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Coursenotes, Cyberspace Sociology

Coursenotes: SOCI221 – Sociology of Cyberspace, Meeting 8

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SOCI221 – Sociology of Cyberspace

Meeting 8: November 3, 2014
Identity to Generations

Generations

Digital Natives?

First Nations CEF soldiers: By Canada. Dept. of the Interior. (Public domain)

Last Week

Social Identity

Activity: Online Reputation

  • Expectations
  • Factors in ease of finding
  • Public/private

Required Texts

Halford & Savage

Halford, Susan, and Mike Savage. “Reconceptualizing Digital Social Inequality.” Information, Communication & Society 13, no. 7 (2010): 937–955. doi:10.1080/1369118X.2010.499956.

  • Inequalities vs. divides
  • Links to other texts

Berman & Bruckman

Berman, Joshua, and Amy S. Bruckman. “The Turing Game: Exploring Identity in an Online Environment.” Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 7, no. 3 (September 01, 2001): 83–102. doi:10.1177/135485650100700307.

  • Playing with identity
  • How is identity constructed?

Next Week

Generations

Activity: Knapsacks

  • Go through one of the following checklists.
  • For your own benefit, document the process. Any discomfort? Any realization?
  • Based on the exercise, post something more general about privilege. In other words, no need to share about your own privilege, but go from that experience to something broader.
  • Feel free to add something about online interactions, but that may not be necessary.

Required Texts

Alternative

Digital Natives?

Online Traces

If you are not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold.” – blue_beetle http://lar.me/2zh

“I’m Not The Product, But I Play One On The Internet.” –Derek Powazek http://lar.me/2zi

Coursenotes, Cyberspace Sociology

Coursenotes SOCI221 Week 3

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SOCI221/2AA – Sociology of Cyberspace

Meeting 3
September 22, 2014
Geeks and Nerds by Randall Munroe CC-BY-NC
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

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.
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”:
  • 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