Download |

Preface

Network actors and bloggers from various countries in the Arab world and Europe as well as from the USA provided the empirical basis for this book with their narratives in words and images. Thanks to their willingness to participate in the study “Communicative Publics in Cyberspace,” it was possible to propound a typology of narrations which can be read as time stamps, illustrating what is on the minds of adolescents and young adults in different parts of the world today. I would like to thank them for their readiness to talk. My thanks also go to the researchers in my team at the University of Klagenfurt, Nicole Duller, Katja Langeland, Katja Ošljak, and Heidrun Stückler, who conducted the interviews with great commitment.

The translation of the book into English was accompanied by Doris Haslinger (FWF) and Sabina Abdel-Kader (FWF) as they paved the admin- istrative way for support by the Austrian Science Fund. With their profes- sional advice and much empathy, Lucy Batrouney, Mala Sanghera-Warren, and Bryony Burns from Palgrave Macmillan were very helpful in shep- herding this book through the various stages of publication in getting the book published.

I would particularly like to thank the translator, Helen Heaney, for our intensive cooperation on the book, during which I learnt a lot about the art of translating and about wrestling with words and their meanings.

Klagenfurt, Austria | Christina Schachtner 2020