Lecture 1 : digital media sociology
Introduction
Which technologies and media did you use this morning, and to which
purpose
- Nmbs app, mobile, tiktok, messenger,
Taken-for-grantedness
Sociology studies the social organization of society
- How do people live together?
- What oppurtunities and problems arise from this?
Questions revolve mainly around:
- Social order (and social cohesion)
- Social inequality, in a material and symbolic sense
- Identity, as a group and as individual
Psychology: Individual cognition, emotion, behavior
A DIGITAL MEDIA SOCIETY
How do digita media…
… are implicated in ‘the way we do things’ (social order)?
…disrupt or reproduce power? (social inequality)?
…shape the meaning of things (identity)?
- Micro-level: changes in our everyday practices
- Macro-level: changes to our societal institutions
MEDIA SOCIOLOGY VS. MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY
Media sociology studies how media affect the social organization of
society, and
Media psychology how media affect individueal cognition, emotion and
behaviour
Media studies study the media industry and ho wit delivers
messages to audiences
E.g., does TV viewing lead to a child obesity epidemic?
- When woman started working, children were alone at home and then
they watched TV and ate a lot of food.
,SOCIAL STRUCTURE & SOCIAL POSITIONS AND SOCIAL ROLES
Social structure = the organized patterns of relationships rules and ‘rule
arrangements’ that govern how people interact and live together
(!) Organized ≠ ‘formal’
Arrangements of rules into established systems => social institutions
Arrangements of relationships/interactions => social positions
Platform Economy as an emerging social institution
Social Position: self-employed or employee?
Social identity: Brand ambassadors or algorithmic slaves?
SOCIAL STRUCTURE & CULTURE
Culture = a shared set of beliefs, norms, behaviors, values, symbols,
rituals, attitudes, …
Culture and social structure are linked:
→ values and beliefs are forces that shape social order
→ norms are expectations of how one should behave
→ patterns of behavior normatively expected for certain social positions
are social roles
→ rituals are habitualized behaviors and objects that are symbolic/carry
meaning (and thus value)
Course information
DIGITAL MEDIA SOCIOLOGY
- Over the past two decades, digital media have deeply impacted the
social organization of society.
- Because digital media have become so taken-for-granted, we often fail
to see this impact.
- Digital media sociology aims to lift the veil over the taken-for-
grantedness. How does digitization affect…
> our everyday practices (micro-level)
> our social institutions and the social order (macro-level)
THREE QUESTIONS TIED TO THREE ‘LOGICS’
Is 24/7 connectivity a bliss or a burden? (network logic)
Are social media making us more or less social? (social logic)
Does datafication empower or disempower? (personal logic)
, - Socio-historical change: How did we get here?
- Micro-level: What are the implications for the everyday life?
- Macro-level: What are broader, societal implications?
Social structure: why do we do the things we do?
DOING THINGS A CERTAIN WAY: SOCIAL STRUCTURE AS A SET OF ‘LOGICS’
Our everyday practices, i.e., 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, thus
reproducing the social order or challenging it
Practices are thus
inherently relational (= social),
persistent/durable (= historical), and
cultural (= contextual)
Social change occurs when individuals successfully and collectively
produce a new social order
GIDDENS’ STRUCTURATION THEORY (1984)
Duality of structure: structure and agency as mutually constitutive
- Social structures: enable and constrain human action (provides rules
ánd resources for meaningful action)
- Agency: Individuals produce and reproduce social structure. They are
knowledgeable, rational actors with:
(1) the capacity for ‘reflexivity’: a capacity to reflect on the social
structure and their role as reproducing agent in it, and
(2) 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
The ‘duality’ between structure and agency is an interplay that oftentimes
reveals how power is distributed and negotiated in society
OKAY… BUT WHY IS THIS RELEVANT FOR THIS COURSE?
Social structures are prescriptive: they specify a way of ‘doing things’
(Giddens, 1984) – in other words: they make it logical to organize things
repeatedly and systematically in a certain manner
There are also such ‘logics’ present in media technologies:
‘Apparatgeist: the “spirit of the machine” (Katz & Aakhus, 2002, p.
, 305):
There are logics prescribed by the technology that direct human
behavior – not in a deterministic way, but rather by providing humans
with both a “rationality of means” (p. 306) and “constraint upon
possibilities” (p. 307).
Duality of technology
“Technology is the product of human action, while it also assumes structural
properties. That is, technology is physically constructed by actors working in a
given social context, and technology is socially constructed by actors through the
different meanings they attach to it and the various features they emphasize and
use. However, it is also the case that once developed and deployed, technology
tends to become reified and institutionalized, losing its connection with the
human agents that constructed it or gave it meaning, and it appears to be part of
the objective, structural properties of the organization” (p. 406)
THE HISTORY OF SMS
(a) insignificant byproduct of mobile telephony
(b) ‘free’ communication (d) massive success leads to development tariff plans
(c) 140 chars limit + paid-for contribute to particular practices of communication,
sms-language, … (a) keyboard phone facilitates typing
(b) people start sending multimedia …
The structures of digital media: technological affordances
WHAT STRUCTURES ARE THERE IN TECHNOLOGY THAT MAKE IT LOGIC-AL TO DO
THINGS IN A PARTICULAR WAY?
