Prelims

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The Politicization of Mumsnet

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SocietyNow

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Title Page

The Politicization of Mumsnet

Sarah Pedersen

Robert Gordon University, UK

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India Malaysia – China

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2020

© 2020 Sarah Pedersen

Published under an exclusive license by Emerald Publishing Limited

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-83909-471-2 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-83909-468-2 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-83909-470-5 (Epub)

Dedication

For the wise, witty and wonderful women of Mumsnet

About the Author

Sarah Pedersen is Professor of Communication and Media at Robert Gordon University. She also acts as Gender Equality Champion for the university.

Her research focuses on women's engagement with the media, using both historical and contemporary source material, including Twitter, blogs and of course Mumsnet. Her book The Scottish Suffragettes and the Press was published in 2017 by Palgrave Macmillan. The same year she was awarded funding by the Heritage Lottery Fund to produce an edition of the correspondence of Aberdeen suffragette and journalist Caroline Phillips. This work led to a plaque to Caroline Phillips being unveiled on Union Street in Aberdeen. Her work on the Scottish suffrage campaign has been praised in a motion to the Scottish Parliament and was highly commended by the judges of the British Records Association's annual Harley Prize. She was the Director of the Rise Up Quines! festival in Aberdeen in 2018, a festival celebrating the centenary of the (partial) achievement of the vote for women.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Justine Roberts and Rowan Davies of Mumsnet for their continued support for my research over the years. Many thanks to Robert Gordon University, and in particular to the School of Creative and Cultural Business, for supporting the writing of this book through the award of a research sabbatical. Many thanks as well to so many of my colleagues at the university, but in particular to Fiona Smith, Fiona McKay, Jo Royle, James Morrison, Peter Reid, Audrey Laing, Alison Watson, Natascha Mueller-Hirth, Lyndsey Bloice, Graeme Baxter, Michelle Lawrie, Andrew Pratt, Paul Hagan and David Gray. Many thanks in particular to Simon Burnett, Deborah Lupton, Gareth Thomas and Janet Smithson, with whom I have worked on the subject of Mumsnet over the years.

Many thanks to all at Emerald Publishing, but particularly Jen McCall, Carys Morley and Harriet Notman. Thanks too to Julie Bindel.

This book would not have been written without my reasons to go on Mumsnet in the first place, so many thanks to Thomas and Nikolas. Thanks to Bernard Tranter, my father, for commenting on a draft. Particular thanks to my husband Frederik, for everything really.