Nancy K. Baym

"Playing to the Crowd explores and explains how the rise of digital communication platforms has transformed artist-fan relationships into something more intimate. Through in-depth interviews with musicians such as the Cure, UB40, and Throwing Muses, Nancy K. Baym reveals how new media has facilitated connections through the active participation of both the artists and their devoted digital fan base. Before the rise of online sharing and user-generated content, audiences were mostly seen as undifferentiated masses, often mediated through record labels and the press. Today, musicians and fans have built more active relationships through social media, fan sites, and artist sites, giving them a new sense of intimacy, while offering artists unparalleled access to and information about their audiences. But this comes at a price. For audiences, meeting their heroes can kill the mystique. And for artists, maintaining active relationships with so many people can be labor intensive and emotionally draining. Drawing on her own rich history as a deeply connected music fan, Baym offers an entirely new approach to media culture, arguing that the work musicians put into maintaining these intimate relationships reflects the demands of the gig economy, one which requires resources and strategies that we all music come to recognize"--Publisher's description.

Musicians, Audiences, and the Intimate Work of Connection

Playing to the Crowd

Jean Burgess

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.

A Biography

Twitter

The internet and the mobile phone have disrupted many of our conventional understandings of ourselves and our relationships, raising anxieties and hopes about their effects on our lives. In this second edition of her timely and vibrant book, Nancy Baym provides frameworks for thinking critically about the roles of digital media in personal relationships. Rather than providing exuberant accounts or cautionary tales, it offers a data-grounded primer on how to make sense of these important changes in relational life Fully updated to reflect new developments in technology and digital scholarship, the book identifies the core relational issues these media disturb and shows how our talk about them echoes historical discussions about earlier communication technologies. Chapters explore how we use mediated language and nonverbal behavior to develop and maintain communities, social networks, and new relationships, and to maintain existing relationships in our everyday lives. The book combines research findings with lively examples to address questions such as: Can mediated interaction be warm and personal? Are people honest about themselves online? Can relationships that start online work? Do digital media damage the other relationships in our lives? Throughout, the book argues that these questions must be answered with firm understandings of media qualities and the social and personal contexts in which they are developed and used. This new edition of Personal Connections in the Digital Age will be required reading for all students and scholars of media, communication studies, and sociology, as well as all those who want a richer understanding of digital media and everyday life.

Personal Connections in the Digital Age

Annette N. Markham

This collection of dialogues is the only textbook of its kind. Internet Inquiry: Conversations About Method takes students into the minds of top internet researchers as they discuss how they have worked through critical challenges as they research online social environments. Editors Annette N. Markham and Nancy K. Baym illustrate that good research choices are not random but are deliberate, studied, and internally consistent. Rather than providing single "how to" answers, this book presents distinctive and divergent viewpoints on how to think about and conduct qualitative internet studies.

Conversations About Method

Internet Inquiry

An ethnographic study of an Internet soap opera fan group. Bridging the fields of computer-mediated communication and audience studies, it shows how verbal and non verbal communicative practices create collaborative interpretations and criticism, group humour, interpersonal relationships, group norms and individual identity.

Soaps, Fandom, and Online Community

Tune In, Log On

Explains what happened to music—for both artists and fans—when music went online. Playing to the Crowd explores and explains how the rise of digital communication platforms has transformed artist-fan relationships into something closer to friendship or family. Through in-depth interviews with musicians such as Billy Bragg and Richie Hawtin, as well as members of the Cure, UB40, and Throwing Muses, Baym reveals how new media has facilitated these connections through the active, and often required, participation of the artists and their devoted, digital fan base. Before the rise of social sharing and user-generated content, fans were mostly seen as an undifferentiated and unidentifiable mass, often mediated through record labels and the press. However, in today’s networked era, musicians and fans have built more active relationships through social media, fan sites, and artist sites, giving fans a new sense of intimacy and offering artists unparalleled information about their audiences. However, this comes at a price. For audiences, meeting their heroes can kill the mystique. And for artists, maintaining active relationships with so many people can be both personally and financially draining, as well as extremely labor intensive. Drawing on her own rich history as an active and deeply connected music fan, Baym offers an entirely new approach to media culture, arguing that the work musicians put in to create and maintain these intimate relationships reflect the demands of the gig economy, one which requires resources and strategies that we must all come to recognize and appreciate.

Tune In, Log Out is an ethnographic study of an Internet soap opera fan group. Bridging the fields of computer-mediated communication and audience studies, the book shows how verbal and non verbal communicative practices create collaborative interpretations and criticism, group humor, interpersonal relationships, group norms and individual identity. While much has been written about problems and inequities women have encountered online, Nancy K Baym's analysis of a female-dominated group in which female communication styles prevail demonstrates that women can build successful online communities while still welcoming male participation. In addition, a longitudinal look at the development of fan group allows an examination of the endurance of the group's social structure in the face of the Internet's tremendous growth. Lively and engaging, Tune In, Log Out provides an entertaining introduction to issues of online and audience community.

Nancy K. Baym

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