[Air-L] Book Announcement and Zoom Talk - Buy Now: How Amazon Branded Convenience and Normalized Monopoly by Emily West (MIT Press)

[Emily West]

Hi Everyone,

I’m delighted to announce the publication of my book “Buy Now: How Amazon Branded Convenience and Normalized Monopoly.” It explains how Amazon combined branding and relationship marketing with massive distribution infrastructure to become the ultimate service brand in the digital economy. In Buy Now, I examine Amazon's consumer-facing services—including ecommerce, streaming, Alexa, and brick-and-mortar store formats—to investigate how Amazon as a brand grew so quickly and inserted itself into so many aspects of our lives even as it faded into the background, becoming a sort of infrastructure that can be taken for granted. I show how Amazon has cultivated personalized, intimate relationships with consumers that normalize its outsized influence on our selves and our communities. “Buy Now” offers a cautionary cultural study of bigness in today's economy. It is the first book in the new Distribution Matters series at The MIT Press, co-edited by Joshua Braun and Ramon Lobato.

The book is available for sale at MIT Press and other booksellers, and the digital version is available Open Access: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/buy-now

I will be giving a book talk on Zoom on Wednesday, April 6th, Noon – 1 pm, with an introduction by Prof. Joshua Braun, co-editor of the Distribution Matters series. You can register at this link: https://umass-amherst.zoom.us/j/94219252663



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Dr. Emily West (she/her)

Associate Professor, Graduate Program Director

Department of Communication

University of Massachusetts Amherst

ewest at comm.umass.edu

www.emilywestphd.com<http://www.emilywestphd.com>


​Author of Buy Now: How Amazon Branded Convenience and Normalized Monopoly <https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/buy-now> (The MIT Press, 2022)


Author of Review Pollution: Pedagogy for a Post-Truth Society <https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/4015> (Media and Communication 2021)