Just Here for the Comments: Lurking as Digital Literacy Practice - Paperback

by Gina Sipley (Author)

We all sometimes 'lurk' in online spaces without posting or engaging, just reading the posts and comments. But neither reading nor lurking are ever passive acts. In fact, readers of social media are making decisions and taking grassroots actions on multiple dimensions. Unpacking this understudied phenomenon, this book challenges the conventional perspective of what counts as participatory online culture. Presenting lurking as a communication and literacy practice that resists dominant power structures, it offers an innovative approach to digital qualitative methods. Unique and original in its subject, this is a call for internet researchers to broaden their methods to include lurkers' participation and presence.

Author Biography

Gina Sipley is Associate Professor of English at SUNY Nassau Community College. Sipley is a first-generation college graduate.