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New Media StudiesINTRODUCTION AND THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY .......................... 5
EXAMPLES ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 5
STRUCTURE VERSUS AGENCY ................................................................................................................................................................ 7
THEORIES OF TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY - ANDREW FEENBERG .................................................................................................. 8
Determinism ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 9
Instrumentalism ................................................................................................................................................................................. 9
Substantivism....................................................................................................................................................................................... 9
Critical theory ................................................................................................................................................................................... 10
CLASS 1. PRIVACY AND SURVEILLANCE ................................................................................................................ 10
PRIVACY?! .............................................................................................................................................................................................10
1. Privacy… A conceptualization .............................................................................................................................................. 10
Individual (Warren & Brandeis, 1890) ............................................................................................................................................ 10
Individu (Westin, 1967).......................................................................................................................................................................... 11
Context (Altman, 1975)........................................................................................................................................................................... 11
Boundary coordination patterns (Petronio, 2002)..................................................................................................................... 13
Theory of Contextual Integrity............................................................................................................................................................. 13
Petronio versus Nissenbaum ................................................................................................................................................................ 14
Network (Boyd, Marwick, Vitak, etc.) ............................................................................................................................................... 14
SURVEILLANCE ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 14
2. Surveillance: Panoptic, social and intimate surveillance ......................................................................................... 14
Panoptic surveillance ............................................................................................................................................................................... 14
Sharenting dilemmas (Blum-Ross & Livingstone, 2017) ......................................................................................................... 16
CLASS 2. MOBILE MEDIA & SOCIETY ...................................................................................................................... 17
1. THE NETWORK LOGIC ....................................................................................................................................................................17
Societal change ................................................................................................................................................................................ 17
Socio-historical perspective on place & time ...................................................................................................................... 17
Network Society & Networked Individualism..................................................................................................................... 18
Space of flows.................................................................................................................................................................................... 18
Timeless time .................................................................................................................................................................................... 18
IMPLICATIONS .......................................................................................................................................................................................19
The benefits of networked individualism.............................................................................................................................. 19
Flipside of greater autonomy..................................................................................................................................................... 21
THE SOCIAL LOGIC ...............................................................................................................................................................................22
Why are mobile CTies so popular?........................................................................................................................................... 22
SOCIETAL CHANGE ...............................................................................................................................................................................22
The ‘pure’ relationship .................................................................................................................................................................. 22
IMPLICATIONS .......................................................................................................................................................................................23
Mobile communication & perpetual contact ...................................................................................................................... 23
THE PERSONAL LOGIC .........................................................................................................................................................................24
Societal change ................................................................................................................................................................................ 24
IMPLICATIONS .......................................................................................................................................................................................25
Personalization & individualized decision making .......................................................................................................... 25
mHealth and bio-politics.............................................................................................................................................................. 25
CLASS 3.1 PRIVACY AND SURVEILLANCE PART II .............................................................................................. 26
1. (YOUNG) PEOPLE’S PRIVACY PRACTICES ......................................................................................................................................26
1
, Moral panic ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 26
Questioning the privacy paradox ............................................................................................................................................. 27
(Creative) privacy management strategies ......................................................................................................................... 27
Privacy fatigue (De Wolf, 2020) ............................................................................................................................................... 28
Control responsibility (De Wolf & Joye, 2019) .................................................................................................................... 28
2. PRIVACY AND INNOVATION ............................................................................................................................................................29
Behavioral economics ................................................................................................................................................................... 29
Privacy by design............................................................................................................................................................................. 30
Privacy as ‘hiding’ ........................................................................................................................................................................... 30
Privacy as ‘control’ ......................................................................................................................................................................... 30
Privacy as ‘practice’ ....................................................................................................................................................................... 31
CLASS 3.2 IDENTITY AND AWARENESS ................................................................................................................. 31
1. IDENTITY: SOME CLASSICAL VIEWPOINTS ....................................................................................................................................31
Identity................................................................................................................................................................................................. 31
Technologies of the self - Foucault .......................................................................................................................................... 32
Life politics - Giddens ..................................................................................................................................................................... 32
Performance - Goffman ................................................................................................................................................................ 33
