1st Edition

Internet and Emotions

Edited By Tova Benski, Eran Fisher Copyright 2014
    264 Pages 16 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Nothing seems more far removed from the visceral, bodily experience of emotions than the cold, rational technology of the Internet. But as this collection shows, the internet and emotions intersect in interesting and surprising ways. Internet and Emotions is the fruit of an interdisciplinary collaboration of scholars from the sociology of emotions and communication and media studies. It features theoretical and empirical chapters from international researchers who investigate a wide range of issues concerning the sociology of emotions in the context of new media. The book fills a substantial gap in the social research of digital technology, and examines whether the internet invokes emotional states differently from other media and unmediated situations, how emotions are mobilized and internalized into online practices, and how the social definitions of emotions are changing with the emergence of the internet. It explores a wide range of behaviors and emotions from love to mourning, anger, resentment and sadness. What happens to our emotional life in a mediated, disembodied environment, without the bodily element of physical co-presence to set off emotional exchanges? Are there qualitatively new kinds of emotional exchanges taking place on the internet? These are only some of the questions explored in the chapters of this book, with quite surprising answers.

    Introduction: Investigating Emotions and the Internet  Tova Benski and Eran Fisher  Part I: Theoretical and Methodological Considerations  1. Power, Identity and Feelings in Digital Late Modernity: The Rationality of Reflexive Emotion Displays Online  Jakob Svensson  2. Feeling Through Presence: Toward of Theory of Interaction Rituals and Parasociality in Online Social Worlds  David Boyns and Daniele Loprieno  3. Measuring Emotions in Individuals and Internet Communities  Dennis Küster and Arvid Kappas  Part II: Emotions Display  4. Grief 2.0: Exploring Virtual Cemeteries  Nina R. Jakoby and Simone Reiser  5. Islamic Emoticons: Pious Sociability and Community Building in Online Muslim Communities  Andrea L. Stanton  6. Emotional Socialization on a Swedish Internet Dating Site: The Search and Hope for Happiness  Henrik Fürst  7. Emotion to Action?: Deconstructing the Ontological Politics of the "Like" Button  Tamara Peyton  Part III: Mediating Interpersonal Intimacy  8. Transconnective Space, Emotions and Skype: The Transnational Emotional Practices of Mixed International Couples in the Republic of Ireland  Rebecca Chiyoko King-O’Riain  9. Send Me a Message and I’ll Call You Back: The Late Modern Webbing of Everyday Love Life  Natàlia Cantó-Milà, Francesc Núñez and Swen Seebach  Part IV: Mediating Emotional Space  10. Emerging Resentment in Social Media: Job Insecurity and Plots of Emotions in the New Virtual Environments  Elisabetta Risi  11. Cosmopolitan Empathy and User-Generated Disaster Appeal Videos on YouTube  Mervi Pantti and Minttu Tikka  12. Anger, Pain, Shame, and Cyber-Voyeurism: Emotions Around E-Tragic Events  Alessandra Micallizzi  13. Emotional Investments: Australian Feminist Blogging and Affective Networks  Frances Shaw

    Biography

    Tova Benski is chair of the Behavioral Sciences Department at the College of Management in Rishon Lezion.

    Eran Fisher is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Communication, Ben Gurion University, Israel.