
Tumblr
Polity Press
1st Edition
Published on 9. September 2021
Book
Paperback/Softback
240 pages
978-1-5095-4109-6 (ISBN)
Description
Launched in 2007, tumblr became a safe haven for LGBT youth, a launch pad for social justice movements, a NSFW rabbithole, and a counselling station for mental health issues. For a decade, this micro-blogging platform had more users than Twitter and Snapchat, but remained an obscure subculture for non-users and most researchers. In 2018 it catapulted to popular consciousness by banning all NSFW content, shifting to rigid censorship almost overnight.
Tiidenberg, Abidin and Hendry offer the first overarching, holistic and systematic guide to tumblr and its crucial role in shaping digital culture. Drawing on nine years of in-depth, qualitative data, they reveal why tumblr is 'special' by examining how it has developed, where it belongs in the social media ecosystem, and its prominent practices of creativity, curation and community making. Throughout, the book explores how diverse social media cultures can coexist on a single platform, and how destructive the recent trends in platform governance can be. The authors introduce the concept of 'silosociality' to describe the intensely affective and often-sequestered structures of feeling that organize users' experiences of tumblr, and challenge the assumptions commonly made about how social media functions and what role it plays for individuals, groups and culture.
A groundbreaking contribution to the study of social media, this book is an essential resource for students and scholars of media and communication, as well as anyone interested in an influential but overlooked platform.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 207 mm
Width: 145 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
408 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5095-4109-6 (9781509541096)
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Persons
Katrin Tiidenberg is Associate Professor of Social Media and Visual Culture at Tallinn University.
Crystal Abidin is Associate Professor of Internet Studies, Principal Research Fellow, and ARC DECRA Fellow at Curtin University. She leads the Social Media Pop Cultures Programme in the Centre for Culture and Technology (CCAT), and is the founder of the TikTok Cultures Research Network.
Natalie Ann Hendry is Lecturer in Education at Deakin University.