2. IDENTITY & NEW MEDIA ...............................................................................................................................................................33
Face-to-face interaction (Hogan, 2010) ............................................................................................................................... 33
Face-to-face interaction versus networked interaction................................................................................................. 34
Impression given/given off (Ellison et al., 2006) .............................................................................................................. 35
Self awareness .................................................................................................................................................................................. 35
SELFIES ..................................................................................................................................................................................................36
Our opinion doesn’t float in thin air… .................................................................................................................................... 36
Disembodied eye (Warfield, 2014) .......................................................................................................................................... 37
Generation Like ................................................................................................................................................................................ 37
Production and consumption..................................................................................................................................................... 38
Prosumer capitalism...................................................................................................................................................................... 38
Micro celebrities (Abidin, 2018) ............................................................................................................................................... 38
CLASS 4. NETWORKED SOCIETY AND COMMUNITY .......................................................................................... 39
1. SITUATING THE NETWORKED SOCIETY .........................................................................................................................................39
Gemeinschaft & Gesellschaft (1887) ....................................................................................................................................... 39
Similar discourse among other classic sociologists ......................................................................................................... 41
Individualism .................................................................................................................................................................................... 42
Network society - Manuel Castells ........................................................................................................................................... 42
2. NEW MEDIA & SOCIETY .................................................................................................................................................................44
Virtual community (+) .................................................................................................................................................................. 44
Virtual community (-) ................................................................................................................................................................... 45
‘Echo chambers’ and ‘filter bubbles’ ....................................................................................................................................... 45
Debunking the notion of the echo chamber and filter bubble ..................................................................................... 45
Networked individualism ............................................................................................................................................................ 46
‘Social operating system’ evolution ......................................................................................................................................... 47
Networked individualism ............................................................................................................................................................ 49
Connection between authors ..................................................................................................................................................... 49
Alone together .................................................................................................................................................................................. 49
According to Jean Twenge… ....................................................................................................................................................... 51
Critiques (Livingstone, 2018) .................................................................................................................................................... 51
CLASS 5. ALGORITHMS AS CULTURE ...................................................................................................................... 53
PART I. VIEWPOINTS ON ALGORITHMS AND DATA ..........................................................................................................................53
2
, Algorithms in culture .................................................................................................................................................................... 53
Algorithms becoming culture .................................................................................................................................................... 54
Algorithms as culture .................................................................................................................................................................... 54
PART II. ISSUES WITH DATA COLLECTION/MINING ........................................................................................................................55
Old/New data collection methods ........................................................................................................................................... 56
Data breaches ................................................................................................................................................................................... 57
Data trade-off ................................................................................................................................................................................... 57
Cultural opacity (Denicola, 2012) ........................................................................................................................................... 58
The bigger picture (examples) .................................................................................................................................................. 58
PART III. ISSUES WITH (EXCLUSIONS OF) DATA ANALYSIS & AUTOMATED SYSTEMS ................................................................58
Big data (Boyd & Crawford, 2012) .......................................................................................................................................... 58
1. Data and knowledge ................................................................................................................................................................. 59
2. Data and objectivity .................................................................................................................................................................. 60
3. Bigger data, better data? ........................................................................................................................................................ 60
4. Data and context ........................................................................................................................................................................ 60
5. Data and accessibility............................................................................................................................................................... 61
6. Data and the digital divide..................................................................................................................................................... 61
Data exclusions (Lerman, 2013)............................................................................................................................................... 61
CLASS 6. MEDIA LITERACY AND DIGITAL INEQUALITY ................................................................................... 63
CONCEPTUALIZING MEDIA LITERACY ................................................................................................................................................63
E-inclusion .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 63
Digital divide ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 63
Personal digital skills (Vanhaelewyn et al., 2018)............................................................................................................ 64
Data literacy (Pangrazio & Selwyn, 2019) .......................................................................................................................... 65
Structural inequality (Helsper, 2011) .................................................................................................................................... 66
Digital rich are getting richer ................................................................................................................................................... 66
MEDIA LITERACY POLICY.....................................................................................................................................................................67
E-inclusion policy in Flanders .................................................................................................................................................... 67
Media literacy in Europe .............................................................................................................................................................. 69
Global digital divide ....................................................................................................................................................................... 70
CASE STUDY: ADVERTISING LITERACY ...............................................................................................................................................70
