ABSTRACT
What is the nature of emotions invoked on the Internet? Can we love online? Can we mourn? What does it actually mean to “like” on Facebook? And how do emotions come into play in a Skype conversation? The book Internet and Emotions wishes to answer these questions and more by bringing to the fore and demarcating an emerging field of interest at the intersection of two major developments taking place in the last couple of decades. The first is the penetration of the Internet into virtually every sphere of social life. From friendship and dating to shopping and mourning, no aspect of economic, political, cultural, and social life has remained unaffected by the Internet. The Internet is no longer merely another tool that people use, but an environment within which they operate and live (Poster 1997). The second development has been the advent of the sociological study of emotions. The sociology of emotions looks back on more than 30 years of history and has experienced exponential growth as a research field in recent years. Theoretical and empirical scholarship has refined our understanding of emotions and the emotional world, and has demonstrated that emotions are present in every aspect of social life and play an important role in central processes and structures. The question of media and emotions is an enduring one, but it has become ever more acute with the Internet, since unlike previous media, the Internet allows for more elaborate modes of sharing, communicating, performance, and display—all are key ingredients of emotions.
