SocietyNow
SocietyNow: short, informed books, explaining why our world is the way it is, now.
The SocietyNow series provides readers with a definitive snapshot of the events, phenomena and issues that are defining our 21st century world. Written leading experts in their fields, and publishing as each subject is being contemplated across the globe, titles in the series offer a thoughtful, concise and rapid response to the major political and economic events and social and cultural trends of our time.
SocietyNow makes the best of academic expertise accessible to a wider audience, to help readers untangle the complexities of each topic and make sense of our world the way it is, now.
Poverty in Britain: Causes, Consequences, and Myths
Tracy Shildrick
The Trump Phenomenon: How the Politics of Populism Won in 2016
Peter Kivisto
Becoming Digital: Towards a Post-internet Society
Vincent Mosco
Understanding Brexit: Why Britain Voted to Leave the European Union
Graham Taylor
Selfies: Why We Love (and Hate) Them
Katrin Tiidenberg
Internet Celebrity: Understanding Fame Online
Crystal Abidin
Corbynism: A Critical Approach
Matt Bolton
The Smart City in a Digital World
Vincent Mosco
Kardashian Kulture: How Celebrities Changed Life in the 21st Century
Ellis Cashmore
Reality Television: The TV Phenomenon that Changed the World
Ruth A. Deller
Drones: The Brilliant, the Bad, and the Beautiful
Andy Miah
Digital Detox: The Politics of Disconnecting
Trine Syvertsen
The Olympic Games: A Critical Approach
Helen Jefferson Lenskyj
Tiidenberg and van der Nagel have crafted an engaging yet sophisticated introduction to the complexities of contemporary sexualities and social media. This book explores key theoretical concepts by means of concrete examples, foregrounding media users own accounts of their explorations of digital intimacy and sexual self-expression. It is lively and easy to read without oversimplifying the complexity of platform policies, local regulatory systems, and the ways sex and gender politics play out among social media users. This book will be invaluable for researchers, students and practitioners in the fields of sexuality and gender studies, health promotion and education, media studies and internet studies.
Kath Albery, Professor of Media and Communication, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia
This is a wonderful book clearly outlining the ways that sex and social media increasingly intersect. It is both incisive and highly accessible and will be invaluable for scholars, students and all those with an interest in sex, society and media.
Feona Attwood, Editor, Porn Studies, Sexualities, and Professor of Cultural Studies Communication & Media, Middlesex University London, UK
Deep yet accessible, entertaining yet hugely informative, this book explores sex and social media in their startling complexity. It is compulsory reading for parents, educators, journalists, IT professionals and policymakers alike.
Susanna Paasonen, Professor of Media Studies, University of Turku, Finland
SEX AND SOCIAL MEDIA
KATRIN TIIDENBERG
Tallinn University, Estonia
EMILY VAN DER NAGEL
Monash University, Australia
United Kingdom North America Japan India
Malaysia China
Emerald Publishing Limited
Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK
First edition 2020
Copyright 2020 Katrin Tiidenberg and Emily van der Nagel
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: 978-1-83909-409-5 (Print)
ISBN: 978-1-83909-406-4 (Online)
ISBN: 978-1-83909-408-8 (Epub)
Contents
List of Figures
| Figure 1 | The Trifecta of Anxieties. | 21 |
| Figure 2 | Moral Panics about Sex and Social Media. | 30 |
| Figure 3 | A Butt Selfie from Kat's NSFW Research. | 94 |
About the Authors
Katrin Tiidenberg, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Social Media and Visual Culture at the Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication School of Tallinn University, Estonia. She is the author of Selfies: why we love (and hate) them, as well as Body and Soul on the Internet making sense of social media (in Estonian). Tiidenberg is on the Executive Board of the Association of Internet Researcher and the Estonian Young Academy of Sciences. She is currently writing and publishing on sex, social media, visual social media practices, and digital research ethics. More info at: http://kkatot.tumblr.com/
Emily van der Nagel, PhD, is a Lecturer in Social Media in the School of Media, Film and Journalism at Monash University in Australia. She has been published in M/C Journal: A Journal of Media and Culture, Media International Australia, Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, Internet Histories, and First Monday. Emily researches social media identities, platforms, and cultures. She tweets at @emvdn, and is online at http://emvdn.net/.
Acknowledgements
Writing a book across the very different time zones of Estonia and Australia, to a tight deadline, about a topic that twisted in our hands like a snake as social media platforms radically changed their rules and users outraged, was no small endeavor, but it has been an incredibly enjoyable and endlessly fascinating process.
We'd like to thank the amazing Association of Internet Researchers, the incredible conferences of which brought us together, allowed us to discover each other's work, and finally led to us collaborating on this book. We are grateful to our colleague Dr Alexandra James, who read and commented on the manuscript thank you for your keen eye, your attentive comments, and your enthusiasm. We are also very grateful to our wise, open-minded editor Jen McCall, a self-professed prude, who nonetheless wanted our sex book. We love you Jen.
