Hi Friends, So, we're all about to head to Copenhagen and I just realized I never announced my book on AIR-L. This is a problem, as I expect people to be buying me beer to celebrate. The title is CAMGIRLS: Celebrity and Community in the Age of Social Networks (Peter Lang Publishers.) If you are teaching or researching in the areas of social networks, visual communications, online ethics, sexuality and/or gender, this may be a book for you. There are a couple of ways to get hold of it: --You can order it from Amazon for about 2/3 the publisher's list price at http://tinyurl.com/3r5pkl --You can get it at the AoIR conference (Lang usually has a table there; yes?) --If you think you'd like to write a review or adopt it for a class, drop me a line and I will GIVE you a copy, for free, even! A description of the book is below, as are links to some downloadable chapters. See you in Copenhagen!! Terri Senft --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DESCRIPTION It's 10 a.m. on any given day, and the windows of the Web are wide open. On YouTube, a group of twelve-year-old girls have filmed themselves imitating Destiny's Child. At Stickam.com, an academic is puzzling out his next day's lecture on a live video stream. On LiveJournal, bloggers are reading random strangers' diary entries. And on Facebook, parents are posting updates on their children's lives for the world to see. This self-documentation craze isn't new. Since the 1990s it has been the stock in trade of camgirls: women with web cams who have chosen to broadcast their lives to anyone with an interest in watching. Camgirls: Celebrity and Community in the Age of Social Networks examines the lives of some of the earliest camgirls, beta-testers for technologies and conditions that are now a natural part of our media landscape … and women who cultivated a measure of fame in the process. To their fans, camgirls are honest, refreshing, and even revolutionary. To their detractors, they are annoying, narcissistic, and often obscene. The first camgirls were the pioneers of today's era of 'microcelebrity': a time in which everyone has the potential to be famous—to fifteen people. Camgirls is the result of four years of ethnographic research with more than fifty camgirls and hundreds of viewers. Drawing from writers as diverse as Douglas Holt (on branding) to P. David Marshall (on celebrity) to Donna Haraway (on cyborgs) to Barry Wellman (on networked individualism) to Gayatri Spivak (on strategic essentialism) to David Angelides (on teen sexuality), it offers a fresh historical and contemporary analysis that speaks to the fields of internet, media, film, cultural, and women's studies. Camgirls is an exploration of the construction and presentation of the self in the online era --- of how we establish and maintain ourselves as people and as personae when we live our lives online. It asks why women are encouraged to express themselves through confession, celebrity and sexual display, yet punished with censure and backlash when their representation becomes 'too much' to handle. The book is written in lively, engaging, reader-friendly prose and is suitable for both undergraduate and postgraduate audiences. LIST OF CHAPTERS --Introduction: The Personal as Political in the Age of the Global Brand (download at www.terrisenft.net/camgirls/chapters/intro.pdf) --Chapter 1: Keeping it Real on the Web: Authenticity, Celebrity, Branding (download at www.terrisenft.net/camgirls/chapters/ch1.pdf) --Chapter 2: I'd Rather be a Camgirl than a Cyborg: The Future of Feminism on the Web --Chapter 3: Being and Acting Online: From Telepresence to Tele-ethicality --Chapter 4: The Public, the Private and the Pornographic (download at www.terrisenft.net/camgirls/chapters/ch4.pdf) --Chapter 5: I am a Network: From 'Friends' to Friends -- Conclusion: Moving from 'Sisters' to Sisters ABOUT THE AUTHOR Theresa M. Senft is a Senior Lecturer in Media Studies at the University of East London, U.K. Her books include History of the Internet, 1843-Present (co-author), and a special issue of Women & Performance devoted to sexuality and cyberspace (co-editor). Terri has published in The New York Times, appeared on U.S. National Public Radio, and been featured in the documentary Webcam Girls. She brings the perspective of a former camgirl to the book as well, having lived with a web camera in her house for a year as a part of her research. -- Dr. Theresa M. Senft Senior Lecturer, Media Studies School of Social Sciences, Media and Cultural Studies University of East London Docklands Campus 4-6 University Way London E162RD www.terrisenft.net www.livejournal.com/users/tsenft