Focusing on the history of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1865 abolitionist poem “Christmas Bells,” this chapter argues that the mediation, reproduction, and circulation of poetry in the digital age are best understood in relation to a longer history of poetry's technological mediation and reproduction by print and older nonprint media. Analyzing how the text of “Christmas Bells” has been edited, cut, reformatted, repurposed, and reproduced for a wide range of media and media platforms over a period of 150 years (via print periodical, postcard, rubber crafting stamp, musical performance, gift tag, television broadcast, YouTube video, dinner menu, souvenir plate, Wikipedia page, and more) reveals not only the common and ongoing mutability of the poetic text in the age of its mechanical reproduction but also the need for new critical models that reassess notions of the poem, author, reader, and book as cardinal points of poetry studies. Reimagining poetry studies in the digital age also means reimagining the study of poetry produced centuries before; it means reconsidering the longer history of poetry's remediation that the digital age inherits, extends, and remakes.

Chapter 3 addresses open online knowledge sharing. Open sharing is becoming more important in all major sectors in society, including science, politics, education and innovation, knowledge products (videos, textbooks and databases). This sharing includes both the domain of expert-produced scientific knowledge and massive amounts of citizen-produced practical knowledge. Because of lower publishing costs, Open Access has become the new dominant trend that makes research accessible to everyone. Increased production of open textbooks gives a more readable access to scientific knowledge and reaches a much wider audience. In addition, scientific knowledge construction processes are becoming transparent. This includes the establishment of many more open digital databases that allow anyone both to make their own contributions and get free access to all the data (e.g. citizen science project like eBird). There is also experimentation with making knowledge construction processes more open, both within scientific discourse (e.g. Polymath project) and the development of encyclopedic knowledge (e.g. Wikipedia). In addition, the recent decade has seen an enormous increase in amateur-produced practical knowledge, not only texts, but an abundance of images and videos. Enthusiasts share their skills and passions concerning any activity that might be of interest to other like-minded persons. It also includes the sharing of political opinions, for example with new digital technologies like argument mapping. Even some companies in the business sector have begun sharing more of its corporate knowledge.

“To become a celebrity is to become a brand name,” Philip Roth told Alain Finkielkraut in 1981. “There is Ivory soap, Rice Krispies, and Philip Roth.” This was neither the first nor the last time that Roth would address his public image. In both fiction and nonfiction – from his novels to his memoirs to his “Open Letter to Wikipedia” in 2012, Roth wrote about himself, contending with and processing public representations of “Philip Roth.”

The final chapter in the volume confronts Philip Roth's retirement announcement in 2012, and reflects on the final years of his life, during which he spent his time reading – both his work and the work of others – and intermittently re-emerging to weigh in on issues ranging from political issues of the day to the state of his own literary legacy.

The chapter further posits that the current language practices need to be addressed and the prestige of African languages in the South African banking industry needs to be revitalised as a matter of urgency. The chapter engages in a systematic literature review and qualitative methods, that is, the questionnaire, interviews and observations in the banks. These methods will assist the researcher to be able to analyse the multilingual language policies and their relationship with the everyday use of African languages in the South African banks.

Chapter 5 examines the impact of the Internet and social media on how the speech and press rights discussed in Chapter 1 operate in the context of our modern democracy. New technology has had two primary consequences: to democratize public debate by permitting any and all citizens to reach potentially vast audiences, and to disintermediate public debate by reducing the role of the mainstream media and political leadership as gatekeepers of the flow of information and ideas to citizens. In the early Internet era it was hoped that these developments would revitalize democracy. Instead, their actual impact has been to produce cacophony, political polarization, and a collapse of social consensus regarding even basic facts. The balance of the chapter proposes possible solutions to address these pathologies. Importantly, the chapter does not suggest that a return to elite intermediaries such as media entities is plausible. Instead, it explores ways in which the democratizing potential of the Internet can be harnessed to create new institutions that might be broadly trusted, at least as to factual matters, and so might help ease political polarization.