Overview

Networked Selves is an original analysis of one of the most defining cultural features of our time: how people turn to the Web to construct a public self. It examines the trajectory of a practice that embodies this sociocultural shift in fundamental ways: blogging. The book traces the evolution of the Web as a means to publicly perform a self through an analysis of the emergence, development, and transformation of blogging from the mid-1990s to the early years of the 2010s. It discusses processes that have shaped practices of subjectivity on the Web over two decades in two countries: the United States and France. Through this comparative analysis, the book shows that the cultural identity of blogging as a practice of subjectivity in these countries is neither inevitable nor neutral. Instead, it demonstrates that the development of the Web required the forging of various articulations between specific conceptions of self, publicness, and technology. These articulations were responses to both transformations in the daily life of actors and larger economic, political, and cultural processes—notably neoliberalization. The book also explains how the cultural imaginary around blogs came into being in the United States and how it has also functioned as a model for actors in other countries, such as France. Networked Selves discusses how and why actors in the technology field in France have gradually abandoned traditional makers of exceptionalism that were key in the development of the country’s national identity and favored notions that characterize the United States instead.

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9781433147098

Table of Contents

Reviews

In Networked Selves, Ignacio Siles's interest is in the genesis of blogging and microblogging. He describes the ways in which new conceptions of self and publicness get inscribed in Web technology and are legitimized in public culture. It is rare to find in one volume so informed an analysis that deals with both the daily life of bloggers and larger economic and political issues. The other original feature of this book comes from a transcultural comparison between the United States and France. If an Americanization of the French Web can be noticed, a specific French landscape also becomes apparent. The international research is fascinating and will engage Internet scholars and general readers alike. -Patrice Flichy, Professor, University of Paris-Est, France

Networked Selves is a fascinating reflection on the modes by which different technichal features, actors, relations and institutions shape how technology is used, understood and (re)constructed. In this exploration of the trajectory of the blog in the US and France, Siles provides powerful insights on the mutually constitutive relationship between media technologies, understandings of publicness and performances of the self. -Rodrigo Munoz-Gonzalez, LSE Review of Books blog, 10/16/2019 In Networked Selves, Ignacio Siles's interest is in the genesis of blogging and microblogging. He describes the ways in which new conceptions of self and publicness get inscribed in Web technology and are legitimized in public culture. It is rare to find in one volume so informed an analysis that deals with both the daily life of bloggers and larger economic and political issues. The other original feature of this book comes from a transcultural comparison between the United States and France. If an Americanization of the French Web can be noticed, a specific French landscape also becomes apparent. The international research is fascinating and will engage Internet scholars and general readers alike. -Patrice Flichy, Professor, University of Paris-Est, France

Author Information

Ignacio Siles is a professor in the School of Communication at Universidad de Costa Rica. He is the author of Por un Sueño En.red.ado (2008) and several articles about technology and society. He obtained his PhD in the media, technology, and society program at Northwestern University.

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