Complete lecture notes (from live sessions combined with ppt slides). Also, a complete summary of relevant Baym chapters and other prescribed literature.
Week 1
Baym, Chaper 1: New forms of personal connection
• When first faced with new communication media, one of two reactions
o 1) expression of concern that communication becomes shallow → mediated
interaction threatens sanctity of personal relationships
o 2) offer of promise of more opportunity for connection with more people →
leading to stronger and more diverse relationships
• Both reflect that digital media is changing nature of social connections
o Once people get used to media → see them in more nuanced ways
o Eventually they become so taken for granted they are almost invisible
New media, new boundaries
• Digital media raise variety of issues as we try to understand them, their place in our
lives, their consequences
o When new: affect how we see the world, our communities, out relationships
and selves
o They can lead to cultural reorganisation and reflection. New tech (eg- the
telephone) creates a point where the familiar becomes unfamiliar, and
therefore open to change
▪ This can lead to anxiety: worries about writing, electricity;
currently, worries about technology more generally.
• Purpose of communication technologies allows messages to be exchanged without
being physically co-present
o Before telegram – there were time delays (of up to years). Telegraph allowed
for real-time comms across distances for first time.
▪ Millenia of face-to-face interactions were disrupted – along with
social understandings burned deep into collective conscience.
▪ Digital media continue those disruptions and cause new ones. Eg-
“how can we be present yet also absent”, “what is a self if it’s not in
a body”, “how can we have so much control yet lose so much
freedom?, “what is a mass medium if its used for personal
communication?”
• Separation of presence from communication:
o “challenge of absent presence”,
▪ worrying that we inhabit a “floating world” where we engage
primary with non-present partners despite the presence of flesh-and-
blood people in our physical location
▪ physical presence in one location, with mental and emotional
engagement elsewhere (eg- dinner partner who is immersed in
mobile phone conversation – where exactly is he?)
▪ bounds between human and machine as collapsed, and it is hard to
know where true selves reside (eg- online dating, “real self” best
expressed online, spaces for media built into clothing we wear etc)
• esp when selves enacted through digital media don’t line up
with those present face-to-face (aggressive online vs
nurturing) – what is real anymore?
o Separation offers more control
▪ “volume control”: can regulate our social environment and manage
our encounters
▪ Create new opportunities to converse
▪ Can avoid interactions (phone to avoid co-present acquaintance),
manipulate them (eg-speaker phone), shelter ourselves from
anxiety-ridden encounters (via just texting), see where contacts have
checked into and avoid those places
o Separation can also subject us to new forms of control, surveillance and
constraint
, ▪ Trapped in state of perpetual contact: autonomy is constrained by
expectation that we can be reached for communication anytime,
anywhere.
▪ Government surveillance: despite increased control of our
behaviours and relationships through digital media, evidence that
traces left by our activities are used for large-scale surveillance
• Exciting elements of digital media: as mass and interpersonal are blurred, can
communicate personally within previously prohibitively large groups
o Blurred boundaries disrupt both mass and interpersonal
▪ People gather online to talk about a TV show, they are a mass
communication audience
▪ But communication they have with one another is both interpersonal
(directed to individuals) and mass (available for anyone to read)
▪ If these conversations are incorporated into the TV show, the
boundaries between production and reception of mass media are
blurred as well
o Individuals have massive ability to communicate and produce their own
mediated content → opportunity for personal to become mass
▪ Eg- young woman creates video-log for her friends, which becomes
widely viewed on YouTube – viral content
▪ = new opportunities for fame outside of established cultural
industries
▪ = confusion about availability and scale of messages ➔ can lead to
unplanned broadcast of what was meant to be private (politician
who posts sexually explicit selfie on Twitter instead of DM)
• Other ways in which notions of public and private are implicated in, and changed by,
digital media
o Internet users decried for revealing personal information online
o Mobile phone users have private conversations in public spaces (“double
privatisation” of public space, as they isolate themselves nonverbally, then
fill the air with private patters)
o Homes (esp affluent) have “privatised media-rich bedroom cultures” →
people use media to create privacy and solitude
o All above happens within consumerist culture of purchasing mass-mediated
and branded products; where self-publicization may be essential to career
success
• At the heart of this boundary flux = deep confusion about what is real and what is
virtual (that which seems to be real but is ultimately a mere simulation)
o Those who hang out and build relationships online contrast it to what they
do IRL = perception that mediated defined as unreal
o Digital media thus call into question authenticity of our identities,
relationships and practises
▪ Perspective one: disruptions are necessary part of movement from
modern to postmodern times, where time and space are compressed,
speed is accelerated, people are ever-more mobile, communication
is person-to-person rather than place-to-place, identities are multiple
and communication media are ubiquitous
▪ Perspective two: emphasis that, within these cultural changes,
digital media are made mundane, boring and routine as they are
increasingly embedded in our everyday lives and social norms
coalesce around their use
• Emphasis of this book is on the mundane and everyday – on
how people incorporate digital media into their routine
practises of relating and with what consequences.
