Digital & Online Communication

Book Reviews: Digital and Online Communication

Digital Innovation Strategy

Aija Leiponen. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. 2024. 298 pages, including index.

Index Terms—digitalization, disruptive innovation, networking strategies, technological evolution

Reviewed by Bonnie Winstel, Project Analyst, SAIC.

Digital Innovation Strategy explores how businesses can adapt and thrive in the rapidly evolving digital landscape. It meticulously examines the origins of digitalization, its economic impact, and the disruptive forces it unleashes. Providing valuable insights into communication networks, including emerging technologies like 5G, the text also identifies critical research gaps such as digital twins, data governance, ethics, and sustainability.

Aija Leiponen’s exploration of digital business innovation delves deep into the origins and challenges of digitalization. She astutely analyzes the co-evolution of the internet as both a technological marvel and a social phenomenon, scrutinizing concepts like information goods, pricing strategies, and data commercialization. Through compelling case studies of transformative companies like Barnes & Noble, The New York Times, and Spotify, Leiponen vividly illustrates the profound shift from traditional to digital business models. Moreover, her investigation into the impact of networking and platform strategies on organizational structures, including the intriguing concept of the “reverse corporate model” in the digital age, offers invaluable insights into navigating the complexities of modern business landscapes. By seamlessly blending theoretical frameworks with practical examples and case studies, her work not only enriches academic discourse but also equips practitioners with tangible strategies and tools for navigating the dynamic realm of digital business innovation.

Leiponen highlights how disruptive innovation reshapes the competitive landscape, presenting established companies with simpler, more affordable products that address underserved market needs. Drawing from Christensen’s ‘Innovator’s Dilemma,’ she illustrates how entrenched firms often prioritize incremental improvements, disregarding the seismic shifts brought by disruptive technologies, such as the shift to mobile devices from desktop computers. These innovations, such as open-source software like Linux and digital platforms like Airbnb and Uber, redefine service delivery and challenge conventional business models, thus diminishing the value of traditional incumbents’ assets. Leiponen emphasizes the necessity for companies to monitor disruptions, develop adaptive strategies, and remain agile in the face of rapid technological evolution. Failure to do so, as demonstrated by Nokia and traditional travel agencies, can result in significant market share losses. Ultimately, continual innovation, adaptation, and agility are deemed essential for thriving in the ever-changing technological landscape.

One of the book’s standout features is its comprehensive examination of digital innovation strategies, encompassing everything from the theoretical underpinnings to practical applications. However, it could further enhance its scope by addressing critical research gaps in areas such as digital twins, data governance, ethics, and sustainability. Additionally, while emphasizing the transformative potential of disruptive innovation, it could provide more nuanced strategies for navigating these disruptions beyond the illustrative examples provided.

Overall, Digital Innovation Strategy serves as an indispensable resource for students, researchers, professionals, and policymakers seeking to comprehend the evolution, strategies, and impacts of digital business innovation. Its clear explanations and extensive range of case studies make it easily understandable and highly valuable for individuals navigating the intricacies of the digital era.

Word of the Day: Transform Your Writing in 15 Minutes a Day

Marilyn Horowitz with Elizabeth Wiseman. London, England: O-Books. 2024. 170 pages.

Index Terms—mind-mapping, writing challenge, writing habits

Reviewed by Rhonda Lunemann.

Do you want to change your writing? Marilyn Horowitz has a unique way of helping you do so in 30 days by practicing what she calls the “word of the day.” I took her challenge.

Since I recently retired, I started a blog and am authoring a book. I’m using my blog to log my encounters with others over coffee. These will serve as examples in my book. I tried her 30-day challenge to help me generate ideas for blog posts.

In Horowitz’s book, Word of the Day: Transform Your Writing in 15 Minutes a Day, she suggests that implementing her 30-day challenge will help you build a new habit to permanently upgrade your writing.

This challenge includes three steps. At the beginning of the day, set a one-minute timer, do the breathing preparation, and write the word you are thinking of inside a circle. In her example, she selects the word “Writer” (p. 11). Then, write another word, circle it, and draw a spoke to connect the two circles. I found this to be like the mind-mapping technique. Like mind-mapping, this tool helps you write down other words and make associations between the new words and the initial word.

