Navigating New Media Networks

Bree McEwan is associate professor in the Department of Communication at Western Illinois University

Released in the 'Studies in New Media' series, this volume is described by the publisher as introducing 'several challenges related to mediated interpersonal communication including identity performance, privacy management, relationship formation, relational maintenance, social support'—specifically, networking. The question at stake: Will individuals need network connections in order to thrive in the modern world? . . . McEwan summarizes networking technologies and their social significance. The crux of the discussion is the move from social groups toward a society based on networked individualism. Taking observations from current scholarship, she seeks to clarify identity types such as the 'crystallized self,' the hyperpersonal self, and the idealized self-image. In so doing she emphasizes competencies for searchable and shareable communication on networks using micro blogging; mass-personal, many-to-many methods; mediated messages; and the established-identity model. McEwan also includes the dark side of the issue—flaming, lurking, and trolling (including RIP trolling). . . ..This volume joins Beyond New Media, by Art Herbig, Andrew Herrmann, and Adam Tyman (CH, May'15, 52-4595), published in the same series. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates; graduate students; professionals.

• Chapter 1: Navigating Networks Chapter 2: Communication CompetenceChapter 3: Identity and Impression ManagementChapter 4: Privacy Management in Collapsed ContextsChapter 5: Online Friendship FormationChapter 6: Where Online Relationships Are FormedChapter 7: Maintaining Network ConnectionsChapter 8: Online Social SupportChapter 9: Virtual Cosmopolitanism in a Networked Society, by Miriam Sobre-Denton Chapter 10: Always On, Always In the Network: The Influence of MobileChapter 11: Waypoints