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.
The bloggerati and twitterati are making an indelible mark on our culture, saturating the discourse and usurping established codes of behavior and communication. At the same time, they threaten to provoke a huge upheaval in mainstream media and the culture of everyday life. Is the revolution at hand or are still-greater changes on the horizon?
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 journalism.
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.
Features
• Sidebars featuring original and exclusive interviews with media personalities Tina Brown, Arianna Huffington, Martha Stewart, and others
• A timeline showing the history of the Internet, blogs, Twitter, and social media
• Cartoons depicting humorous aspects of Internet culture
• Snapshot views of blogs
• A bibliography and listings of selected blogsites
Highlights
• Reports on the biggest change in American and global culture since the invention of the printing press six centuries ago, a change with still-unforeseen consequences
• Analyzes how blogging has changed language, politics, and journalism, and whether it marks the end of print newspapers, magazines and books—and the outlets that sell them
• Examines why Twitter is so popular with Millennials and how it is changing popular culture
• Explains why we're better off with the Internet—and why we're not
Mary Cross is emerita professor of English at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, NJ, where she was chairman of the English Department. She is the author of Madonna: A Biography and Henry James: The Contingencies of Style. She is editor of A Century of American Icons: 100 Products and Slogans from the 20th Century Consumer Culture and Advertising and Culture: Theoretical Perspectives.
