Abstract
One of the growing markets in academic publishing is handbooks about developments in niche disciplinary areas; name the field and expect to find a good handful of volumes devoted to surveying the literature and identifying core areas of concern. New media has such handbooks (e.g. Lievrouw and Livingstone, 2006) as does Internet-oriented scholarship (Consalvo and Ess, 2011; Hunsinger et al., 2010). Some more established disciplines also have handbooks related to digital and new media; see for example, a handbook on psychology and communication technology (Sundar, 2015) released by Wiley, which also publishes more than a score of handbooks in communication and media studies. It should not, then, come as a surprise that a handbook would eventually appear on digital politics with the straightforward title Handbook of Digital Politics (Coleman and Freelon, 2015). This title, though, is not the first to appear in the domain; more than half-a-decade ago, the Routledge Handbook of Internet Politics was released (Chadwick and Howard, 2009). Despite the difference in age, publication of these two volumes on basically the same scholarly terrain provides opportunity for comparison.
Beginning with the superficial, both volumes weigh in at about the same number of pages, chapters, and contributors: Internet Politics has just over 500 pages, divided across 31 chapters with contributions from more than 50 (co)authors; Digital Politics also has about 500 pages, but divided across 25 chapters with 40plus co(authors). These (slight) differences are trivial, and the more substantive query is whether the two volumes differ in themes presented. Looking at how the two volumes are organized into sections suggests similarities as well as differences; both have clusters of chapters on the institutional aspects of politics and on government/law and policy. Digital Politics launches its collection with five theoretically oriented chapters and concludes with a section of three chapters exploring the “Frontiers of Digital Politics Research.” Furthermore, Digital Politics has sections of chapters on collective action, political talk, and journalism—all themes of importance to the study of (digital) politics.
Inevitably, some of the same scholars contributed to both volumes, but the number is surprisingly small, three, and these are senior scholars who collaborated with junior colleagues. Intuitively, it seems as if Digital Politics draws more from a new generation of scholars than does the collection of contributions to Internet Politics. One example of this aspect is the chapter “Everyday political talk in the Internet-based public sphere” by Todd Graham (2015). This young scholar expands on his own empirical studies as to how politics is reflected in everyday situations, particularly drawing from his PhD dissertation with the provocative title “What’s Wife Swap got to do with it? Talking politics in the net-based public sphere” (Graham, 2009).
Handbooks generally share the objective of reviewing core literature and identifying central themes relevant to an area of scholarship. Digital Politics does this remarkably well, but extends this common objective into explicit suggestions for further (empirical) exploration. Each chapter concludes with formulation of research areas and sometimes even explicit research questions that the authors foresee as salient to the next round of enquiry. One example illustrates this feature particularly well: In the chapter entitled “Journalism, gatekeeping and interactivity,” the author writes, “Further research should look to reveal the logic behind the computer algorithms that are increasingly determining how news is prioritized and presented” (Thurman, 2015: 370). Just a few months after publication of Digital Politics suspicions surfaced in May 2016 that Facebook may be presenting a liberal slant to its presentation of news through its algorithmic selection procedures (Herrman and Isaac, 2016). These suspicions were played out in the media, but could well benefit by the kind of scholarly studies suggested in this chapter.
Handbooks like Digital Politics are primarily intended for a readership of advanced students and professional researchers, but the pricing structure often restricts purchase to institutions. Although there are exceptions (e.g. SAGE Publications released a student edition of its Handbook of New Media [Lievrouw and Livingstone, 2006]), the print editions of handbooks can easily cost hundreds of dollars, and some online handbooks are only available for institutional purchase or subscription. The point of the price for Digital Politics came up in an exchange on a discussion list when one of the volume’s editors announced the availability of the book. A student replied, welcoming its publication, but lamenting the (relatively high) price of the hardback version. One of the editors responded with the hope that the publisher would eventually release a paperback version. At that point, the other editor of Digital Politics intervened and mentioned that a less expensive electronic version of the handbook was available. The real bargain, both in terms of expense and functionality, is found in the ebook version of Digital Politics. Searching for how different authors address a particular term, say “interactivity” or “political participation,” is a “digital snap” as compared to searching in the index of the printed version.
The ebook version of Digital Politics, then, is a welcome resource for the intended audience and far exceeds the functionality available in print-only handbooks such as its primary competitor, Internet Politics. Still, it is fair to ask whether this “added value” is enough for a book examining a field as volatile as digital politics. A general estimate of the shelf life for academic monographs and (probably for) handbooks is about 5 years. The usual publishing strategy is to issue revised versions of some books after a number of years, but this strategy is based on economic considerations and not on the rate of developments in a field. In any field with “digital” in the title, widespread change is as good as guaranteed within the shelf life of a traditional print volume.
One solution to the problem of a slow publishing cycle for fast-moving fields like digital politics would involve preparation of a complementing website to the volume where updates and new resources could be made available. Publishers are resistant to take on responsibility for online venues because of the limited revenue resulting from such investments. But it is conceivable that the editors and authors involved in a project like Digital Politics would see scholarly value in maintaining an online venue. Unfortunately, such a site does not exist for Digital Politics or, for that matter, for most handbooks. In this respect, Digital Politics is a rather conventional exercise in traditional academic publishing. Conventional though it may be, the volume remains an important and required resource for scholars concerned with the interface between an increasingly ubiquitous digital environment and political life.