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dc.contributor.authorReagle, Joseph
dc.date.accessioned2022-02-21T15:11:00Z
dc.date.available2022-02-21T15:11:00Z
dc.date.issued2015
dc.identifierONIX_20220221_9780262328876_56
dc.identifier.urihttps://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/78536
dc.description.abstractWhat we can learn about human nature from the informative, manipulative, confusing, and amusing messages at the bottom of the web. Online comment can be informative or misleading, entertaining or maddening. Haters and manipulators often seem to monopolize the conversation. Some comments are off-topic, or even topic-less. In this book, Joseph Reagle urges us to read the comments. Conversations “on the bottom half of the Internet,” he argues, can tell us much about human nature and social behavior. Reagle visits communities of Amazon reviewers, fan fiction authors, online learners, scammers, freethinkers, and mean kids. He shows how comment can inform us (through reviews), improve us (through feedback), manipulate us (through fakery), alienate us (through hate), shape us (through social comparison), and perplex us. He finds pre-Internet historical antecedents of online comment in Michelin stars, professional criticism, and the wisdom of crowds. He discusses the techniques of online fakery (distinguishing makers, fakers, and takers), describes the emotional work of receiving and giving feedback, and examines the culture of trolls and haters, bullying, and misogyny. He considers the way comment—a nonstop stream of social quantification and ranking—affects our self-esteem and well-being. And he examines how comment is puzzling—short and asynchronous, these messages can be slap-dash, confusing, amusing, revealing, and weird, shedding context in their passage through the Internet, prompting readers to comment in turn, “WTF?!?”
dc.languageEnglish
dc.relation.ispartofseriesThe MIT Press
dc.subject.classificationthema EDItEUR::P Mathematics and Science::PD Science: general issues::PDR Impact of science and technology on societyen_US
dc.subject.classificationthema EDItEUR::U Computing and Information Technology::UD Digital Lifestyle and online world: consumer and user guides::UDB Internet guides and online services::UDBS Social media / social networkingen_US
dc.subject.otheronline comments
dc.subject.otherinternet comments
dc.subject.otherYouTube comments
dc.subject.otherinternet trolls
dc.subject.othertrolling
dc.subject.othercyberbullying
dc.subject.otherAmazon reviews
dc.subject.otheronline identity
dc.subject.otherinternet studies
dc.subject.otheronline communication
dc.subject.othercommunication studies
dc.subject.otherdigital culture
dc.subject.otherinternet identity
dc.titleReading the Comments
dc.title.alternativeLikers, Haters, and Manipulators at the Bottom of the Web
dc.typebook
oapen.identifier.doi10.7551/mitpress/10116.001.0001
oapen.relation.isPublishedByae0cf962-f685-4933-93d1-916defa5123d
oapen.relation.isbn9780262328876
oapen.relation.isbn9780262028936
oapen.imprintThe MIT Press
oapen.pages240
oapen.place.publicationCambridge


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