Digital Leisure, the Internet and Popular Culture ─ Communities and Identities in a Digital Age

The emergence of the internet as a digital leisure space has been either ignored by leisure scholars, or breathlessly heralded as the arrival of a new age. This book explores the impact of the internet on leisure and leisure studies, considering the ways in which digital leisure spaces and activities have become part of everyday leisure.

Examining the growth and importance of the internet in shaping the meaning and purpose of leisure and popular culture, Spracklen analyses whether digital leisure spaces and activities are just like any other forms of leisure. That is, that they are forms of leisure where the agency of individual users takes place in the shadow of the instrumental interests of global capitalism and nation-states.

Covering a range of issues from social media and file-sharing, to commodification and romance on the Internet, this book presents new theoretical directions for digital leisure.

Karl Spracklen is a Professor of Leisure Studies at Leeds Beckett University, UK. He has published widely on leisure studies and leisure theory with over sixty publications. He is the editor of the journal Metal Music Studies and a former Chair of the Leisure Studies Association.