Bloggerati, Twitterati: How Blogs and Twitter Are Transforming Popular Culture

by Mary Cross

Overview

As timely as the latest tweet, this book tracks the digital revolution as a paradigm shift that is transforming popular culture in as yet unforeseen ways.

Bloggerati, Twitterati: How Blogs and Twitter Are Transforming Popular Culture explores the ongoing digital revolution and examines the way it is changing—and will change—the way people live and communicate. Starting from the proposition that the Internet is now the center of popular culture, the book offers descriptions of blogs and Twitter and the online behavior they foster. It looks at the demographics of users and the impact of the Internet on knowledge, thinking, writing, politics, and jourbanalism.

A primary focus is on the way blogs and tweets are opening up communication to the people, free from gatekeepers and sanctioned rhetoric. The other side of the coin is the online hijacking of the news and its potential for spreading misinformation and fomenting polarization, topics that are analyzed even as the situation continues to evolve. Finally, the book gathers predictions from cultural critics about the future of digital popular culture and makes a few predictions of its own.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313384844
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	06/07/2011
Pages:	204
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.40(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Mary Cross is emerita professor of English at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, NJ, where she was chairman of the English Department.

Table of Contents

Timeline of the Internet, Blogs, and Twitter ix

1 Introduction: Blogs, Twitter, and Popular Culture 1

2 Popular Culture in a Digital Age 17

3 Got Blog? 37

4 Twitter World 51

5 Are Blogs and Twitter Hijacking Journalism? 67

6 Language in a Twittering, Blogging World 85

7 Issues in the Age of Oversharing 103

8 Inventing the Digital Self 119

9 Bloggerati, Twitterati, and the Transformation of Practically Everything 135

10 Welcome to the Revolution 147

Notes 151

Selected Biblipgraphy 177

Index 181

Editorial Reviews

Those looking for a well-digested overview will find helpful information. Summing Up: Recommended.” —Choice

“[This] book answers many questions related to the functions and uses of new social media, particulary in the United States. . . . Readers are provided with a series fo figures, data, and references taken from websites; and are invited to discover the transformations they are experiencing, by living in a digital world.” —L'Analisi Linguistica e Letteraria

From the Publisher