GJIL researcher and QUT professor Jean Burgess’ new book, Twitter: A Biography, has been published by NYU Press.
Burgess co-authored this book with Nancy Baym, a senior principal researcher at Microsoft.
In this book, the authors closely trace Twitter’s growth in the form of a platform biography, to better understand how platforms change over time. Since the mid-2000s, not only has the worldwide importance of social platforms grown exponentially, but also their cultures have shifted dramatically, in a variety of directions.
These changes have brought new opportunities for progressive communities to thrive online, as well as widespread problems with commercial exploitation, disinformation, and hate speech.
The authors build a rich narrative of how Twitter has evolved as a technology, a company, and a culture, from its origins as a personal messaging service to its transformation into one of the most globally influential social media platforms, where history and culture is not only recorded but written in real time.
Burgess has previously written books on social media, new media and digital communication.