The book!

I am very happy to announce that my new book, Personal Connections in the Digital Age, can now be previewed on Google Books. It will be out in the next few weeks. You can pre-order it here.

Here is what some of the internet researchers I admire most have to say about it:

“Nancy Baym distills decades of research on the ways in which online communication technologies shape our social relationships and daily lives into a very readable, enjoyable, and smart volume. Personal Connections is filled with insights of interest to anyone who has ever wondered about the differences between fact-to-face communication and messages shared via technologies such as Facebook, email, and blogs, or about the impact of these tools on society more generally. Written in a style that is accessible, witty, and personal, this fascinating book will be a valuable reference tool for scholars and of keen interest to a more general readership.”
Nicole Ellison, Michigan State University

“Lively and thought-provoking throughout, this book challenges the myth that ‘cyberspace’ dramatically transforms personal connections by revealing, instead, the complex and subtle ways in which people manage social interaction online and offline in response to the affordances of the various modes of communication available.”
Sonia Livingstone, London School of Economics and author of Children and the Internet

“Something is happening. Do you know what it is? Nancy Baym does, with a book bristling with ideas and authority. Filled with clear, lively writing, she both surveys and advances the field. I learned so much.”
Barry Wellman, University of Toronto

“Baym provides us a clear, concise, and thought-provoking discussion of the role of new digital media our interpersonal and societal relationships. She creates a welcome blend of her own and others’ research, the affordances and capabilities of new media, historical and technical contexts of the telegraph through the Internet, stable as well as changing societal norms, and her own Internet experiences.”
Ronald E. Rice, University of California, Santa Barbara

Popular Music Fandom: A One Day Symposium

This looks fun, sorry I won’t be there, but maybe you can be there:

Call For Papers:

Popular Music Fandom: A One Day Symposium

Binks Building, University of Chester
Northwest Popular Music Studies Network

Friday 25th June 2010

Keynote speaker: Matt Hills (author of ‘Fan Cultures’)

While a range of researchers in cultural studies – notably Henry
Jenkins, Matt Hills and Cornell Sandvoss – have moved the discussion
about media fandom forward, much less work has been done specifically on
popular music fandom. We invite contributors from a wide range of
disciplines to discuss topics associated with popular music fan culture
at this free one-day study event in Chester. Themes for papers may
include (but are not limited to):

•    Defining fandom
•    Stardom and celebrity, reading and textuality
•    Fandom and the consumer marketplace
•    Fans as musicians / musicians as fans
•    Perceptions of the music industry
•    Collecting and other fan practices
•    Live music, local scenes and fandom
•    Stereotyping, self-awareness and media representation
•    Gender, age and disability
•    Methodology and research practice
•    Theorizing fandom: processes, practices, identities
•    Issues of taste, social mobility and class
•    Personal narratives and investments
•    Case studies, ethnographies and histories
•    Fandom, heritage and tourism
•    Specific music genres: jazz fandom, metal, northern soul,
electronic music
•    Religion, modernity and the ‘cult’ analogy
•    The fan community: insiders, outsiders and the ‘ordinary’
audience
•    Fan culture and the paradigm of performance
•    The ‘pathological’ tradition: questions of typicality and
obsession
•    Issues of race and nationality
•    Power, psychology and symbolic economy
•    Online participatory cultures

Papers will be twenty minutes in length. Please send an abstract of up
to 200 words along with your name, affiliation, paper title, postal and
email address to: Dr Mark Duffett, m.duffett@chester.ac.uk (marking your
email title ‘fan symposium’).

The deadline for abstracts is Monday May 10th 2010.