SOCI221/2AA – Sociology of Cyberspace
Meeting 3 September 22, 2014
Geeks and Nerds by Randall Munroe CC-BY-NC
Logistics
- “Definitive” class list
- Two class meetings before Thanksgiving and Midterm
- Social Structure (September 29)
- Social Dynamics (October 6)
- End class with preparation for next
- Required texts
- Activities
Past Week
Introducing Cyberculture
Required Texts
Silver, David. “Looking Backwards, Looking Forward; Cyberculture Studies 1990–2000.” Web Studies: Rewiring Media Studies for the Digital Age. Oxford University Press, 2000. http://rccs.usfca.edu/intro.asp
Turner, Fred. “Where the Counterculture Met the New Economy: The WELL and the Origins of Virtual Community.” Technology and Culture 46, no. 3 (2005): 485–512. doi:10.1353/tech.2005.0154. http://lar.me/2zb
Silver
Silver, David. “Looking Backwards, Looking Forward; Cyberculture Studies 1990–2000.” Web Studies: Rewiring Media Studies for the Digital Age. Oxford University Press, 2000. http://rccs.usfca.edu/intro.asp
Cyberculture Studies
- Cyberspace as hallucination
- Frontier mentality
- Social groups
- Introducing ‘Net to journalists
- Technophilia and Technophobia
- Enthusiasm and anxiety
- Geeks and Luddites
- Democracy
- Distributed intelligence
- Hypertext
Turner
Turner, Fred. “Where the Counterculture Met the New Economy: The WELL and the Origins of Virtual Community.” Technology and Culture 46, no. 3 (2005): 485–512. doi:10.1353/tech.2005.0154. http://lar.me/2zb
Counterculture/Cyberculture
Further/Furthur 19
By Joe Mabel.
Interior, “Further” / “Furthur”, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters’ famous bus, Hempfest 2010, Myrtle Edwards Park, Seattle, Washington, 2010, at which time it had recently been restored.
New Communalists
- War and Peace
- Communes
- Utopias
- “Community” in strong sense (“disembodied tribe”, “transcendent collective”…)
- West Coast, European-American, college-educated Baby Boomers
- Collaboration and horizontality
- Medium and networks
- Employment, reputation, expertise
- Shift to business
- Subversion, recuperation, reappropriation
Crash Course
Sociology in a Few Minutes (or Refresher)
Sociology Bullets
- WMDs: Weber, Marx, Durkheim http://lar.me/wmd
- Symbolic Interactionism, Conflict Theory, Functionalism
- Dialogue, Inequality, Stability
- Group, socialization, role, status…
- Power, control, conformity, norms, deviance
- Culture, subculture, counterculture
- Feminism as key
- “Who Decides?” as key question
- Structure and Agency
Next Week
Social Structure
Online Activity: Geek Test
- Take one of the following “geek tests”:
- “innergeek original” (lots of checkboxes)
- “Matthew Barr” (40 y/n)
- “OkCupid” (60 MCQ, may nag you for registration)
- Post something about your results or about the test itself.
Required Texts
Ritzer, G., and N. Jurgenson. (2010) “Production, Consumption, Prosumption: The Nature of Capitalism in the Age of the Digital ‘Prosumer’.” Journal of Consumer Culture 10 (1): 13–36. doi:10.1177/1469540509354673. http://joc.sagepub.com/content/10/1/13.short
Warschauer, M., and T. Matuchniak. (2010) “New Technology and Digital Worlds: Analyzing Evidence of Equity in Access, Use, and Outcomes.” Review of Research in Education 34(1): 179–225. doi:10.3102/0091732X09349791. http://rre.sagepub.com/content/34/1/179
Ritzer
Ritzer, G., and N. Jurgenson. (2010) “Production, Consumption, Prosumption: The Nature of Capitalism in the Age of the Digital ‘Prosumer’.” Journal of Consumer Culture 10 (1): 13–36. doi:10.1177/1469540509354673. http://joc.sagepub.com/content/10/1/13.short
Ritzer
- Author of The McDonaldization of Society (1993)
- Sociology of production, consumption, and prosumption
- Change to postindustrial society
- Web as context and hope more than focus
Warschauer
Warschauer, M., and T. Matuchniak. (2010) “New Technology and Digital Worlds: Analyzing Evidence of Equity in Access, Use, and Outcomes.” Review of Research in Education 34(1): 179–225. doi:10.3102/0091732X09349791. http://rre.sagepub.com/content/34/1/179
Warschauer
- Known for Digital Divide
- Representative of studies
- Beyond access
- Data-heavy
- Almost “meta-analysis”
- Can skip details
- Focus on sections (out of school use, 21st Century Learning Skills…)
- Study smart
- Collaborative studying