[Air-L] New Open Access Book: Social Media in Southeast Italy

[Major, Alison]

*****Apologies for any cross-posting*****

UCL Press is delighted to announce the publication of a brand new open access book that may be of interest to readers of this list, Social Media in Southeast Italy.

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Social Media in Southeast Italy

Razvan Nicolescu

Download free: http://bit.ly/2e51g5A

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This title is available in both free open access (PDF/ html) and print editions (paperback, £15.00 | hardback, £35.00).

Why is social media in southeast Italy so predictable when it is used by such a range of different people? This book describes the impact of social media on the population of a town in the southern region of Puglia, Italy. Razvan Nicolescu spent 15 months living among the town's residents, exploring what it means to be an individual on social media. Why do people from this region conform on platforms that are designed for personal expression?

Nicolescu argues that social media use in this region of the world is related to how people want to portray themselves. He pays special attention to the ability of users to craft their appearance in relation to collective ideals, values and social positions, and how this feature of social media has, for the residents of the town, become a moral obligation: they are expected to be willing to adapt their appearance to suit their different audiences at the same time, which is crucial in a town where religion and family are at the heart of daily life.

Download free: http://bit.ly/2e51g5A

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About Why We Post

Why do we post on social media? Is it true that we are replacing face-to-face relationships with on-screen life? Are we becoming more narcissistic with the rise of selfies? Does social media create or suppress political action, destroy privacy or become the only way to sell something? And are these claims equally true for a factory worker in China and an IT professional in India?

With these questions in mind, nine anthropologists each spent 15 months living in communities in China, Brazil, Turkey, Chile, India, England, Italy and Trinidad. They studied not only platforms but the content of social media to understand both why we post and the consequences of social media on our lives. Their findings indicate that social media is more than communication - it is also a place where we now live.

This series explores and compares the results in a collection of ground-breaking and accessible ethnographic studies. To find out more, visit http://www.ucl.ac.uk/why-we-post<http://www.ucl.ac.uk/why-we->

About UCL Press

UCL Press is the UK's first fully open access university press. Re-established at UCL in 2015, UCL Press publishes peer-reviewed scholarly monographs, edited collections, textbooks and journals, by both UCL academics and non-UCL academics. All its books are made available as free, downloadable PDFs from its website, as well as in print for sale through retailers at affordable prices, and many of its books are also made available on a free, enhanced, browser-based platform. Its mission is to make its published outputs available to a global audience, irrespective of their ability to pay. Find out more at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press.

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