L1: INTRODUCTION
- Taken-for-grantedness: the internet is everywhere without us realising it
1.1 SOCIOLOGY VS. PSYCHOLOGY
- Sociology: study of the social organization of society
o How do ppl live together?
o What opportunities & problems arise from this?
- Questions revolve around:
o Social order (& social cohesion)
o Social inequality -> material & symbolic sense
Who has power? -> example: gender discrimination
o Identity -> as a group & as individual
< > psychology: individual cognition, emotion & behavior
- Digitale media society -> how digital media:
o Are implicated in ‘the way we do thing’ (social order)
o Disrupt or reproduce power (social inequality)
o Shape the meaning of things (identity)
- Micro-level: changes in our everyday practices
- Macro-level: changes to our societal institutions
1.1.1 MEDIA SOCIOLOGY VS. MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY
- Mediasociology: how media affect the social organization of society
- Mediapsychology: how media affect individual cognition, emotion & behavior
- Mediastudies: study the media industry & how it delivers messages to audiences
EXAMPLE: Does TV viewing lead to child obesity epidemic?
Multiple causes
o 2-working households -> Latchkey-children, traffic & stranger danger
o Addictive design -> fastfood advertising
o Audience diversification, commercial broadcasting
1.2 SOCIAL STRUCTURE
1.2.1 SOCIAL POSITIONS & ROLES
- Social structure: organized patterns of relationships rules & ‘rule arrangements’ that govern how ppl
interact & live together
o Organized ‘formal’
o Arrangements of rules into established systems -> social institutions
o Arrangements of relationships/interactions -> social positions
1.2.2 SOCIAL STRUCTURE & CULTURE
- Culture: shared set of beliefs, norms, behaviors, values, symbols, rituals, attitudes, …
1
, - Culture & social structure are linked
o Values & beliefs -> forces that shape social order
o Norms -> expectations of how one should behave
o Patterns of behavior -> normatively expected for certain social positions -> social roles
o Rituals -> habitualized behaviors & objects that are symbolic/carry meaning (and thus value)
1.2.3 WHY DO WE DO THE THINGS WE DO?
- Social structure as a set of ‘logics’
- Everyday practices -> reflect relationship between individuals & social order
o Social order: ‘rules’ that order society
We need rules -> otherwise: society in chaos
o Individuals (dis)obey these rules through their practices -> reproducing social
order/challenging it
o Practices are thus
Inherently relational-> social
Persistent/durable -> historical
Cultural -> contextual
EXAMPLE: Olifantenpaadje/desire trail
Ppl don’t follow the rules -> create new path
o Social change -> when individuals successfully & collectively produce a new social order
If enough ppl -> change rules/society
GIDDENS’ STRUCTURATION THEORY(1984)
- Duality of structure: structure & agency as mutually constitutive
o Social structures: enable & constrain human action
Provides rules & resources for meaningful action
o Agency: individuals produce & reproduce social structure -> they are knowledgeable, rational
actors w/:
Capacity for ‘reflexivity’: capacity to reflect on social structure & their role as
reproducing agent in it
Capacity to act ‘intentionally rational’: modify their behavior in line w/ certain goals -
> can reasonably justify as being worthy of pursuit
- Duality between structure & agency -> interplay that oftentimes reveals how power is distributed &
negotiated in society
- Social structures are prescriptive -> specify a way of ‘doing things’ (Giddens, 1984)
o In other words: they make it logical to organize things repeatedly & systematically in certain
manner
- There are also such ‘logics’ present in media technologies
o ‘Apparatgeist’: spirit of the machine(Katz & Aakhus, 2002)
Logics prescribed by technology that direct human behavior -> not in deterministic
way, rather by providing humans w/ both a ‘rationality of means’ & ‘constraint upon
possibilities’
2
,1.3 DUALITY OF TECHNOLOGY
- Orlikowski (1992):
o Technology: product of human action + assumes structural properties
o Technology is physically constructed by actors working in given social context
o Once technology developed & deployed -> tends to be reified &institutionalized
Losing connection w/ human agents that constructed it/gave it meaning
Appears to be part of the objective, structural properties of the organization
EXAMPLE: history of the sms
- Insignifcant byproduct of mobile telephony(a)
- ‘Free’ communication -> originally: not meant to communicate like thi (b)
- Massive success leads to development tariff plans (d)
- 140 chars limit + paid-for contribute to particular practices of communication, sms-language, … (c)
- Keyboard phone facilitates typing (a)
- Ppls start sending multimedia (b)
- …
1.4 STRUCTURES OF DIGITAL MEDIA: TECHNOLOGICAL AFFORDANCES
- What structures are there in technology that make it logic-al to do things in a particular way?
