Book Review: Introducing vigilant audiences. Open Book Publishers by D. Trottier, R. Gabdulhakov and Q. Huang

• Author: Paul Bleakley
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10575677211034228
• Published date: 01 December 2022
• Date: 01 December 2022
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

Book Reviews

Trottier, D., Gabdulhakov, R., & Huang, Q. (Eds.) (2020).

Introducing vigilant audiences. Open Book Publishers. pp. 342. ISBN: 9781783749041. Open Access.

Reviewed by: Paul Bleakley ,Middlesex University, London, United Kingdom

DOI: 10.1177/10575677211034228

The use of the internet as a medium for public discourse is a well-covered subject, including the role

social media platforms play in facilitating and shaping that discourse. More generally, the prolifer-

ation of communication technologies in postindustrial society has functioned to blur the boundaries

between the physical and online worlds. Like politicians such as former President Donald Trump,

several precipitating factors have played an instrumental role in legitimizing social media as a plat-

form for “robust”discourse. However, this type of discourse is not limited to the political sphere,

with the internet serving as a place where—under the guise of accountability—a collective (often

anonymous) engages in digital vigilantism or digilantism.

It is this digilantism that is the central focus of Daniel Trottier, Rashid Gabdulhakov, and Qian

Huang’sIntroducing Vigilant Audiences (2020), an edited collection that examines the current

state of research on digital vigilantism. Trottier et al. assembled a diverse cross-section of contribu-

tors in Introducing Vigilant Audiences, allowing for a truly holistic and interdisciplinary approach to

a subject matter that demands it. The collection is generally divided into two sets of chapters: first,

examining the nexus between entertainment and digilantism and, later, a subsequent set of chapters

looking at issues such as citizenship, nationalism, and far-right populism. This second category of

chapters covers, in part, terrain that has been extensively covered in existing research on the far-

or alt-right. However, in the context of Introducing Vigilant Audiences, the chapters from authors

like Tanner, Crosset and Campana (pp. 129–160) and Milbrandt (pp. 215–258) take on new dimen-

sions, understood in the context and from the perspective of vigilantism more broadly and reflecting

enduring patterns of behavior that have been transformed by the internet but—importantly—not

invented on the Internet.

The contributors in Introducing Vigilant Audiences focus on examples of digilantism from various

parts of the world, reflecting the geographically diverse nature of contributors. Furthermore, this col-

lection goes beyond locale, as the contributors come from varying academic disciplines like com-

puter ethics (Douglas) and media and communication (Driessen) to sociology (Milbrandt) and

criminology (Plesnicar). The interdisciplinary tenor of the contributors shines through, making

Introducing Vigilant Audiences a book that is not constrained by intradisciplinary myopia. This

seems to have been a purposeful decision on Trottier et al.’s part, noting early in their introduction,

“vigilant audiences entail a range of phenomena, span geographic area and vary in their motivations

as well as their affiliations”(p. 1).

From a criminal justice perspective, there are a number of valuable contributions in Introducing

Vigilant Audiences, particularly toward the end of the collection. Early chapters, like Driessen’s work

on digilantism in online pop-culture fandoms (pp. 25–48) and Linton’s timely research on the con-

tested nature of “comedy”on the internet (pp. 77–106), have perhaps more tenuous resonance for

Book Reviews

International Criminal Justice Review

2022, Vol. 32(4) 469–475

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