Unit 2: Impact of New Media forms

1. Sociological Approaches of Understanding Media

To understand the impact of new media, sociologists utilize several theoretical frameworks to analyze how media shapes society and how society shapes media.

A. Functionalism

Functionalists view society as a system of interrelated parts working together to maintain stability.

• Key Concept: Media serves specific functions that help society operate smoothly.
• Functions of Media:
  • Surveillance: Providing information about the environment (news, weather, warnings).
  • Correlation: Explaining and interpreting events (editorials, analysis) to help socialize individuals into shared norms.
  • Transmission of Culture: Passing on heritage, norms, and values from one generation to the next (socialization).
  • Entertainment: Providing relief from stress and social tension.
  • Mobilization: Rallying people for societal objectives (e.g., during war or development campaigns).
• Dysfunction: Functionalists also acknowledge the Narcotizing Dysfunction (Lazarsfeld & Merton), where an overload of information leads to apathy rather than action.

B. Conflict Theory

Conflict theorists derive their views from Marxist thought, focusing on power dynamics, inequality, and social control.

• Key Concept: Media is a tool used by the ruling class (bourgeoisie) to maintain power and ideology over the working class (proletariat).
• Gatekeeping: A small number of people/corporations control what material reaches the public. In new media, algorithms act as automated gatekeepers.
• Dominant Ideology/Hegemony: Media perpetuates the worldview of the powerful (Antonio Gramsci). It manufactures consent by framing consumerism and capitalism as natural and good.
• Media Consolidation: The criticism that a few conglomerates (e.g., Disney, Comcast) own the vast majority of media, limiting the diversity of voices.

C. Symbolic Interactionism

This microsociological approach focuses on face-to-face interactions and the creation of meaning through symbols.

• Key Concept: Reality is socially constructed through media interaction.
• Social Construction of Reality: How individuals interpret media messages based on their personal background.
• Blumer’s Approach: People do not react to media directly; they react to their interpretation of the media.
• New Media Application: How avatars, emojis, and status updates are used to present the "self" (Erving Goffman’s Dramaturgy) and manage impressions in digital spaces.

D. Postmodernism

Postmodernists argue that in the new media age, the distinction between reality and simulation has collapsed.

• Jean Baudrillard: Proposed the concept of Hyperreality and Simulacra.
  • We live in a world where media images (simulations) are more "real" to us than the physical reality they represent (e.g., reality TV, Instagram lifestyles).
• Fragmentation: New media has destroyed "Grand Narratives" (universal truths), resulting in a fragmented, fluid, and chaotic social reality.

2. Media and Community

The relationship between media and community has evolved from geographic bonding to psychological bonding.

A. The "Imagined Community"

• Theorist: Benedict Anderson.
• Concept: Before the internet, the printing press allowed people who would never meet to feel connected as a "nation" because they consumed the same news and language.
• New Media Evolution: The internet has created global imagined communities that transcend national borders (e.g., the scientific community, fandoms, diasporas).

B. Shift from Geography to Interest

• Traditional Community (Gemeinschaft): Based on shared space, kinship, and face-to-face interaction.
• Modern Media Community: Based on shared interests, ideologies, or identities, regardless of physical location.
• Glocalization: The blending of global media forms with local community values. New media allows local communities to project their identity globally while consuming global content locally.

C. Erosion vs. Augmentation

• The Erosion Thesis (Putnam): Media (specifically TV and early internet) individualizes leisure time, leading to a decline in "Social Capital" and civic engagement (Bowling Alone).
• The Augmentation Thesis: New media supplements physical communities. Neighborhood WhatsApp groups or localized Facebook pages increase social coordination and safety within physical spaces.

3. Communication for Development (C4D)

Communication for Development creates mechanisms to access information and knowledge for the betterment of society, particularly in developing nations.

A. Theoretical Models of C4D

1. Modernization Paradigm (Dominant Paradigm):
   • Top-Down Approach: Believed that underdevelopment was due to a lack of information.
   • Strategy: Use mass media (Radio/TV) to diffuse innovations (e.g., new farming techniques, family planning) from the "developed" West to the "underdeveloped" South.
   • Criticism: Ethnocentric; treated audiences as passive recipients.
2. Participatory Paradigm:
   • Bottom-Up Approach: Emphasizes dialogue and community involvement.
   • Strategy: The community identifies its own problems and uses media to solve them.
   • New Media Role: Social media allows for two-way communication, making participatory development easier.

