Jessa Lingel's 'Digital Countercultures' explores alternative web communities

Jessa Lingel, a communication professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has authored 'Digital Countercultures and the Struggle for Community,' published by The MIT Press in 2017. The book examines three alternative digital communities that subvert mainstream tech norms: BME (body modification ezine), a social platform from 1994 predating Facebook; a punk/rock scene communication network in New Brunswick, New Jersey; and Brooklyn drag queens' creative use of social media. Lingel argues these groups use tactics inspired by Michel De Certeau's 'The Practice of Everyday Life' to reclaim identity and resist the control embedded in digital platforms like Facebook, which enforces real-name policies conflicting with fluid identities. The study highlights how digital communication, presented as freedom, often results in conformity, but these communities demonstrate emancipatory potential through creative negotiation and shared knowledge.