1.4.1 DIGITAL MEDIA
- Technologies (devices, platforms, applications) that are connected (wired/wireless) to an underlying
technological infrastructure
o Supports data transfer
o Can be used to access, consume, create & exchange information and/or communication
- Focus on everyday life (smartphones, computers, mobile & social media, …)
- How digitization made it logica lto do things a certain way
3
, - Digital media landscape constantly welcomes new technologies
o Moving target problem: technologies that persist are constantly updated
- Technology: more than the sum of its separate feautures
o Almost the same features, VERY different ‘Apparatgeist’
1.4.2 FUNCTIONAL VIEW: TECHNOLOGICAL ‘AFFORDANCES’
- ‘Affordances’: possibilities for action
- Affordances structure: they enable & constrain potential behavioral outcomes in particular context
o Edit-ability, visi-bility, spread-ability, search-ability
- ‘Dominante’ affordance = apparatgeist
VOORBEELD: differences Snapchat & Instagram
Snapchat Instagram
- Transient communication: in the moment, - Content stays there for very long time
exists for limited amount of time
- More identity - Not that personal
- More close-tie, personal
- Technology structures (through affordances) & is structured through human agency
- Characteristics affordances
o Relational: perceived depending on abilities/attributes of users
o Contextual: contexts of use
o Designed: to be readily perceived
- ‘Tree treshold criteria’ te be an affordance
o Neither the object nor a feature of the object
Recordability is an affordance, camera is feature
o Not the outcome
EXAMPLE: picture is not an affordance
o Has variability
Feature: present or absent
Affordance: gradual -> technologies can vary in the extent to which they ‘afford’
something -> e.g. recordability: old videocamera’s -> smartphones
1.5 HOW DO DIGITAL MEDIA AFFECT THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY?
- Social structures make certain practices logic-al
- Because of prescriptive nature: structuration can be described as
o A process of installing & maintaining a logic in society
o Set of principles that makes it logical to organize things repeatedly & systematically in certain
matter -> e.g.: gender
- Technological affordances = social ‘structures’ built-into technology that make it logical to do things in
a particular way
o They are prescriptive: specify a way of ‘doing things’ in line w/ the ‘spirit of the machine’
(Apparatgeist)
o Shape society at the micro-level -> changing processes & routines in everyday life
o At macro-level: supporting social change -> may alter/maintain the social/institutional order
4
- Taken-for-grantedness: the internet is everywhere without us realising it
1.1 SOCIOLOGY VS. PSYCHOLOGY
- Sociology: study of the social organization of society
o How do ppl live together?
o What opportunities & problems arise from this?
- Questions revolve around:
o Social order (& social cohesion)
o Social inequality -> material & symbolic sense
Who has power? -> example: gender discrimination
o Identity -> as a group & as individual
< > psychology: individual cognition, emotion & behavior
- Digitale media society -> how digital media:
o Are implicated in ‘the way we do thing’ (social order)
o Disrupt or reproduce power (social inequality)
o Shape the meaning of things (identity)
- Micro-level: changes in our everyday practices
- Macro-level: changes to our societal institutions
1.1.1 MEDIA SOCIOLOGY VS. MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY
- Mediasociology: how media affect the social organization of society
- Mediapsychology: how media affect individual cognition, emotion & behavior
- Mediastudies: study the media industry & how it delivers messages to audiences
EXAMPLE: Does TV viewing lead to child obesity epidemic?
Multiple causes
o 2-working households -> Latchkey-children, traffic & stranger danger
o Addictive design -> fastfood advertising
o Audience diversification, commercial broadcasting
1.2 SOCIAL STRUCTURE
1.2.1 SOCIAL POSITIONS & ROLES
- Social structure: organized patterns of relationships rules & ‘rule arrangements’ that govern how ppl
interact & live together
o Organized ‘formal’
o Arrangements of rules into established systems -> social institutions
o Arrangements of relationships/interactions -> social positions
1.2.2 SOCIAL STRUCTURE & CULTURE
- Culture: shared set of beliefs, norms, behaviors, values, symbols, rituals, attitudes, …
1
, - Culture & social structure are linked
o Values & beliefs -> forces that shape social order
o Norms -> expectations of how one should behave
o Patterns of behavior -> normatively expected for certain social positions -> social roles
o Rituals -> habitualized behaviors & objects that are symbolic/carry meaning (and thus value)
