DIGITAL MEDIA SOCIOLOGY
LECTURE 1: INTRODUCTION
THREE QUESTIONS TIED TO THREE ‘LOGICS’
• Is 24/7 connectivity a bliss or a bruden? (network logic)
o Always on, always available
• Are social media making us more or less social? (social logic)
• Does datafication empower or disempower? (personal logic)
o Personalization leading to empowerment or disempowerment?
• Socio-historical change: how did we get here?
• Micro-level: what are the implicatoins for the everyday life?
• Macro-level: what are broader, societal implications?
MEDIA SOCIOLOGY VS MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY VS MEDIA STUDIES
• Media sociology studies how media affect the social organization of society
• Media psychology how media affect individual cognition, emotion and behavior
o Media selections and media effects through lense of individual
• Media studies study the media industry in relation to media user/audiences
=> look at the three together
Eg: slide 19
SOCIOLOGY
Sociology studies the social organization of society
• How do people live together? And how we organize things?
o Eg education in Flanders (quite cheap) <-> outside EU (US) => big impact on social
order
o Education is democratic = it’s okay to try and retry => no barrier <-> US
• Sociology = study of social life
• What opportunities and problems arise from this?
Questions revolve mainly around:
• Social order (and social cohesion)
• Social inequality, in a material and symbolic sense
1
, Ø Inequality can be material: people with a lot of money may have more power
Ø Inequality can be implicit: opportunities, rules, gender
• Identity, as a group and as individual = question of meaning, how do we give meaning to life
<--> Psychology: Individual cognition, emotion, behavior
A DIGITAL MEDIA SOCIETY
How do digital media …
• are implicated in ‘the way we do things’ (social order)?
• disrupt or reproduce power? (social inequality)?
• shape the meaning of things (identity)?
A lot changes -> these changes carry out three things (social order, social inequality, identity)
- Micro-level: Changes in our everyday practices
- Macro-level: Changes to our societal institutions
Micro-level: the way we do things Macro-level looks at the workers as a social
looks at the people who do the delivery and group, at an entity. The meaning that the
their everyday life. This level asks how food company gives to the workers is very positive,
delivery changes family dynamics. but in reality it is different.
It has become normalized in the way we do Platform economy.
things digital platforms have changed the way What are you if you’re a delivery person:
we organize take-out. Impact on the what we employee or entrepreneur? Legal status?
eat, how healthy we are. Accident = who is responsible?
Life is so busy we need food delivered.
SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND 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’
• How we organize things = social structure
• Arrangements of rules into established systems => social institutions
• Arrangements of relationships/interactions => social positions
o The more something is institutionalised the more the rules are formal, EU legislation
on delivery persons, sometimes there are formal rules <-> sometimes there are no
rules
o In every group you have social positions (like in a family + rules how to interact)
2
,Platform Economy as an emerging social institution
• Social inequality: self-employed or employee?
• Social identity: Brand ambassadors or algorithmic slaves?
For example, we can consider gender as a social structure -> in most societies, there are patterned
ways in which men and women are expected to behave
SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND CULTURE
Culture = a shared set of beliefs, norms, behaviors, values, symbols, rituals, attitudes, …
Culture and social structure are linked:
Ø values and beliefs are forces that shape social order
Ø norms are expectations of how one should behave
Ø practices are patterns of behavior normatively expected for certain social positions are social
roles
Ø rituals are habitualized behaviors and can include objects that are symbolic (i.e. carry
meaning and thus value)
Every social structure has their own culture and there can be different values in one social structure!
(eg. Mean girl group -> make-up = important -> product empty = ritual is broken)
Article: embodied precariat and digital control in the ‘gig economy’: the mobile labor of food delivery
workers
The self-employed type of contract that riders have with Deliveroo means that they do not receive
holiday pay. […] Moreover, riders’ statistics are also affected upon their return to work. Some riders
chose to borrow or rent their Deliveroo accounts on occasions when they cannot work the shifts
they committed to, in order to keep their good statistics intact.
‘Anyone want my 1130–1300 and or 1300–1400 shift in Salford on my account? Need to keep my
stats up but can’t attend it.’ (February 2019)
SOCIAL STRUCTURE: WHY DO WE DO THE THINGS WE DO?
DOING THINGS A CERTAIN WAY: ‘SOCIAL STRUCTURE AS A SET OF LOGICS’
What are the rules in everyday life that structure how we behave and operate?
