-
New book: Everyday Data Cultures
The AI revolution can seem powerful and unstoppable, extracting data from every aspect of our lives and subjecting us to unprecedented surveillance and control. But at ground level, even the most advanced ‘smart’ technologies are not as all-powerful as either the tech companies or their critics would have us believe. From gig worker activism to…
-
New book: Twitter – A Biography
I’m delighted to share the news that my next book is now in production with NYU Press. Co-authored with Nancy Baym, it has been in the works for a while and it is a real labor of love. We can’t wait to see it out in the world! Here is the draft blurb we have…
-
YouTube book: 2nd edition
In case you missed it, the second edition of YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture is now out in bookstores everywhere, with its snazzy new red cover! Here is the Preface to the second edition: The original aim of this book was, as we wrote in the Preface, ‘to work through some of the often competing ideas about just what…
-
Looking back on Convergence Culture
Looking back on convergence culture It’s weird and slightly tiring to realise that it’s now more than ten years since Henry Jenkin’s book Convergence Culture was published (also precipitating Henry’s entry into blogging, by the way). Back then, it highlighted the potential as well as the pragmatic and political challenges of a changing new media landscape…
-
Upcoming talks and workshops
Next week I’m heading off for an intense month of research travel to the UK, Germany, and Brazil. Here’s the list of presentations, conferences and workshops I’m involved in. First up is the YouTube conference at Middlesex University, where I’m doing the opening keynote: YouTube’s Platform Biography The contemporary media environment is in part shaped…
-
Twitter’s Changing Device Ecology
I wanted to briefly pick up on Tama Leaver’s comments on Tim Highfield’s excellent bit of speculative forensics* on Twitter’s hashflags — namely that the the use of these hashtag emoji for major events might have the side effect of further degrading the experience of using alternative clients like Tweetdeck. Just for fun**, for a while now I…
-
Our collective response to Bowie’s death is as real as it gets
[Cross-posted to Medium] On social media, the scale of the response to Bowie’s death has been astonishing. It also seems to have been as emotionally intense and widespread across countries and demographics as it was high in volume. We threatened to break Spotify’s servers when the whole planet went straight to the Bowie back catalogue…
-
Twitter (probably) isn’t dying, but is it becoming less sociable?
[cross-posted at Medium] Twitter’s demise has been announced so many times over its lifetime that it’s hard to keep track of all the premature eulogies (and this one from a year ago is actually pretty insightful), but there seems to be a new intensity in the circulation of decline narratives at the moment. A couple…
-
Do Communication Technologies Define a ‘Generation’?
I’m privileged to have been invited to speak in the opening plenary at this year’s International Communication Association conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The panelists were asked to speak to the question ‘Do Communication Technologies Define a ‘Generation’?’ – this is how I tackled it! Speakers’ notes and key images from the slides in-line…
-
#creativecitizens keynote: slides and speaking notes
I’ve had a wonderful time in an unseasonably sunny London this week, which has included a keynote presentation at the Creative Citizens conference at the Royal College of Art. As promised, below are the slides and speaker notes from my presentation, which covers the relationship between everyday creativity, citizenship, and digital media platforms over the…