Assessment of new advertising formats ................................................................................................................................ 71
Advertising literacy ........................................................................................................................................................................ 71
Social influencer advertising...................................................................................................................................................... 71
Media literacy “as the silver bullet?” ...................................................................................................................................... 72
CLASS 7. ONLINE CITIZENSHIP AND ACTIVISM ................................................................................................... 72
1. ONLINE CITIZENSHIP AND PUBLIC SPHERE ..................................................................................................................................72
Digital citizenship ........................................................................................................................................................................... 73
Public sphere (Habermas)........................................................................................................................................................... 74
Pseudo public sphere? (Fuchs, 2017) ..................................................................................................................................... 75
Online public sphere & critique ................................................................................................................................................. 75
2. DIGITAL ACTIVISM ...........................................................................................................................................................................77
Hacktivism: criminals or new heroes? ................................................................................................................................... 77
Clicktivism .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 77
Social media & protest .................................................................................................................................................................. 78
New media → New forms of protest........................................................................................................................................ 78
Personal action frames ................................................................................................................................................................. 78
Repertoires of contention ............................................................................................................................................................ 79
3. TROLLING AND ALT-RIGHT .............................................................................................................................................................79
Trolling (Marwick & Lewis, 2017) ........................................................................................................................................... 79
3
, Trolling (Reicher & Haslam, 2006) ......................................................................................................................................... 80
Alt-right ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 80
CLASS 8.1 DATA PROTECTION IN THE HEALTHCARE SECTOR ...................................................................... 81
What does health data include? ............................................................................................................................................... 81
When do we start giving away our health data? .............................................................................................................. 81
Genetic determinism, right to know, right not to know ................................................................................................. 81
Where are we giving away our health data? ...................................................................................................................... 81
Digital Biomarkers ......................................................................................................................................................................... 82
Inference of health information................................................................................................................................................ 82
Concerns and challenges .............................................................................................................................................................. 82
Who is interested in our health data? .................................................................................................................................... 83
Who else? Data-driven companies........................................................................................................................................... 83
Who else? Biomedical researchers .......................................................................................................................................... 84
Case of Henrietta Lacks ................................................................................................................................................................ 84
Who is in charge anyways? Who controls your data? .................................................................................................... 85
Shortcomings of “individual control” rhetoric ................................................................................................................... 85
Who owns your health data? ..................................................................................................................................................... 85
Commercialization of health and health data markets ................................................................................................. 85
Health data: not entirely personal .......................................................................................................................................... 86
Direct to consumer services and incidental information............................................................................................... 86
CLASS 8.2 SCOT AND COLONISATION ..................................................................................................................... 87
Platforms do not address community issues ....................................................................................................................... 87
Sharing economy ............................................................................................................................................................................. 88
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF TECHNOLOGY .........................................................................................................................................89
EPOR, Empirical program of relativism ................................................................................................................................ 90
Facts are created ............................................................................................................................................................................. 90
The sociologists of science should expand this idea of interpretative flexibility to technology.................... 91
SCOT ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 92
Media, science and technology are social constructions ............................................................................................... 92
Obligatory passage point (Callon, 1986) .............................................................................................................................. 93
FEENBERG ON HABERMAS & MARCUSE ...........................................................................................................................................93
Colonization - the development of an argument against bad technologies .......................................................... 93
Marcuse versus Habermas .......................................................................................................................................................... 93
We can have different kinds of instrumental reason....................................................................................................... 94
Colonisation 1 ................................................................................................................................................................................... 95
Colonization 2 ................................................................................................................................................................................... 96
Compas ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 96
Do not forget that there are three media ............................................................................................................................. 97
AI example > Perverse optimalisation ................................................................................................................................... 97
4
,Introduction and theoretical perspectives on
technology and society
“There are a lot of new media and technology gurus and futurologists out there, but what new
media studies aspires to is something different: not to predict, but to read, analyse and
understand current trends, based on empirical research and social scientific theories, and at the
same time, to offer students an analytical template through which to make sense of the present and
future developments in new media and social media (preface, Siapera 2018).”
Examples
Personalized advertising on television
- You have a cat? Brace yourselves for ‘Whiskas- advertising’ (‘U heeft een kat? Hou u klaar
voor Whiskas-reclame’, De Standaard 13/09/2016).
- Telenet would use info of online personalized advertising in the home context, specifically
on linear television. Use this information and use it in the home context.
- First thoughts?
- Social dynamics in the home contexts, you don’t have online
- Option or possibility for admakers to reach the audience they want to reach
- Personalized experience that you have in an online environment would be a good
thing to cross your attention in the home context
- Intrusive or creepy
- That point of serendipity that something happens by hazard can be quite fun and
that will fade when we personalize everything.
