Introduction

This chapter is about how we tell stories in the contemporary networked digital environment. It focuses on how the networked platforms support, enhance, or confine the networked self. The chapter focuses on three areas of interest: Platforms and the politics of platforms, Stories people tell about themselves on these platforms, and Stories people tell about themselves, others, and events they experience on these platforms. The first area considers how the web has become increasingly platformized, moving from an architecture that supported organically formed communities to a structure comprising distinct or interconnected platforms. The second area focuses on how the stories people share, in performing the networked self, are restricted, enhanced, and adorned by the affordances of these platforms. The third area of interest explores how stories we tell about ourselves, others, and events we experience on networked platforms.