For one minute, free associate about your initial word choice. Horowitz notes, “Your resulting page may look like a cloud of balloons or may have crazy offshoots in many directions with bubbles extending every which way” (p.12).

Next, plan your ideal day. At the end of the day, perform a review of the day.

She provides blank clusters in the beginning of the book: Word of the Day Cluster, Conflict Word Cluster, My Writing Intentions Cluster, and My Writing Beliefs Cluster. In addition, she provides a blank template for the ideal writing schedule and the nightly review, along with the Word of the Day 30-Day Checklist.

I started by doing the Word of the Day cluster on Day 1 and added a story idea and recorded my notes. I found the Writing Intentions, Ideal Day Planner, and Nightly Review sections helpful. I used the Diary portion to note how I felt about my day overall and noted where I wanted to make changes.

Since I completed my 30-day challenge, I have a documented record of my ideas and insights that I can review to determine what worked the best and what I need to change to improve my writing time.

Check out Horowitz’s book if you are looking for a 30-day writing challenge. You can read more about her work at www.marilynhorowitz.com.

The Conversation on Work

Ian O. Willamson, ed. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. 2024. 246 pages, including index.

Index Terms—AI and job market, remote work, workforce diversity, workplace evolution/technology

Reviewed by Joanne DeVoir, Information Development Manager, Minitab LLC.

I was interested in reading The Conversation on Work because of how much the workplace has changed over my career. The workplace of five years ago looks so different than it does now. What will it look like five or ten years from today? Ian O. Williamson explores that question, along with others.

The Conversation on Work is a compilation of articles that were published for The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization. The authors featured in this book are from universities and research institutions in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia with specializations in fields like sociology, management, economics, computer science, urban studies, and law.

Williamson organized this book in four sections. The first section focuses on how the workplace and socioeconomic environment have evolved in the last few decades. Topics include workers’ rights, remote work, the gig economy, voluntary turnover, aligning work with personal values, and the working poor in America.

The second section covers topics on how the workforce is changing and its impact on workers’ needs and desires now and in the future. The seven articles discuss diversity of age, race, and ethnicity; building relationships with remote workers, inclusive leadership; remote work’s effect on city centers; activism at work; ways to address mental health; and training needs for jobs in sustainability.

The book’s third part focuses on the workplace of the future and explores how employers are responding to employees’ revised expectations about work. Topics include finding meaningful work, avoiding burnout, benefits of commuting and transitioning between work and home, success stories about a four-day work week, and how to find community when you are a gig worker.

The last section is about workplace technology. Several chapters discuss AI’s effect on the job market and how jobs will change. One author, Bhaskar Chakravorti, discusses how the tech trends of the past suggest that AI’s future place at work may be unpredictable. Other topics focus on virtual reality strategies for remote workers, automation in production, technology and the law, and how companies are scanning social media to screen job candidates.

The Conversation on Work is easy to read, comprehensive, and professionally researched. Just like the content on The Conversation website, the authors write in plain English to ensure that the content is accessible to a general audience. The editor introduces each of the four sections with a summary that connects the articles in that section. Each of the introductions also includes a list of recommended further readings and references, which is helpful if you want to dive deep into the theme of a particular section.

Overall, The Conversation on Work is an excellent resource to learn more about trends in the workplace. In reading this book, I was introduced to The Conversation website, which features a variety of timely, important, and impactful topics that are written by experts in their fields.

The Art of Fact in the Digital Age: An Anthology of New Literary Journalism

Jacqueline Marino and David O. Dowling, eds. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic. 2024. 248 pages, including index.

Index Terms—digital journalism, immersive storytelling, multimedia narratives

Reviewed by Patrick Lufkin

Long form literary journalism has a long and storied history dating back at least to Daniel Defoe in the 18th century. It also received a major infusion of energy in the 1960s in what Tom Wolfe called the New Journalism, a narrative style which told fact-centric stories using techniques borrowed from fiction: scene-by-scene structure, dialogue, point of view, and first-person narration which often made the teller part of the story. That history has been previously recounted, notably in The Art of Fact, a classic anthology from 1997, which soon became a staple in journalism classrooms.

