Samenvatting Digital Media Sociology

Table of Contents
INLEIDING..................................................................................................... 3
SOCIAL STRUCTURE: WHY DO WE DO THE THINGS WE DO?...............................4
GIDDENS STRUCTURATION THEORY.......................................................................................... 4

DUALITY OF TECHNOLOGY..............................................................................5
THE STRUCTURES OF DIGITAL MEDIA: TECHNOLOGICAL AFFORDANCES.............5
HOW DO DIGITAL MEDIA AFFECT THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY........5
NETWORK LOGIC: INTRO................................................................................7
NETWORK SOCIETY.............................................................................................................. 7
Changes to the social order........................................................................................ 8
NETWORKED INDIVIDUALISM.................................................................................................. 9
The individual in relation to the new social order: a networked individual.................9
Social implications.................................................................................................... 10
HYBRID SPACES................................................................................................................ 10
Networked individuals operating in hybrid spaces...................................................10
Rationalization.......................................................................................................... 11
Rationalization & network logic: Disintermediation..................................................13
Consequences: micro-coordination & flexible alignment..........................................14
Rationalization & network logic: broader implications..............................................14
Implications for economies in the global south........................................................17
Acceleration – agency under contextual constraints................................................18
Resonance................................................................................................................ 20
GASTLES DIGITAL WELLBEING AND DISCONNECTION......................................23
WHAT IS DIGITAL DISCONNECTION......................................................................................... 23
Voluntary.................................................................................................................. 23
Involuntary............................................................................................................... 23
Grey zone................................................................................................................. 23
WHAT IS DIGITAL WELLBEING............................................................................................... 25
Psychological, ethical and socio-political perspectives.............................................25
UNDERSTANDING DIGITAL WELLBEING AND DISCONNECTION THROUGH CARE..................................26
CASES............................................................................................................................ 27
COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION (SOCIAL LOGIC)...............................28
THE INTERNET PARADOX..................................................................................................... 28
TIME DISPLACEMENT.......................................................................................................... 28
CUES-FILTERED-OUT.......................................................................................................... 29
CMC THEORIES RE-VISITED................................................................................................. 30
CONNECTED PRESENCE AND RITUALISTIC CONTACT.......................................32
THE NEED TO BELONG........................................................................................................ 32
SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS: A SOCIO-HISTORICAL LENS..................................................................32
CONNECTED PRESENCE...................................................................................................... 34
RITUALS: PHATIC COMMUNICATION & GIFT-GIVING....................................................................35
EXAMPLE: EPHEMERAL COMMUNICATION.................................................................................36
DIGITAL GEMEINSCHAFT?.................................................................................................... 37
SOCIAL CAPITAL...........................................................................................39
ARE SOCIAL MEDIA CONTRIBUTING OR THREATENING SOCIAL CAPITAL...........................................39
WHAT IS SOCIAL CAPITAL?................................................................................................... 39
SOCIAL MEDIA, SOCIAL CAPITAL?..........................................................................................40
SOCIAL MEDIA AND PRIVATE FACE OF SOCIAL CAPITAL................................................................40
SOCIAL MEDIA AND PUBLIC FACE OF SOCIAL CAPITAL.................................................................42

,DATAFICATION, DATAISM AND DATAVEILLANCE..............................................44
DIGITIZATION & SHIFTING PERSPECTIVES ON THE USER.............................................................44
POLITICAL ECONOMY: DATAFICATION, DATAISM & DATAVEILLANCE................................................45
Are data ‘objective’? are tech companies handling with integrity and independence?
................................................................................................................................. 46
SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE PROBLEM OF DATAVEILLANCE AND (ADDICTIVE) DESIGN.............................46
DATAVEILLANCE................................................................................................................ 47
GEN AI AND THE PROBLEM OF REPRESENTATION......................................................................48
LEGAL: ‘MISUSE’ AND LIABILITY............................................................................................48
GENAI IS NOT A SERVICE THAT TRANSMITS USER-GENERATED CONTENT........................................48
THE UNADDRESSED PROBLEM: GENAI AND THE PROBLEM OF REPRESENTATION...............................50
DE(-COLONIALISM): WHO EXPLOITS, WHO EXPLOITED?..............................................................50
INTRO: THE QUANTIFIED SELF..............................................................................................50
SELF-TRACKING TECHNOLOGIES............................................................................................ 51
TENSION 1: EMPOWERMENT VS DISEMPOWERMENT..................................................................51
TENSION 2: THE POLITICS OF MEASUREMENT AND THE REIFICATION OF BODILY EXPERIENCE..............54
TENSION 3: IMPROVING VS ERODING HEALTH CARE...................................................................55

