change campaigns, and counter-radicalization campaigns. Readers learn about the theoretical foundations of public communication campaigns, the roles of persuasion and provocation, how people’s attitudes can be changed through fear appeals, the use of ethnographic research in designing campaigns, the ethical principles of public communication campaigns, the potential negative effects of public messaging, and much more. Describes each of the 10 steps of public communication campaigns, from defining the topic and setting objectives to developing optimal message content and updating the campaign with timely and relevant information Covers public communication campaigns from the United States as well as 25 other countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, India, Israel, Singapore, South Korea, and the United Kingdom Offers a template for creating or adapting messages for advertising, public relations, health, safety, entertainment, social justice, animal rights, and many other scenarios Incorporates key theories such as the Diffusion of Innovations (DoI) theory, social judgment theory (SJT), the Health Belief Model (HBM), social cognitive theory (SCT), and self–determination theory (SDT) Includes in-depth case studies of communication campaigns of Islamophobia, antisemitism, white supremacism, and violent extremism. Fundamentals of Public Communication Campaigns is the perfect textbook for undergraduate students across the social sciences and the humanities, and a valuable resource for general readers with interest in the subject.




Digital Media, Denunciation and Shaming


Book Description

This book offers a common set of concepts to help make sense of online shaming practices, accounting for instances of discrimination and injury that morally divide readers and at times risk unjust and disproportionate harm to those under scrutiny. Digital media denunciation has become a primary form of expression and entertainment across media environments, with new socially desirable forms of accountability under movements such as #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter addressing longstanding forms of systematic and interpersonal abuse. Building on recent scholarship on shaming, surveillance and denunciation in fixed contexts, this study generates a cross-contextual and multi-actor account of practices like ‘cancel culture’, ‘doxing’ and ‘status degradation ceremonies’. It addresses instances of moral ambivalence by discussing how digital shaming becomes normalised and embedded across socio-cultural and institutional settings. The authors establish key actors and practices in online denunciations of individuals in a range of cases and contexts, including responses to COVID-19, political polarisation, and social justice movements, as well as more local and quotidian circumstances. They draw from empirical data including interviews with nearly 100 individuals targeted by mediated shaming and/or involved in these practices, as well as ethnographic observations of digital vigilantism and discourse analysis of press coverage and online comments relating to online shaming. Diverse applications and contexts, including China, the UK, Russia, and Central Asia, are considered, advancing an ambivalent understanding of media and denunciation that reconciles progressive and regressive practices, as well as celebratory and critical accounts of these practices. This book is recommended reading for advanced students and researchers of online visibility and harm across media studies, cultural studies and sociology.




Priestdaddy


Book Description

ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR NAMED ONE OF THE 50 BEST MEMOIRS OF THE PAST 50 YEARS BY THE NEW YORK TIMES SELECTED AS A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY: The Washington Post * Elle * NPR * New York Magazine * Boston Globe * Nylon * Slate * The Cut * The New Yorker * Chicago Tribune WINNER OF THE THURBER PRIZE FOR AMERICAN HUMOR “Affectionate and very funny . . . wonderfully grounded and authentic. This book proves Lockwood to be a formidably gifted writer who can do pretty much anything she pleases.” – The New York Times Book Review From Booker Prize finalist Patricia Lockwood, author of the novel No One Is Talking About This, a vivid, heartbreakingly funny memoir about balancing identity with family and tradition. Father Greg Lockwood is unlike any Catholic priest you have ever met—a man who lounges in boxer shorts, loves action movies, and whose constant jamming on the guitar reverberates “like a whole band dying in a plane crash in 1972.” His daughter is an irreverent poet who long ago left the Church’s country. When an unexpected crisis leads her and her husband to move back into her parents’ rectory, their two worlds collide. In Priestdaddy, Lockwood interweaves emblematic moments from her childhood and adolescence—from an ill-fated family hunting trip and an abortion clinic sit-in where her father was arrested to her involvement in a cultlike Catholic youth group—with scenes that chronicle the eight-month adventure she and her husband had in her parents’ household after a decade of living on their own. Lockwood details her education of a seminarian who is also living at the rectory, tries to explain Catholicism to her husband, who is mystified by its bloodthirstiness and arcane laws, and encounters a mysterious substance on a hotel bed with her mother. Lockwood pivots from the raunchy to the sublime, from the comic to the deeply serious, exploring issues of belief, belonging, and personhood. Priestdaddy is an entertaining, unforgettable portrait of a deeply odd religious upbringing, and how one balances a hard-won identity with the weight of family and tradition.




