Prelims

Half Title

The Quirks of Digital Culture

Title Page

The Quirks of Digital Culture

DAVID BEER

University of York, UK

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2019

Copyright © David Beer.

Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-78769-916-8 (Paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-78769-913-7 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-78769-915-1 (Epub)

Dedication

For ERIK

Contents

About the Author

David Beer is Professor of Sociology at the University of York. He is the author of Georg Simmel’s Concluding Thoughts (2019), The Data Gaze (2018), Metric Power (2016), Punk Sociology (2014), Popular Culture and New Media: The Politics of Circulation (2013) and New Media: The Key Concepts (2008, with Nicholas Gane) and is the Editor of The Social Power of Algorithms (2018).

Acknowledgements

Thanks go to Emerald and to my editor Jen McCall. Jen’s enthusiasm for this project was vital and helped me to build upon my initial sketches. This book is built out of a number of ideas that I have tested out in various blogs and websites over the last three or four years, it includes adaptations and expansions of short pieces published in Open Democracy, The Independent, Berfrois, Discover Society, Louder Than War, Sociological Imagination, and The Conversation, as well as pieces I have posted on Medium. I have used those pieces a little like music demo tracks. Those short pieces were used to try things out and to experiment with ideas and ways of writing. The book combines, extends and develops those snippets and ideas to bring out the themes and issues. I have worked them together into chapters, extending and appending the points and adding new writing. I would like to thank the various publications and editors for allowing me to explore these thoughts in their publications. Finally, I would like to give extra special thanks to Erik and Martha. When I had the initial idea for this book, which I had whilst listening to a collection of B-sides by the band Jesus and Mary Chain, Erik told me to just do it and not to worry about it, so I have.