- Problem: lower income for commercial broadcasting because of delayed/ online viewing
- Solution: implementing online targeted advertising in television context
- Societal issues/reflections?
- Privacy:
- Privacy on an institutional front: e.g. Telenet will have access to our
searching behavior
- Social privacy issues: e.g. a young girl who is pregnant and gets pregnancy
test ads online and this is also transferred to the home context involuntarily
exposed to her parents
- Opt-in versus opt-out: Ethical to implement a system without consent, will
everybody understand the new technological complement?
- Filter bubble: online environment can be seen as personalized environment, but
some people claim we are confronted with a filter bubble, so this would happen in
the home context as well
World’s Fair Chicago
1833-1933: A century of progress: “Science finds, industry applies, and man adapts”.
- All technological innovations were shown and discussed at this world’s fair.
- Opinions: that is not how society works, people are deciding what we should do.
5
,The Arab Spring
- Empowerment potential of social media
- First wave of protest and rebellion that was depicted as caused by social media.
It can also be more positive. The general discourse about new media and social media is that it’s not
that different from a century ago. A monocausal relationship between social media and what it does
with society.
Smart home technology
- Will make our lives easier, more energy efficient, structured.
- A home, with different types of sensors and devices
- We see a Google pattern and their plans for smart home automation. Those everyday
discussions that we now have don’t limit themselves to smart thermostats or smart
speakers, they also have a profound idea of how your household should work: what type of
interactions are appropriate and which are not. In the figure they were giving the example of
how both parents that were out could watch the babysitter, could watch if there was
interaction, could watch if there was interaction with the content that they were viewing...
- Another example: the house could indicate, based on movement, noise etc., that chores
have not been complemented and an excessive amount of content has been consumed. The
house could restrict the access to further content. (e.g. watching Netflix and the house tells
you to stop and go do you chores)
What do these images have in common?
Technological determinism
- Proposes that technology is the driving force in developing the structure of society and
culture = Monocausal way of thinking: changes in society are caused by changes in
technological developments.
- Social media is making us selfish, smartphones are ruining meaningful conversations…
- E.g. “Scot kids who spend the most time online are the most unhappy” How about: “Scot
kids who are most unhappy spend the most time online”
On the other side of the spectrum…
Social determinism
- Proposes that factors in society create specific uses of technology. Social norms, attitudes,
cultural practices, and religious beliefs are directly impacting how technology is used and
what its social consequences are. Ignores technology to a certain extent.
- Example: Facebook is not an open system that makes us more social and open, rather it is a
manifestation of a neo-liberal system that exploits its users (= social deterministic way of
looking at social reality and ignoring technology that is shaping us, dystopian).
The truth is somewhere in the middle
- Technology influences society
- Society influences technology
= mutual shaping
6
,Structure versus agency
- Within a structural tradition, society is seen as an independent entity that influences how
humans act, think and feel
- An agency perspective puts more emphasis on humans, their actions and especially the
meaning they assign to those actions.
Example social media:
- Social media as ‘networked publics’:
“Spaces constructed through networked technologies; and imagined communities that emerge as a
result of the intersection of people, technology and practice” (Marwick & boyd, 2014 p.1052).
- = Interactionist perspective: this definition isn’t social or technological
deterministic. They are shaping each other into existence.
- Emphasis on identity development, community development
- Affordances (enable certain actions) of social media are shaping our everyday
practices & dynamics
- Pigs think it is great to live in the barn: we are the pigs and use Facebook and Twitter
for free. They are talking about the free model, but we are selling our personal
information.
- Social media as “extensive commodification”:
“Social networking sites are especially suited for targeted advertising because they store and
communicate a vast amount of personal likes and dislikes of users that allow surveillance of these
data for economic purposes, finding out which products the users are likely to buy. This explains why
targeted advertising is the main source of income and the business model of most profit-oriented
social networking sites” (Fuchs, 2011 p.148).
- Political economic perspective
- Emphasis on economic aspects: people are being exploited while we are being
estranged from the platform and technology that we are using.
- Double commodification:
- We are being exploited because our information is being used but we are
not getting paid for it
- Using our personal information for personalised ads and again selling things
to us: our personal data is being used and reused to send us personalized
advertising. Target advertising is the main source of income.
- Process where personal information and social relationships are adapted to
principals of the market.
Networked publics vs commodification
- Social media as networked publics:
- What about structure? What about that political economic aspect?
