Mediated Intimacies ― Connectivities, Relationalities and Proximities

Social media, characterized by user-generated content, interactivity, participation and community formation, have gained much research attention in recent years. At the same time, intimacy, affectivity and emotions are increasingly growing as fields of study. While these two areas are often interwoven, the actual interconnections are rarely studied in detail. This anthology explores how social media construct new types of intimacies, and how practices of intimacy shape the development and use of new media, offering empirical knowledge, theoretical insights and an international perspective on the flourishing field of digital intimacies.

Chapters present a range of research tools used, such as interviews, online ethnography, visual analysis, text analysis and video analysis. There is also rich variation in sources for the empirical material studied, including Tumblr, YouTube, dating sites, hook-up sites, Facebook, Snapchat, CouchSurfing, selfies, blogs and photographs, as well as smartphones, tablets and computers.

By focusing on the intersection between social media and intimacies, and their continuous co-constitution, this anthology offers new insights into the vast landscape of contemporary media reality. It will be a valuable resource for teachers, students and scholars with an interest in new media, communication, intimacy and affectivity.

Rikke Andreassen, PhD from University of Toronto, Canada (2005), Professor (mso) in Communication Studies at Roskilde University, Denmark. She is a researcher and teacher in the fields of media, gender, race and sexuality. She has recently published the book Human Exhibitions: Race, Gender and Sexuality in Ethnic Displays (2015), as well as co-edited the anthology Race and Affectivity: Studies from a Nordic Context (2015).

Michael Nebeling Petersen, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department for the Study of Culture, University of Southern Denmark. His research centres on culture, power and identity, and he is interested in the intersections between gender, sexuality, kinship, race and nation. His recent publications include: ‘Becoming Gay Fathers through Transnational Commercial Surrogacy’ in Journal of Family Studies (2016) and ‘Dad & daddy assemblages: Re-suturing the nation through transnational surrogacy, homosexuality, and Norwegian exceptionalism’ in GLQ (with Krolokke and Myong, 2016).

Katherine Harrison, postdoc at the Department of Media, Cognition and Communication, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and a researcher at the Department of Gender Studies, Lund University, Sweden. Her areas of expertise include feminist cultural studies of technoscience with particular reference to digital technologies, science and technology studies and normcritical perspectives on gender and the body.

Tobias Raun, Associate Professor of Communication Studies, Roskilde University. He has published widely within the areas of visual culture, internet studies, cultural studies and gender studies, most recently the book Out Online: Trans Self-Representation and Community Building on YouTube (2016) and a forthcoming publication on transgender selfies in the edited collection Sex in the Digital Age (2017).