Full Description
Combining theoretical and empirical discussions with shorter case studies, this book offers an anthropological exploration of the emergence in Malaysia of lifestyle bloggers - precursors to current "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."
Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
Chronology
Introduction: Anthroblogia: Participant Observation and Blogging in Malaysia
Chapter 1. The Blogs as Assemblage: Agency and Affordances
Chapter 2. January 2006: Blogwars, Hit Sluts, and Authenticity in the Personal Blogosphere
Chapter 3. The Blogger and Her Blog: (Dis)Assembling the Dividual Self
Chapter 4. May 2007: The Assembling of Genres
Chapter 5. Assembling Blogs and Bloggers
Chapter 6. April 2007: Voicy Consumers and Negotiating Networked Publics
Chapter 7. Assembling a Blog Market
Chapter 8. January 2009: Negotiating the Authentic Advertorial
Chapter 9. Assembling Lifestyles
Chapter 10. October 2009: Regional Blogmeet
Conclusions: The Dividual Self and Emergence of the Lifestyle Blog
References
