LGBT Identity and Online New Media

Offering a wealth of examples of LGBT life online, this collection of 21 essays provides an overview of new communities, relationships, and means of asserting or forming identity among LGBT worldwide using social media. The first four essays discuss coming out on YouTube and other media, mainly among youth, and the online outcry following the murder of 15-year-old Lawrence King. Other segments focus on commoditization, discourse of the body, fan networks, and community spaces, with topics that include LGBT identities in mainstream advertising, fat-affirming groups online, Yaoi anime in the West, and how gay bar culture is being replaced by online media. The contributors are academics, PhD candidates, and independent scholars in the U.S. and the U.K. in the fields of English, film, media studies, and sociology. Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Christopher Pullen is Senior Lecturer in Media Studies at Bournemouth University, UK. He has widely published in the area sexuality and contemporary media, and is the author of Documenting Gay Men: Identity and Performance in Reality Television and Documentary Film (2007), and Gay Identity, New Storytelling and the Media (2009).

Margaret Cooper is a sociologist at Southern Illinois University. Her work on gender identity has been internationally published in journals, textbooks, and various collections. In addition, she is a former recipient of the Humanitarian of the Year Award in Nashville, Tennessee.