,Inleiding
Taken-for-grantedness
Sociology <-> Digital media sociology
Study of social life Micro-level: changes in our
everydat practices
- Certain ways of doing things
- How & why we do things - Ex: the way we do things
- Social order, social inequality Macro-level: changes to our social
& identity (individual & institutions
group)
- Ex: institutionalization
<-> psychology (individual (platform economy)
cognition, emotion & behavior)


Social structure = how we organize things
Social institutions Social positions
Arrangements of rules into Arrangements of
established systems relationships/interactions


Platform economy  social inequality & social identity
Social culture
- Values & beliefs: forces that shape social order
- Norms: expectations on how you should behave
- Practices: patterns of behavior normatively expected fot certain
social positions are social roles
- Rituals: habitualized behaviors and can include objects that are
symbolic




Example: picture influencer
- Culture: beauty standards
- Inequality: pretty privilege

, - Lower self esteem
- Attention economy


Social structure: why do we do the things we
do?
= a set of logics (ex. Traffic light)
Our everyday practices, the ways in which we typically ‘do things’, reflect
the relationship between individuals and the social order
- Social order concerns the ‘rules’ that order society
- Individuals, through their practices, obey or disobey these rules, this
reproducing the social order or challenging it
- Practices are thus
o inherently relational (social)
 how we move in public space safe for ourselves and
others
o persistent/durable (historical)
 it existed before and will exist again
o cultural (contextual)
 some differences
 we can follow structure or disobey BUT people can challenge social
order
o Successful? Failed?
 Collective action is needed for change
- Social change occurs when individuals successfully and collectively
produce a new social order

Giddens structuration theory
Duality of structure: structure and agency as mutually constitutive
Social structures: enable and constrain human action (provides rules
and resources for meaningful action
Agency: individuals produce and reproduce social structure
- They are knowledgeable, rational actors with:
o The capacity for reflexivity: a capacity to reflect on the social
structure and their role as reproducing agent in it
o The capacity to act intentionally rational: to modify their
behavior in line with certain goals that they can reasonably
justify as being worthy of pursuit
Ex. Harry styles, dress, gender roles BUT enough for change? NO
Ex. Epstein (still happened even though people knew)  power & social
structure
Ex. #metoo  resistance
Social structures = prescriptive
- They specify a way of doing things

, - They make it logical to organize things repeatedly and
systematically in a certain manner


Duality of technology
= product of human action


The structures of digital media:
technological affordances
Technologies that are connected to an underlying technological
infrastructure that supports data transfer, and can be used to access,
consume, create and exchange information and/or communication
Focus on the everyday life, and how these technologies mate it logical to
do things a certain way
Digital media landscape constantly welcomes new technologies
A functional view: technological affordances
= possibilities for action
- They structure, they enable and constrain potential behavioral
outcomes in a particular context
- They are:
o Relational
o Contextual
o Designed
- Affordances checklist:
o Neither the object nor a feature of the object
o Not be the outcome
o Has variability
 A feature is present or absent, but an affordance is
gradual


How do digital media affect the social
organization of society
Social structures make certain practices logical
Because of their prescriptive nature, structuration can be described as
a process of installing and maintaining a logic in society, a set of
principles that makes it logical to organize things repeatedly and
systematically in a certain manner (ex. Gender)
In doing so, they thus shape society at the micro-level by changing
processes and routines in everyday life, and at the macro-level by
supporting social change that may alter or maintain the
social/institutional order

,Altering social order Maintaining social order
Social change in the social Reproducing social structures in
structures in society society
Ex via collective action Ex by emphasizing the status quo