Roleplaying Games in the Digital Age


Book Description

The Digital Age has created massive technological and disciplinary shifts in tabletop role-playing, increasing the appreciation of games like Dungeons & Dragons. Millions tune in to watch and listen to RPG players on podcasts and streaming platforms, while virtual tabletops connect online players. Such shifts elicit new scholarly perspectives. This collection includes essays on the transmedia ecology that has connected analog with digital and audio spaces. Essays explore the boundaries of virtual tabletops and how users engage with a variety of technology to further role-playing. Authors map the growing diversity of the TRPG fandom and detail how players interact with RPG-related podcasts. Interviewed are content creators like Griffin McElroy of The Adventure Zone podcast, Roll20 co-creator Nolan T. Jones, board game designers Nikki Valens and Isaac Childres and fan artists Tracey Alvarez and Alex Schiltz. These essays and interviews expand the academic perspective to reflect the future of role-playing.




Because Internet


Book Description

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!! Named a Best Book of 2019 by TIME, Amazon, and The Washington Post A Wired Must-Read Book of Summer “Gretchen McCulloch is the internet’s favorite linguist, and this book is essential reading. Reading her work is like suddenly being able to see the matrix.” —Jonny Sun, author of everyone's a aliebn when ur a aliebn too Because Internet is for anyone who's ever puzzled over how to punctuate a text message or wondered where memes come from. It's the perfect book for understanding how the internet is changing the English language, why that's a good thing, and what our online interactions reveal about who we are. Language is humanity's most spectacular open-source project, and the internet is making our language change faster and in more interesting ways than ever before. Internet conversations are structured by the shape of our apps and platforms, from the grammar of status updates to the protocols of comments and @replies. Linguistically inventive online communities spread new slang and jargon with dizzying speed. What's more, social media is a vast laboratory of unedited, unfiltered words where we can watch language evolve in real time. Even the most absurd-looking slang has genuine patterns behind it. Internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch explores the deep forces that shape human language and influence the way we communicate with one another. She explains how your first social internet experience influences whether you prefer "LOL" or "lol," why ~sparkly tildes~ succeeded where centuries of proposals for irony punctuation had failed, what emoji have in common with physical gestures, and how the artfully disarrayed language of animal memes like lolcats and doggo made them more likely to spread.




QAnon and On


Book Description

Shortlisted for the Walkley Book Award 2022 In QAnon and On, Guardian columnist Van Badham delves headfirst into the QAnon conspiracy theory, unpicking the why, how and who behind this century’s most dangerous and far-fetched internet cult. From Gamergate to Pizzagate and beyond to QAnon, internet manipulation and disinformation campaigns have grown to a geopolitical scale and spilled into real life with devastating consequences, entangling everyone from politicians to Hollywood celebrities. But what would motivate followers to so forcefully avoid the facts and surrender instead to made-up stories designed to influence and control? It’s a question that has haunted Van, herself a veteran of social media’s relentless trolling wars. In this daring investigation, Van exposes some of the internet’s most extreme communities to understand conspiracy cults from the inside. QAnon and On is the story of the modern internet, the farscape of political belief and a disinformation pipeline built between the two that poses an ongoing threat to democracy itself. Shocking and mesmerising in equal measure, this book will open our eyes to the dangers of partisan belief.




Forecasting: principles and practice


Book Description

Forecasting is required in many situations. Stocking an inventory may require forecasts of demand months in advance. Telecommunication routing requires traffic forecasts a few minutes ahead. Whatever the circumstances or time horizons involved, forecasting is an important aid in effective and efficient planning. This textbook provides a comprehensive introduction to forecasting methods and presents enough information about each method for readers to use them sensibly.