Differentiation of digital media: Seven key concepts
• Seven key concepts that can be used to compare digital media to one another, as well
as to face-to-face (body-to-body) communication
• Also need concepts to help recognise the diversity amongst what seems to be just one
technology (eg- mobile phone – used for voice, video exchanges, gaming and endless
apps)
,Interactivity • Many modes of communication on mobile/internet vary in degrees and kinds of
interactivity
o Eg- using phone to select new ringtone vs argue with romantic partner
o Eg- using website to buy new shoes rather than discuss current events
• ** most interesting - Social interactivity: ability of a medium to enable social
interaction between groups or individuals. Other forms:
o Technical interactivity: medium’s capacity to of letting human users
manipulate the machine via its interface
o Textual interactivity: the creative and interpretive interaction between
users and texts; eg- unlike TV, online allows “talking back” to the company,
who are expected to respond swiftly
• Internet-enabled interactivity =
o rise of new possibilities (can meet new people and remain close to those who
have moved away)
o As well as old concerns that people may be flirting w/ danger.
Temporal • Synchronous communication: occurs in real time (eg- face-to-face convos, phone
structure calls, IMs)
o Benefits:
▪ allow for very rapid transmission of messages, even across distance
▪ enhances sense of placelessness; allows people to feel more together
when they are apart
▪ makes messages feel more immediate and personal
▪ encourages playfulness in interactions
o Costs
▪ Have to align schedules in order to be simultaneously engaged
▪ Hard to handle large group online interaction in real-time (rapid-fire
succession)
• Asynchronous communication: has time delays between messages (eg- email and
voice mail)
o Benefits (opposite of synch)
▪ Can sustain large-group interaction (eg- social networks, fan
forums, support groups etc)
▪ Gives people time to strategically manage their self-presentations
o Costs (opposite of synch)
▪ Word may filter more slowly through such groups and individuals
→ less time demands on others: but may write longer than we’d
hoped or not actually receive reply
▪ Time lags only created by time it takes person to check messages
and reply (but not to time spent by message in transit)
• Distinction cannot always be tied to different media
o Eg- poor cell service may lead to time delays in seemingly synchronous
online medium.
o Text messaging is often asynchronous, but needn’t be
o Twitter can be both
o Email can be responded to rapidly, appearing synchronous
o Sites like Facebook offer both synch- and asynchronous modes of
communicating
Social cues • Social cues: available to provide further information regarding context, meaning of
messages and identities of people interacting → are sparse during digital
connections
o Rich media provide full range of cues; leaner media provide fewer
o Body-to-body interactions: have full range of communicative resources
available → important for interpreting messages and creating a social
context in which messages are meaningful
▪ Contextual: shared physical context (can also be referred to non-
verbally), same environmental influences and distractions,
▪ Visual: body movements (inc facial expressions), eyes to gauge
attention, see appearance
▪ Auditory: sound of voice etc
o Digital media: provide fewer cues (to varying degrees)
▪ Mobile and online interactions: few cues re- location,
, • but can still have shared relational contexts, knowledge and
some history (despite lack of shared physical context)
• online forums can have rich in-group social environments
▪ some media convey few cues about identity of participants =
anonymity in some cases → can provide opportunities (eg- safety,
experimentation) and also terror
Storage • extent to which messages endure (1)
• storage: maintenance of messages on servers or hard-drives over time
o continued in related next point
Replicability • extent to which messages endure (2)
• replicability: ability to make copies of messages
• face-to-face conversations and telephone are fleeting (unless recorded) → human
memory for conversation is notoriously poor
• whereas, digital media may be stored on devices/websites/backups, where they may
be replicated, retrieved later and edited prior to sending
o more likely with asynchronous (email) than synchronous (skype etc –
require extra program)
o they can also be archived for search → government agencies may track this
o despite this, digital messages may feel ephemeral (esp with disappearing
photos via Snapchat etc)
Reach • variation in the size of an audience that a message can attain or support
o face-to-face limited to those in same space, even when amplified senses and
physical space constrain
o telephones allow for group calls, but can only maintain small number
o online communication can be sent and re-sent (replicability) to enormous
audiences (both local and global)
▪ subverts elitism of mass media (where small amount of broadcasters
engage in one-to-many communication, usually within regional or
geographic boundaries) → digital media challenges historical
gatekeeping function of mass media
Mobility • extent to which messages are
o portable: enabling sending/receiving regardless of location
o stationary: requiring that people be in specific locations in order to interact
• trend towards mobile devices (phones, laptops, phablets) offers spatial mobility as
well as ability to move between times and interpersonal contexts
• outcomes of mobile media:
o promise that we never have to be out of touch, no matter delay or changed
context (friends available when with families)
▪ can be good but also threatens autonomy, as we have to be
accountable to others at all times (perpetual possibility of contact)
o encourages micro-coordination: people check in with one another to provide
brief updates or quickly arrange meetings and errands
Overview face- • is interactive, like all forms of digital media → people can respond to one another in
to-face message exchanges
communication • is synchronous
• loaded with social cues, so identities and elements of social and physical context are
apparent
• cannot be stored or replicated (even when recorded, loses degree of physical
intimacy)
• has low reach → limits how many can be involved and how far messages spread
• can be mobile, as long as interactants are moving through space together
o all of the above grants face-to-face a sort of specialness
o full range of cues, irreplicability and need to share space/time) all contribute
to communion in communication
Overview • in contrast, some forms of mediated interaction are asynchronous (enables more
mediated message planning and wider reach, but potentially lower sense of connection)
interactions • media such as Skype or video chat offer many social cues, but lack critical intimacy
cues including touch and smell
o other digital media offer fewer social cues (limiting to just voice or words)
• all digital media can be stored (often when individuals delete them); may also leave
digital traces when not stored (phone call log, IP addresses visited etc)
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