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Just Here for the Comments: Lurking as Digital Literacy Practice

Online ISBN:
9781529227314
Print ISBN:
9781529227277
Publisher:
Policy Press
Book

Just Here for the Comments: Lurking as Digital Literacy Practice

Gina Sipley
Gina Sipley

Associate Professor of English

SUNY Nassau Community College
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Published online:
23 January 2025
Published in print:
28 May 2024
Online ISBN:
9781529227314
Print ISBN:
9781529227277
Publisher:
Policy Press

Abstract

We all sometimes ‘lurk’ in online spaces without posting or engaging, just reading the posts and comments. But neither reading nor lurking are ever passive acts. In fact, readers of social media are making decisions and taking grassroots actions on multiple dimensions. Unpacking this understudied phenomenon, this book challenges the conventional perspective of what counts as participatory online culture. Presenting lurking as a communication and literacy practice that resists dominant power structures, it offers an innovative approach to digital qualitative methods. Unique and original in its subject, this is a call for internet researchers to broaden their methods to include lurkers’ participation and presence.

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