Ex. Depending on the colour of the traffic lights we follow the rules
Social structure is a set of logics -> that dictate how we behave
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 and give structure to life (are informal)
• Individuals, through their practices, obey or disobey these rules, thus reproducing the social
order or challenging it
o Social change occurs when individuals successfully and collectively produce a new
social order
• Practices are inherently relational (= social), persistent/durable (= historical), and cultural (=
contextual)
3
, Ø Relational = we all follow them, which helps society stay organized. Breaking them can seem
rude or even lead to punishment.
Ø Persistent = we grow up with them and often don’t even notice them.
Ø Cultural = we only realize how we do things when we see how other cultures do them
differently.
For example. Black Pete, a helper of Saint Nicholas, is often portrayed with blackface, which many
now see as racist. Although more and more people want to change the tradition, it's difficult because
others defend it as a fun tradition for children (relational), something they've always done
(historical), and a part of their culture (contextual). This debate shows how deeply cultural practices
are connected to identity and can lead to political conflict.
Eg: we can follow the structure or we can disobey (elephant trial or the shortcut -> if enough people
take the elephant trial => this can become the new structure)
Social structure is not something bad, we need some rules to live together (without it, our world
would be chaos) We often don’t really think about them and reflect about them -> that is important!
You could say that social structures are often taken for granted!
Desire path = the rules can be very clear, but sometimes people do not follow the rules (they take the
shortcut)
-> this is an example of social change
• Social change occurs when individuals successfully and collectively produce a new social
order
• We can change social structure -> it is difficult to do it as an individual, but when enough
people consistently start following new rules, we can see social change
GIDDENS’ STRUCTURE THEORY (1984)
Duality of structure: structure and agency as mutually constitutive
Social structures: enable and constrain human action (provides rules and resources for meaningful
action)
Ø Ex. It is because we have rules for how to behave in traffic, that people are able to safely
travel to other places. We thus happily obey to traffic rules, thereby reproducing them
Ø The fact that there are social structures does not mean that people are powerless ‘victims’ to
them
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.
Þ A society gives structure to people’s lives by enabling and constraining their actions, yet people
are the ones who constitute the society and have the agency to structure it the way they want
through their actions and beliefs.
4
LECTURE 1: INTRODUCTION
THREE QUESTIONS TIED TO THREE ‘LOGICS’
• Is 24/7 connectivity a bliss or a bruden? (network logic)
o Always on, always available
• Are social media making us more or less social? (social logic)
• Does datafication empower or disempower? (personal logic)
o Personalization leading to empowerment or disempowerment?
• Socio-historical change: how did we get here?
• Micro-level: what are the implicatoins for the everyday life?
• Macro-level: what are broader, societal implications?
MEDIA SOCIOLOGY VS MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY VS MEDIA STUDIES
• Media sociology studies how media affect the social organization of society
• Media psychology how media affect individual cognition, emotion and behavior
o Media selections and media effects through lense of individual
• Media studies study the media industry in relation to media user/audiences
=> look at the three together
Eg: slide 19
SOCIOLOGY
Sociology studies the social organization of society
• How do people live together? And how we organize things?
o Eg education in Flanders (quite cheap) <-> outside EU (US) => big impact on social
order
o Education is democratic = it’s okay to try and retry => no barrier <-> US
• Sociology = study of social life
• What opportunities and problems arise from this?
Questions revolve mainly around:
• Social order (and social cohesion)
• Social inequality, in a material and symbolic sense
1
, Ø Inequality can be material: people with a lot of money may have more power
Ø Inequality can be implicit: opportunities, rules, gender
• Identity, as a group and as individual = question of meaning, how do we give meaning to life
<--> Psychology: Individual cognition, emotion, behavior
A DIGITAL MEDIA SOCIETY
How do digital media …
• are implicated in ‘the way we do things’ (social order)?
• disrupt or reproduce power? (social inequality)?
• shape the meaning of things (identity)?
A lot changes -> these changes carry out three things (social order, social inequality, identity)
- Micro-level: Changes in our everyday practices
- Macro-level: Changes to our societal institutions
Micro-level: the way we do things Macro-level looks at the workers as a social
looks at the people who do the delivery and group, at an entity. The meaning that the
their everyday life. This level asks how food company gives to the workers is very positive,
delivery changes family dynamics. but in reality it is different.
