Jean Burgess

YouTube is one of the most well-known and widely discussed sites of participatory media in the contemporary online environment, and it is the first genuinely mass-popular platform for user-createdvideo. In this timely and comprehensive introduction to how YouTube is being used and why it matters, Burgess and Green discuss theways that it relates to wider transformations in culture, societyand the economy.
The book critically examines the public debates surrounding the site, demonstrating how it is central to struggles for authority and control in the new media environment. Drawing on a range of theoretical sources and empirical research, the authors discuss how YouTube is being used by the media industries, by audiences andamateur producers, and by particular communities of interest, andthe ways in which these uses challenge existing ideas about cultural ‘production’ and ‘consumption’.
Rich with both concrete examples and featuring specially commissioned chapters by Henry Jenkins and John Hartley, the bookis essential reading for anyone interested in the contemporary and future implications of online media. It will be particularly valuable for students and scholars in media, communication and cultural studies.… (más)

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: 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.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: The hashtag. The @. RTs and subtweets and "blue" (actually white) checkmarks. All of the detritus, or furnishings if one is feeling charitable, of social media are Twitter-invented or -popularized. It's a simple, basic idea, Twitter: Let people bloviate for a limited space (pictures added sometime in the 10s) about anything they want and let them find each other, build communities (and form lynch mobs), coordinate revolutions, all via the hashtag. TikTok was called Vine, and introduced by Twitter before their idiot management shuttered it. I got my Twitter account in 2007. Reading a tweet of mine is most likely why you're reading this review.

Now #MuskyTwitter is trending and this very concise book, only two-and-a-half years old, needs a second edition.

What I enjoyed most about the authors' treatment of the history of Twitter is that they were as focused as a good tweet-thread. They didn't succumb to bashing or whitewashing Twitter's many quirks. Aesthetically Twitter's changed itself, and the social-media world, the most. It's not like it's a design-heavy UI, right?

Wrong.

Twitter's look, and its effect on your engagement, is carefully calculated. It's part of a subtle message...stay, look, seek and find...that messages a deep sense of satisfaction with the activity itself, the results really are secondary to Twitter. So why is Twitter so awful at generating money from advertising? Ask Elon, he seems to know...but seriously, Twitter's main issue has always been about defining itself, when the authors contend (and I agree) that the three features in the first line of my review actually made Twitter a mutiple personality. There's a way to use each of those features to reinforce one's group identity...BookTwitter, HorrorTwitter, BlackTwitter...and thus make a broad-based ad-watching public pretty elusive. Creating ads for small, not-very-numerous communities isn't usually cost effective.

And here's Elon, steppin' into the buzz-saw. Heh.

What these Australian academics set out to do was set a protocol for biographizing (my ugly word, not theirs) technology. Take it innovation by innovation, look at the drivers of the innovations and the results from their adoption and/or morphing uses. They'll lead to larger conclusions about the platform, its users, and the social-media-verse we and they all exist within.

My idea of a well-presented technology book. Not too long, not loaded with tedious jargon, and not so basic as to cause me to wish it was just an owner's manual not an actual book. I liked the read, I liked the methods the authors used, and I enjoyed myself all the way through. (Except the endnotes, I didn't read those.)… (más)

La piattaforma di condivisione video YouTube vista dal punto di vista dei media cultural studies. La dinamica fra contenuti generati dagli utenti e contenuti mainstream. YouTube come sistema culturale con le sue dinamiche interne di funzionamento e le sue pratiche, diverse dalla rappresentazione che ne danno i media tradizionali. YouTube come social network e come luogo della cultura partecipativa.
Il libro comprende anche i saggi brevi 'Cosa succedeva prima di YouTube' di Henry Jenkins e 'Usi di YouTube: alfabetizzazione digitale e crescita della conoscenza' di John Hartley.… (más)