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Just here for the comments: Lurking as digital literacy practice

Support H-Net | Buy Books Here | Help Support the NBN and NBN en Español on Patreon | Visit New Books Network en Español! We all sometimes ‘lurk’ in online spaces without posting or engaging, just reading the posts and comments. But neither reading nor lurking are ever passive acts.

Unpacking this understudied phenomenon, Just Here for the Comments: Lurking as Digital Literacy Practice(Bristol UP, 2024) by Gina Sipley challenges the conventional perspective of what counts as participatory online culture. Presenting lurking as a communication and literacy practice that resists dominant power structures, it offers an innovative approach to digital qualitative methods. Dr Sipley is in the process of developing with Bristol University Press free resources for academics, K-12 teachers, and book clubs interested in teaching and researching the social and economic effects of lurker literacies.

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