Acknowledgments

Writing this book has been at once a great challenge and immense privilege. Few people are fortunate enough to have the chance to make a career out of researching, writing, and teaching. I am grateful to a long list of colleagues, collaborators, mentors, editors, students, friends, and family for their support. The size of this group reflects the kindness and generosity I have experienced in writing this book and navigating academic life more generally. It also hints at just how long I have been working on this project.

Brooke Duffy, Mara Einstein, Ed Lamoureux, Rick Maxwell, Roopali Mukherjee, Tony Nadler, Dan Schiller, Chris Wendelin, and Shinjoung Yeo provided helpful comments on chapter drafts and proposals. Patrick Davison and Lee McGuigan read nearly the entire document and gave invaluable feedback. I cannot thank you all enough.

I have been lucky to work in two stellar academic departments, first at Queens College, City University of New York, and now at Miami University. I am grateful to many excellent colleagues at both of these institutions and for the support of my department chairs and area coordinators: Ron Becker, Richard Campbell, Bruce Drushel, and Rick Maxwell. danah boyd, Joan Donovan, and Tim Hwang at Data & Society provided wonderful opportunities to workshop ideas, collaborate, and bring my research to broader audiences. The team at the University of Minnesota Press was a pleasure to work with, as were the archivists at the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock.

I am grateful for the friendship and collegiality of a long list of folks, many of whom I’ve known since graduate school. Big thanks to Robert Bodle, Josh Braun, Mike Brown, Jonathan Buchsbaum, Ergin Bulut, Rob Carley, Nicole Cohen, T. C. Corrigan, Brian Dolber, J. V. Fuqua, Tarleton Gillespie, Katie Day Good, Mack Hagood, Jay Hamilton, Carey Hardin, Kerry Hegarty, Aaron Heresco, Amy Herzog, Brian Hughes, Kathleen Kuehn, Chenjerai Kumanyika, Michael Lacy, Hongmei Li, Steve Macek, Christe McKittrick, Robert Mejia, Caroline Nappo, Molly Niesen, Andrew Peck, Rosemary Pennington, Victor Pickard, Jeff Pooley, Andy Rice, Aimee Rickman, Michelle Rodino-Colocino, Adam Rottinghaus, Douglas Rushkoff, Joe Sampson, Ellen Scott, John Stanislawski, Darren Stevenson, John Sullivan, John Tchernev, Mandy Tröger, Noah Tsika, Jing Wang, and Jud Wellington.

I am fortunate to have an extended group of mentors who have always been generous with their time and whom I still bother on occasion. Thanks to Ed Lamoureux, Bob McChesney, Lisa Nakamura, John Nerone, Rob Prescott, Christian Sandvig, Amit Schejter, Dan Schiller, Inger Stole, Anghy Valdivia, and the late Kevin Barnhurst. I am especially grateful to Rick Maxwell, who has helped me in more ways than I count, though he still may not have forgiven me for leaving New York!

I began writing this book while I was at the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign, a hub of critical scholarship and community. At Illinois, I received helpful fellowship support from the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities and the Graduate College. I also benefited from the labor activism of the tenacious Graduate Employees Organization. At Queens College, I obtained essential course releases and research funding from the Faculty Fellowship Publication Program and the Professional Staff Congress labor union, whose tireless organizing makes CUNY a far better place for teachers and students. The later stages of research and writing were supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Miami University Senate Committee on Faculty Research, and Miami University’s College of Arts and Science. My sincere thanks to all of these organizations.

Finally, I thank my wonderful family, without whom I would be lost. Special thanks to my parents and brothers, who always know how to bring me back to earth. Most of all, I am grateful to Cor, Cam, and Caroline. You make this book, and everything else, worthwhile.