DIGITAL MEDIA
Introduction
Which technologies and media did you use this morning, and to which
purpose
- Nmbs app, mobile, tiktok, messenger,
Taken-for-grantedness
Sociology studies the social organization of society
- How do people live together?
- What oppurtunities and problems arise from this?
Questions revolve mainly around:
- Social order (and social cohesion)
- Social inequality, in a material and symbolic sense
- Identity, as a group and as individual
Psychology: Individual cognition, emotion, behavior
A DIGITAL MEDIA SOCIETY
How do digita media…
… are implicated in ‘the way we do things’ (social order)?
…disrupt or reproduce power? (social inequality)?
…shape the meaning of things (identity)?
- Micro-level: changes in our everyday practices
- Macro-level: changes to our societal institutions
MEDIA SOCIOLOGY VS. MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY
Media sociology studies how media affect the social organization of
society, and
Media psychology how media affect individueal cognition, emotion and
behaviour
Media studies study the media industry and ho wit delivers
messages to audiences
E.g., does TV viewing lead to a child obesity epidemic?
- When woman started working, children were alone at home and then
they watched TV and ate a lot of food.
,SOCIAL STRUCTURE & SOCIAL POSITIONS AND SOCIAL ROLES
Social structure = the organized patterns of relationships rules and ‘rule
arrangements’ that govern how people interact and live together
(!) Organized ≠ ‘formal’
Arrangements of rules into established systems => social institutions
Arrangements of relationships/interactions => social positions
Platform Economy as an emerging social institution
Social Position: self-employed or employee?
Social identity: Brand ambassadors or algorithmic slaves?
SOCIAL STRUCTURE & CULTURE
Culture = a shared set of beliefs, norms, behaviors, values, symbols,
rituals, attitudes, …
Culture and social structure are linked:
→ values and beliefs are forces that shape social order
→ norms are expectations of how one should behave
→ patterns of behavior normatively expected for certain social positions
are social roles
→ rituals are habitualized behaviors and objects that are symbolic/carry
meaning (and thus value)
Course information
DIGITAL MEDIA SOCIOLOGY
- Over the past two decades, digital media have deeply impacted the
social organization of society.
- Because digital media have become so taken-for-granted, we often fail
to see this impact.
- Digital media sociology aims to lift the veil over the taken-for-
grantedness. How does digitization affect…
> our everyday practices (micro-level)
> our social institutions and the social order (macro-level)
THREE QUESTIONS TIED TO THREE ‘LOGICS’
Is 24/7 connectivity a bliss or a burden? (network logic)
Are social media making us more or less social? (social logic)
Does datafication empower or disempower? (personal logic)
, - Socio-historical change: How did we get here?
- Micro-level: What are the implications for the everyday life?
- Macro-level: What are broader, societal implications?
Social structure: why do we do the things we do?
DOING THINGS A CERTAIN WAY: SOCIAL STRUCTURE AS A SET OF ‘LOGICS’
Our everyday practices, i.e., 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, thus
reproducing the social order or challenging it
Practices are thus
inherently relational (= social),
persistent/durable (= historical), and
cultural (= contextual)
Social change occurs when individuals successfully and collectively
produce a new social order
GIDDENS’ STRUCTURATION THEORY (1984)
Duality of structure: structure and agency as mutually constitutive
- Social structures: enable and constrain human action (provides rules
ánd resources for meaningful action)
- Agency: Individuals produce and reproduce social structure. They are
knowledgeable, rational actors with:
(1) the capacity for ‘reflexivity’: a capacity to reflect on the social
structure and their role as reproducing agent in it, and
(2) 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
The ‘duality’ between structure and agency is an interplay that oftentimes
reveals how power is distributed and negotiated in society
OKAY… BUT WHY IS THIS RELEVANT FOR THIS COURSE?
Social structures are prescriptive: they specify a way of ‘doing things’
(Giddens, 1984) – in other words: they make it logical to organize things
repeatedly and systematically in a certain manner
There are also such ‘logics’ present in media technologies:
‘Apparatgeist: the “spirit of the machine” (Katz & Aakhus, 2002, p.
, 305):
There are logics prescribed by the technology that direct human
behavior – not in a deterministic way, but rather by providing humans
with both a “rationality of means” (p. 306) and “constraint upon
possibilities” (p. 307).
Duality of technology
“Technology is the product of human action, while it also assumes structural
properties. That is, technology is physically constructed by actors working in a
given social context, and technology is socially constructed by actors through the
different meanings they attach to it and the various features they emphasize and
use. However, it is also the case that once developed and deployed, technology
tends to become reified and institutionalized, losing its connection with the
human agents that constructed it or gave it meaning, and it appears to be part of
the objective, structural properties of the organization” (p. 406)
THE HISTORY OF SMS
(a) insignificant byproduct of mobile telephony
(b) ‘free’ communication (d) massive success leads to development tariff plans
(c) 140 chars limit + paid-for contribute to particular practices of communication,
sms-language, … (a) keyboard phone facilitates typing
(b) people start sending multimedia …
The structures of digital media: technological affordances
WHAT STRUCTURES ARE THERE IN TECHNOLOGY THAT MAKE IT LOGIC-AL TO DO
THINGS IN A PARTICULAR WAY?
DIGITAL MEDIA
