Digital Performance in Everyday Life

Digital Performance in Everyday Life combines theories of performance, communication, and media to explore the many ways we perform in our everyday lives through digital media and in virtual spaces.

Digital communication technologies and the social norms and discourses that developed alongside these technologies have altered the ways we perform as and for ourselves and each other in virtual spaces. Through a diverse range of topics and examples-including discussions of self-identity, surveillance, mourning, internet memes, storytelling, ritual, political action, and activism-this book addresses how the physical and virtual have become inseparable in everyday life, and how the digital is always rooted in embodied action. Focusing on performance and human agency, the authors offer fresh perspectives on communication and digital culture.


The unique, interdisciplinary approach of this book will be useful to scholars, artists, and activists in communication, digital media, performance studies, theatre, sociology, political science, information technology, and cybersecurity-along with anyone interested in how communication shapes and is shaped by digital technologies.

1. Introduction to Digital Performance in Everyday Life 2. Digital Performances of Self-identity 3. Everyday Performances of Surveillance, Sousveillance, and Coveillance 4. Virtual Habits and Rituals 5. Digital Mourning and Memorialization 6. The Virtual Storyteller 7. "Re-": Internet Memes as Digital Performances of Adaptation 8. Slactivism 9.Political Theatre in Everyday Life 10. Conclusion