In the words of the back cover, Digital discourse aims to provide “a distinctly sociolinguistic perspective on the nature of language in digital technologies” but also, according to the editors in the introduction, to advance the field beyond where previous edited volumes and special issues of journals have been able to take it. To accomplish these tasks, this edited volume organizes a wide range of studies of discursive communities, media, and codes, offered by a very international set of scholars. Naomi Baron provides a foreword and Susan Herring commentary at the end.

In the introduction, the editors lay out four “organizing principles” that “could/should define the work of new media sociolinguistics” (xxiii) and that structure the volume. The first is attention to “the everyday life of language in use—or just discourse” (xxiii, emphasis in original). They explicitly contrast this focus with a focus on abstract grammar, and explain that such a view encourages us to accept communication as mediated and subject to technologization. Second, while it is helpful to think of media in terms of technologies, the authors caution not to “fetishize technology at the expense of its social meanings and cultural practices” (xxv). They wish to retain curiosity about the interplay between language and both mechanical/digital and semiotic/linguistic technologies. Third, Thurlow & Mroczek call for attention to multimodality, or the convergence, layering, and simultaneity of communication across and between media and modes in space. The fourth principle is consideration of the constant interaction between ideology and communicative practices.

The rest of the book consists of fifteen chapters grouped into five parts according to how they use analytical concepts of discourse, style, and genre. Part 1 sets the stage by exploring social control and creativity in the television reporting of Detroit's former mayor's text-message scandal, online gossip among New York college students, and volunteer Irish-language translators for Facebook. Part 2 explores the hybridity of new genres in closings of Greek text messages, the relationship between authors of Japanese keitai ‘mobile phone’ novels and their audiences, and Cantonese-English bilingual status updates on Facebook. Part 3 focuses on the semiotics of style and stylization through chapters on the multimodality of “World of Warcraft,” the code-switching and style shifting of Finnish Christian extreme sport enthusiasts, and the Hebrew-language blogs of Israeli “Girly girls.” Part 4 examines issues of stance in the blog “Stuff white people like,” the use of the photo-sharing site Flickr by tourists, and YouTube videos of the Arabic-speaking Korean and Vietnamese comedian Wonho Chung. Part 5 considers methodological challenges through research on digital heteroglossia, a corpus study of text messaging in Switzerland, and online video footage of skateboarders in Hong Kong.

This book would be a fine contribution to the sociolinguistics of new media simply by virtue of the overall quality of the contributions. By showing readers how widely and creatively one can undertake a sociolinguistics of new media, as well as by pulling such a range of scholars into dialogue with one another, it advances the field impressively.