August 6, 2014
TASCHA researcher Jessica Beyer has a new book out, Expect Us: Online Communities and Political Mobilization, published by Oxford University Press. People use online social forums for all sorts of reasons, including political conversations, regardless of the site’s main purpose. But what leads some of these people to take their online political activity into the offline world of activism? In her book, Jessica looks at political consciousness and action in four communities, each born out of chaotic online social spaces that millions of individuals enter, spend time in, and exit moment by moment: Anonymous (4chan), IGN, World of Warcraft, and The Pirate Bay.