Monetising the Dividual Self

Julian Hopkins is Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the School of Arts & Social Sciences, Monash University Malaysia. He has been researching the social and cultural implications of the internet and social media since the turn of the century, using a combination of ethnographic and sociological research methods.

• List of FiguresList of TablesAcknowledgementsBrief Chronology of Personal and Lifestyle Blogging in MalaysiaIntroduction: Anthroblogia: Participant Observation and Blogging in MalaysiaChapter 1. The Blog as Assemblage: Agency and AffordancesChapter 2. January 2006: Blogwars, Hit Sluts and Authenticity in the Personal BlogosphereChapter 3. The Blogger and Her Blog: (Dis)Assembling the Dividual SelfChapter 4. May 2007: Assembling GenresChapter 5. Assembling Blogs and BloggersChapter 6. April 2007: Voicy Consumers and Negotiating Networked PublicsChapter 7. Assembling a Blog MarketChapter 8. January 2009: Negotiating the Authentic AdvertorialChapter 9. Assembling LifestylesChapter 10. October 2009: Regional BlogmeetConclusions: The Dividual Self and Emergence of the Lifestyle BlogReferencesIndex

“Monetising the Dividual Self offers a rich conceptual and methodological lens through which to view blogs in their cultural, social, and technological significances. The use of Deleuze and Guattari’s assemblage to link ANT with an analysis of affordances permitted Hopkins to move beyond previous literature that was limited to positing the blog as an aesthetic assemblage and expand this notion to include the larger network of people and machines within specific historical, cultural, and geographic contexts…an insightful book that will be of interest to those across the disciplines, from media studies and communication, to philosophy, anthropology, sociology and science and technology studies.” • International Journal of Communication“A valuable contribution to the field of New Media Studies… It provides rich and first-hand ethnographic insights into a transitory phase of the blog genre – from a point in time where we can see how other social media platforms and genres (e.g. Facebook, YouTube, Instagram) have built upon and further transformed practices of lifestyle blogging.” • Jan-Hinrik Schmidt, Hans-Bredow-Institute for Media Research, Hamburg