It has become normalized in the way we do Platform economy.
things digital platforms have changed the way What are you if you’re a delivery person:
we organize take-out. Impact on the what we employee or entrepreneur? Legal status?
eat, how healthy we are. Accident = who is responsible?
Life is so busy we need food delivered.
SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND 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’
• How we organize things = social structure
• Arrangements of rules into established systems => social institutions
• Arrangements of relationships/interactions => social positions
o The more something is institutionalised the more the rules are formal, EU legislation
on delivery persons, sometimes there are formal rules <-> sometimes there are no
rules
o In every group you have social positions (like in a family + rules how to interact)
2
,Platform Economy as an emerging social institution
• Social inequality: self-employed or employee?
• Social identity: Brand ambassadors or algorithmic slaves?
For example, we can consider gender as a social structure -> in most societies, there are patterned
ways in which men and women are expected to behave
SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND CULTURE
Culture = a shared set of beliefs, norms, behaviors, values, symbols, rituals, attitudes, …
Culture and social structure are linked:
Ø values and beliefs are forces that shape social order
Ø norms are expectations of how one should behave
Ø practices are patterns of behavior normatively expected for certain social positions are social
roles
Ø rituals are habitualized behaviors and can include objects that are symbolic (i.e. carry
meaning and thus value)
Every social structure has their own culture and there can be different values in one social structure!
(eg. Mean girl group -> make-up = important -> product empty = ritual is broken)
Article: embodied precariat and digital control in the ‘gig economy’: the mobile labor of food delivery
workers
The self-employed type of contract that riders have with Deliveroo means that they do not receive
holiday pay. […] Moreover, riders’ statistics are also affected upon their return to work. Some riders
chose to borrow or rent their Deliveroo accounts on occasions when they cannot work the shifts
they committed to, in order to keep their good statistics intact.
‘Anyone want my 1130–1300 and or 1300–1400 shift in Salford on my account? Need to keep my
stats up but can’t attend it.’ (February 2019)
SOCIAL STRUCTURE: WHY DO WE DO THE THINGS WE DO?
DOING THINGS A CERTAIN WAY: ‘SOCIAL STRUCTURE AS A SET OF LOGICS’
What are the rules in everyday life that structure how we behave and operate?
Ex. Depending on the colour of the traffic lights we follow the rules
Social structure is a set of logics -> that dictate how we behave
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 and give structure to life (are informal)
• Individuals, through their practices, obey or disobey these rules, thus reproducing the social
order or challenging it
o Social change occurs when individuals successfully and collectively produce a new
social order
• Practices are inherently relational (= social), persistent/durable (= historical), and cultural (=
contextual)
3
, Ø Relational = we all follow them, which helps society stay organized. Breaking them can seem
rude or even lead to punishment.
Ø Persistent = we grow up with them and often don’t even notice them.
Ø Cultural = we only realize how we do things when we see how other cultures do them
differently.
For example. Black Pete, a helper of Saint Nicholas, is often portrayed with blackface, which many
now see as racist. Although more and more people want to change the tradition, it's difficult because
others defend it as a fun tradition for children (relational), something they've always done
(historical), and a part of their culture (contextual). This debate shows how deeply cultural practices
are connected to identity and can lead to political conflict.
Eg: we can follow the structure or we can disobey (elephant trial or the shortcut -> if enough people
take the elephant trial => this can become the new structure)
Social structure is not something bad, we need some rules to live together (without it, our world
would be chaos) We often don’t really think about them and reflect about them -> that is important!
You could say that social structures are often taken for granted!
Desire path = the rules can be very clear, but sometimes people do not follow the rules (they take the
shortcut)
-> this is an example of social change
• Social change occurs when individuals successfully and collectively produce a new social
order
• We can change social structure -> it is difficult to do it as an individual, but when enough
people consistently start following new rules, we can see social change
GIDDENS’ STRUCTURE THEORY (1984)
Duality of structure: structure and agency as mutually constitutive
Social structures: enable and constrain human action (provides rules and resources for meaningful
action)
Ø Ex. It is because we have rules for how to behave in traffic, that people are able to safely
travel to other places. We thus happily obey to traffic rules, thereby reproducing them
Ø The fact that there are social structures does not mean that people are powerless ‘victims’ to
them
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.
Þ A society gives structure to people’s lives by enabling and constraining their actions, yet people
are the ones who constitute the society and have the agency to structure it the way they want
through their actions and beliefs.
4
