[Air-L] 2021 Nancy Baym Book Award Winner

[Michelle, Association of Internet Researchers]

It is our great pleasure to announce that the Nancy Baym Book Award
committee has chosen Distributed Blackness: African American Cybercultures
(2020 NYU Press) by André Brock, Jr., as this year’s winner.

Distributed Blackness is a joyful exploration of Black cybercultural
expression, which, along the way, claims its rightful place in the history
of Black intellectualism and forges new theoretical paths for AoIR
scholarship. Brock carefully constructs a methodology, Critical
Technocultural Discourse Analysis, which affords a powerful way to trace
how identities are constructed online. Moreover, he makes a case for
studying the libidinal economy - energies that emerge from desire and fear
- as a key conceptual window into the circulation of digital media. Brock
then explores Web browsers, Black Twitter, and Black discourse, concluding
with a deeply theoretical conception of Black technoculture. And, like all
of the best internet scholarship, Distributed Blackness resonates beyond
digital networks. We’re witnessing a backlash against calls for social
justice — made most explicit by the transnational attacks on "critical race
theory," but also visible in many smaller acts of intolerance and
marginalization. In the face of this, Brock invites us to “happy reading”
and a joyous affirmation of Blackness online. It is, to use a term from the
book, a statement of pathos, a pleasurable excess of life in a time when
life seems imperiled – and where the perils are not equally distributed
across society. It is an essential book for AoIR and beyond.

This is the point at which the committee would usually say how hard it was
to pick a winner, but this year it was easy. The committee was unanimous in
its choice, and abundant with praise.

This is to take nothing away from the many other brilliant books we read
this year, and we are grateful for all of the submissions.

AoIR would like to acknowledge and thank the committee members – Nancy
Baym, Niki Cheong, Rob Gehl, Nicholas John (Chair), Heidi McKee, Panayiota
Tsatsou and Robert Tynes – for their work in judging this year’s profusion
of wonderful books, and Michelle Gardner for making sure all of the books
reached all of the judges.

Finally, you can find André Brock on Twitter (@DocDre) and read his (open
access) book online: http://opensquare.nyupress.org/books/9781479811908/