1.2.3 WHY DO WE DO THE THINGS WE DO?
- Social structure as a set of ‘logics’
- Everyday practices -> reflect relationship between individuals & social order
o Social order: ‘rules’ that order society
We need rules -> otherwise: society in chaos
o Individuals (dis)obey these rules through their practices -> reproducing social
order/challenging it
o Practices are thus
Inherently relational-> social
Persistent/durable -> historical
Cultural -> contextual
EXAMPLE: Olifantenpaadje/desire trail
Ppl don’t follow the rules -> create new path
o Social change -> when individuals successfully & collectively produce a new social order
If enough ppl -> change rules/society
GIDDENS’ STRUCTURATION THEORY(1984)
- Duality of structure: structure & agency as mutually constitutive
o Social structures: enable & constrain human action
Provides rules & resources for meaningful action
o Agency: individuals produce & reproduce social structure -> they are knowledgeable, rational
actors w/:
Capacity for ‘reflexivity’: capacity to reflect on social structure & their role as
reproducing agent in it
Capacity to act ‘intentionally rational’: modify their behavior in line w/ certain goals -
> can reasonably justify as being worthy of pursuit
- Duality between structure & agency -> interplay that oftentimes reveals how power is distributed &
negotiated in society
- Social structures are prescriptive -> specify a way of ‘doing things’ (Giddens, 1984)
o In other words: they make it logical to organize things repeatedly & systematically in certain
manner
- There are also such ‘logics’ present in media technologies
o ‘Apparatgeist’: spirit of the machine(Katz & Aakhus, 2002)
Logics prescribed by technology that direct human behavior -> not in deterministic
way, rather by providing humans w/ both a ‘rationality of means’ & ‘constraint upon
possibilities’
2
,1.3 DUALITY OF TECHNOLOGY
- Orlikowski (1992):
o Technology: product of human action + assumes structural properties
o Technology is physically constructed by actors working in given social context
o Once technology developed & deployed -> tends to be reified &institutionalized
Losing connection w/ human agents that constructed it/gave it meaning
Appears to be part of the objective, structural properties of the organization
EXAMPLE: history of the sms
- Insignifcant byproduct of mobile telephony(a)
- ‘Free’ communication -> originally: not meant to communicate like thi (b)
- Massive success leads to development tariff plans (d)
- 140 chars limit + paid-for contribute to particular practices of communication, sms-language, … (c)
- Keyboard phone facilitates typing (a)
- Ppls start sending multimedia (b)
- …
1.4 STRUCTURES OF DIGITAL MEDIA: TECHNOLOGICAL AFFORDANCES
- What structures are there in technology that make it logic-al to do things in a particular way?
1.4.1 DIGITAL MEDIA
- Technologies (devices, platforms, applications) that are connected (wired/wireless) to an underlying
technological infrastructure
o Supports data transfer
o Can be used to access, consume, create & exchange information and/or communication
- Focus on everyday life (smartphones, computers, mobile & social media, …)
- How digitization made it logica lto do things a certain way
3
, - Digital media landscape constantly welcomes new technologies
o Moving target problem: technologies that persist are constantly updated
- Technology: more than the sum of its separate feautures
o Almost the same features, VERY different ‘Apparatgeist’
1.4.2 FUNCTIONAL VIEW: TECHNOLOGICAL ‘AFFORDANCES’
- ‘Affordances’: possibilities for action
- Affordances structure: they enable & constrain potential behavioral outcomes in particular context
o Edit-ability, visi-bility, spread-ability, search-ability
- ‘Dominante’ affordance = apparatgeist
VOORBEELD: differences Snapchat & Instagram
Snapchat Instagram
- Transient communication: in the moment, - Content stays there for very long time
exists for limited amount of time
- More identity - Not that personal
- More close-tie, personal
- Technology structures (through affordances) & is structured through human agency
- Characteristics affordances
o Relational: perceived depending on abilities/attributes of users
o Contextual: contexts of use
o Designed: to be readily perceived
- ‘Tree treshold criteria’ te be an affordance
o Neither the object nor a feature of the object
Recordability is an affordance, camera is feature
o Not the outcome
EXAMPLE: picture is not an affordance
o Has variability
Feature: present or absent
Affordance: gradual -> technologies can vary in the extent to which they ‘afford’
something -> e.g. recordability: old videocamera’s -> smartphones
1.5 HOW DO DIGITAL MEDIA AFFECT THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY?
- Social structures make certain practices logic-al
- Because of prescriptive nature: structuration can be described as
o A process of installing & maintaining a logic in society
o Set of principles that makes it logical to organize things repeatedly & systematically in certain
matter -> e.g.: gender
- Technological affordances = social ‘structures’ built-into technology that make it logical to do things in
a particular way
o They are prescriptive: specify a way of ‘doing things’ in line w/ the ‘spirit of the machine’
(Apparatgeist)
o Shape society at the micro-level -> changing processes & routines in everyday life
o At macro-level: supporting social change -> may alter/maintain the social/institutional order
4