B. ICT4D (Information and Communication Technologies for Development)

• E-Governance: Using digital platforms to increase government transparency and streamline public services (e.g., digital land records, online tax filing).
• M-Health: Using mobile phones for health outcomes (e.g., SMS reminders for vaccinations, telemedicine in rural areas).
• E-Agriculture: Providing farmers with real-time market prices and weather forecasts to prevent exploitation by middlemen.

4. Media and Social Movements

New media has fundamentally altered the structure, speed, and reach of social movements.

A. New Social Movements (NSMs)

Unlike "Old" movements (labor/class-based), NSMs focus on identity, human rights, and quality of life (e.g., LGBTQ+ rights, Environmentalism).

B. Roles of New Media in Movements

1. Mobilization: Rapid organization of protests (e.g., Flash mobs, Arab Spring). Cost of communication is near zero.
2. Framing: Activists can bypass state media gatekeepers to frame their own narrative (e.g., Black Lives Matter videos contradicting police reports).
3. Citizen Journalism: Ordinary people documenting events using smartphones, providing evidence and witnessing oppression.

C. Concepts and Critiques

• Castells’ Network Theory: Movements today are "networked"—they are leaderless, horizontal, and flexible.
• Slacktivism (Click-tivism): A critique that new media allows for "low-effort" support (liking a post, changing a profile picture) that makes individuals feel good but achieves little political change.
• Echo Chambers: Algorithms may restrict movements to preaching to the converted, preventing dialogue with the opposition.

5. Virtual Communities

A. Definition and Origin

• Howard Rheingold: Coined the term. Defined as social aggregations that emerge from the Net when enough people carry on public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace.

B. Characteristics

1. De-territorialization: Physical distance is irrelevant.
2. Anonymity/Pseudonymity: Allows for identity experimentation but can lead to toxic behavior (flaming/trolling).
3. Asynchronicity: Interaction does not happen in real-time, allowing for thought-out responses.
4. Fluidity: Members can join or leave with a click; ties are often "weak" (Granovetter) but bridge diverse groups.

C. Networked Individualism (Barry Wellman)

• Society has moved from "Little Boxes" (tightly bound, door-to-door groups) to "Networked Individualism."
• Individuals operate as the center of their own personal networks, switching between multiple partial communities (work, hobby, family) via digital means.

6. Information and Communication Revolution

This refers to the shift from industrial production to information processing as the primary economic and social driver.

A. The Information Society (Manuel Castells)

• The Network Society: The dominant social structure of the 21st century is the network. Power lies in the "space of flows" (information movement) rather than the "space of places" (physical location).
• Informational Capitalism: Data is the new oil. The economy depends on the capacity to generate and process knowledge.

B. Key Features of the Revolution

1. Convergence: The merging of distinct technologies (telephone, TV, computer) into single devices (Smartphones).
2. Interactivity: The shift from "Read Only" culture (consumption) to "Read/Write" culture (prosumers—producing and consuming).
3. Digitization: Converting information into binary code, allowing for instant transmission and perfect replication.
4. Speed/Immediacy: The compression of time and space (David Harvey).

C. Technological Determinism vs. Social Shaping

• Determinism: Technology drives history. (e.g., "The internet caused the revolution.")
• Social Shaping: Technology is a tool shaped by human choices, politics, and culture.

7. Digital Divide

The Digital Divide refers to the gap between individuals, households, businesses, and geographic areas at different socio-economic levels with regard to both their opportunities to access information and communication technologies (ICTs) and to their use of the internet.

A. Three Levels of the Digital Divide

1. First-Level Divide (Access):
   • The gap between those who have physical access to hardware/internet and those who do not.
   • Factors: Infrastructure, cost of devices, electricity availability.
2. Second-Level Divide (Usage/Skills):
   • The gap in "Digital Literacy." Even if two people have a computer, one may only use it for entertainment, while the other uses it for education and economic gain.
   • Factors: Education, age, technical competence.
3. Third-Level Divide (Outcomes):
   • The disparity in the benefits gained from internet use. Who actually gets the job, the scholarship, or the political influence?

B. Sociological Implications

• Stratification: The digital divide reinforces existing social inequalities (class, race, gender).
• Global Divide: The gap between the Global North (information rich) and the Global South (information poor).
• Gender Digital Divide: In many developing regions, women have significantly lower access to mobile phones and the internet due to cultural restrictions and economic dependence.
• Knowledge Gap Hypothesis: As mass media information grows, higher socioeconomic status segments acquire this information faster than lower status segments, increasing the gap in knowledge.