The present volume, The Art of Fact in the Digital Age: An Anthology of New Literary Journalism, carries the development forward to document how the art of factual narration has responded to the wealth of resources made available by digital technology—multimedia and the internet—and the results are truly spectacular.

The editors have gathered excerpts from the best of the Digital Age journalism to show how modern technology can be used to create immersive multimedia narratives that explore their subject matter in ways that were never previously possible. Digital media, unlike print media, is largely unconstrained by space limitations. This, and the technology itself, allows digital journalists to freely add notes glossing the text, embed videos, animated maps, and other graphics, and link to ancillary information covering side issues, thus allowing their viewers to explore the material in whatever ways best suit their needs.

For all the enhancements the use of digital technologies provides, the heart of each piece remains great writing, and this book contains some of the best nonfiction writing you are likely to encounter anywhere.

The excerpts included cover a wide range of subjects. “Snow Fall, The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek” uses dazzling imagery, aerial photography, interactive graphics, and much more to tell its story. Another uses multiple viewpoints and a time-stamped progression to explore the final 32 hours leading up to the murder of Martin Luther King. In a few stories, the reporter takes the stage, as in “My Four Months as a Private Prison Guard.” Others attempt to confront the unspeakable, as in “Dispatches from Ukraine” or “The Really Big One” about the possibility of a mega-earthquake on the Cascadia subduction zone in the Pacific Northwest. Vivid, and captivating, the excerpts display digital journalism in all its variety and at its best.

Of course, a print book of excerpts cannot duplicate the power of the multimedia originals. To compensate, the editors have provided an introduction for each piece giving context and explaining its innovations. An extensive bibliography points to online resources—including links to the full versions of the works from which the excerpts are taken. Also included are links to academic studies of the new journalism, and other notable works that did not make it into the anthology.

Whether you are a practitioner looking to enhance your digital repertoire by seeing what others have done, or just an avid consumer of fact-based narratives, The Art of Fact in the Digital Age is sure to give you much to explore and think about.

Just Here for the Comments: Lurking as Digital Literacy Practice

Gina Sipley. Bristol, United Kingdom: Bristol University Press. 2024. 152 pages, including index.

Index Terms—digital journalism/literacy, immersive storytelling, multimedia narratives

Reviewed by Siobhan Patterson, Communications Consultant

In Just Here for the Comments: Lurking as Digital Literacy Practice, Gina Sipley grounds the audience in the historical context of the term “lurking” and the social contribution it has despite not leaving proof or visual representation of activity. Lurking traditionally has a negative connotation, whether as a story villain or spreader of misinformation. However, Sipley works to bring context to the community and insights created through this activity.

Through her research, Sipley makes the connection for lurking as a participatory practice. She identifies five lurker literacies: receptive reading, sensemaking, participatory restraint, protective curation, and reflexive entertainment. These literacy classifications are due in large part to the vast knowledge shared in online communities. Members of these communities are scrolling through dozens or hundreds of posts a day, making it impossible to respond to everything they come across in a single social media session. Even though these members might not leave a digital footprint, they are choosing how to transport and share the information into their everyday lives.

Sipley compares lurking to a continuum when she shares her research about Facebook group participants. In these communities, participants might start as lurkers, analyzing the group customs and hierarchy. They then progress to commenting and eventually feeling empowered to share their personal experiences with the other participants. That empowerment creates a freedom that can then be carried offline and into in-person conversations and groups.

Threaded throughout Just Here for the Comments are several calls to action. Sipley strives for lurkers to be part of all future research, because without them, the research is incomplete or incorrect. She provides guidance on how to engage these users and encourage their participation in the conversation. She also reminds the reader that when considering eye tracking results in literacy research, to be mindful of the larger global audience. In this, she reminds readers that English-based tests are not reflective or inclusive of how other languages and cultures are engaging in online content.

One suggestion that would have improved my reading experience—including the referenced memes. For a book titled after a meme and each chapter opening with a detailed description, having the memes embedded would have strengthened the connection Sipley builds. It was a bit distracting at times trying to recall the referenced example and then continue the chapter content flow, whereas having the visual example would have made for quicker understanding.