“Distributed Blackness is a joyful exploration of Black cybercultural expression, which, along the way, claims its rightful place in the history of Black intellectualism and forges new theoretical paths for AoIR scholarship,” the organization said in announcing the award, which the AoIR said was given unanimously.

Brock’s book highlights Blackness as a central and formative force in internet culture and details critical technocultural discourse analysis (CTDA), which seeks to help explain the discursive and meaning-making capacities of technology.