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Abstract
Combining theoretical and empirical discussions with shorter “thick description” case studies, this book offers an anthropological exploration of the emergence in Malaysia of lifestyle bloggers – precursors to current social media “microcelebrities” and “influencers.” It tracks the transformation of personal blogs, which attracted readers with spontaneous and authentic accounts of everyday life, into lifestyle blogs that generate income through advertising and foreground consumerist lifestyles. It argues that lifestyle blogs are dialogically constituted between the blogger, the readers, and the blog itself, and challenges the assumption of a unitary self by proposing that lifestyle blogs can best be understood in terms of the “dividual self.”
Julian Hopkins is Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the School of Arts & Social Sciences, Monash University Malaysia. He has been researching the social and cultural implications of the internet and social media since the turn of the century, using a combination of ethnographic and sociological research methods.
“A valuable contribution to the field of New Media Studies… It provides rich and first-hand ethnographic insights into a transitory phase of the blog genre – from a point in time where we can see how other social media platforms and genres (e.g. Facebook, YouTube, Instagram) have built upon and further transformed practices of lifestyle blogging.” • Jan-Hinrik Schmidt, Hans-Bredow-Institute for Media Research, Hamburg
Table of Contents
Section Title | Page | Action | Price |
---|---|---|---|
Monetising the Dividual Self | iii | ||
Copyright | iv | ||
Contents | vii | ||
Figures | ix | ||
Tables | x | ||
Acknowledgements | xi | ||
Brief Chronology of Personal and Lifestyle Blogging in Malaysia | xii | ||
Introduction. Anthroblogia | 1 | ||
Chapter 1. The Blog as Assemblage | 11 | ||
Chapter 2. January 2006 | 28 | ||
Chapter 3. The Blogger and Her Blog | 46 | ||
Chapter 4. May 2007 | 71 | ||
Chapter 5. Assembling Blogs and Bloggers | 82 | ||
Chapter 6. April 2007 | 108 | ||
Chapter 7. Assembling a Blog Market | 123 | ||
Chapter 8. January 2009 | 148 | ||
Chapter 9. Assembling Lifestyles | 162 | ||
Chapter 10. October 2009 | 178 | ||
Conclusions. The Dividual Self and Emergence of the Lifestyle Blog | 189 | ||
References | 199 | ||
Index | 217 |