- Social media as commodification:
7
, - What about agency? Are we really just pigs going for the free model or is there some
sort of resistance?
The way we look at social reality also influences how we are going to study that social reality and
what exactly we can understand social reality to be.
Theories of technology and society - Andrew Feenberg
- Classic vision on technological innovation
- Linearity! Quite a linear view on the technological development
- Technology goes through a lot of processes: Fundamental research →
Applied research → Technological development → Product development →
Production Usage
- The concepts of structure and agency, social and technological determinism emerge quite
often.
- Image of a ‘genius’ inventor in social vacuum
- Theory of Andrew Feenberg: map different viewpoints on how we can look at the
relationship between society and technology.
Autonomous (~structure) Human controlled
(~agency)
Neutrality (separation
of means and ends) Determinism Instrumentalism (liberal
faith in progress)
Value-laden (means for
way of life that Substantivism Critical theory
includes ends)
- Neutrality: describes technologies as separate from human activities, hinders any in depth
analysis of social change because technology merely fulfills nature's mandate. There is an
influence of technology, but it is not intentional, it is natural: separation between means and
ends. If you have a neutral way of looking at technology, it is kind of natural and all of the
consequences aren’t on purpose.
- Value laden: argues how technological developments are equal to human products, any
experience or technology that is realized, is seen as progress of the entire human voice.
There is a purpose.
- Autonomous: argues that humans have very little choice in deciding how certain
technologies can be used and how it might evolve and diffuse in society. The underlying
assumption is that technology compels and alters the development of social structure.
8
, - E.g. the introduction of a television set is seen as a reconfiguration and how we
spend our free time, so we have a television set and it is supposed to be in the right
corner of the room and this decides how we spent time with one another.
- Critics of autonomous viewpoints argue that technologies are socially constructed
entities whose meaning and use is determined by human action. We have more or
less agency over the use of technology in society.
- Human controlled: a lot of attention goes to agency
Determinism
- Technological determinism: technology as a driving force for social change
- Social determinism: social factors as affecting technological development and use
- We don’t have an ideal society in mind and technology and society are seen as an intentional
creator for both society and technology → No intentional influence or social factors
- Technology is neutral and they have structure
- No correlation between the means and ends
- Undergoing social reality
- Very technological deterministic point of view but it can also be a very political economic or
Marxist point of view.
Instrumentalism
- More devoted to agency, it looks at technology as something neutral but human controlled
- Technology has a purpose to fulfill user specific tasks
- E.g. “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”: very popular saying in America that
illustrates instrumentalism. It underlines the importance of Americans to have weapons to
protect themselves. A lot of people will not agree with this quote.
- E.g. “AI isn’t biased, society is biased”
Substantivism
- Argues that technology brings forth new socio-economic and political systems which in turn
structure and control our society.
- More individual use of technology
- Technology has its own logics and goals
- E.g. The perspective on the gun is that it is made to hurt and kill, mass press is made to
spread information etc.
- The nature of technology decides how it is used
9
, Critical theory
- Argues that technology is not neutral but developed with certain goals in mind
- Technology is both the product from social and technical factors
- In a hegemonic structure, technology will embody the values of social structures of those
hegemonic leads. In a democracy, that same technology can be used in a different way.
- Looks at the agency of groups, society: some technologies will be used differently and will be
developed in different societies or countries. It is human controlled to a certain extent. (e.g.
development of the refrigerator: it was the lobby in America that decided refrigerators
should work on electricity and not on gas)
→ Feenberg mostly fits in the critical theory.
Class 1. privacy and surveillance
Privacy?!
“Living the public life is the new default”
“Transparency will replace privacy as the social norm and ideal”
“Privacy is a passing artifact of the industrial age”
→ Different ways of talking about privacy
→ Theories influence what we can and cannot see: when we conceptualize privacy, we do it in such
a way that it automatically results in the end of privacy.
1. Privacy… A conceptualization
From ‘individual’ to ‘context’ to ‘network’
Individual (Warren & Brandeis, 1890)
“Instantaneous photographs and newspaper enterprise have invaded the sacred precincts of private
and domestic life; and numerous mechanical devices threaten to make good the prediction that
‘what is whispered in the closet shall be proclaimed from the house-tops’” (Warren & Brandeis, 1890,
p. 195).
- Privacy as “the right to be let alone”: they argue how each man and woman is responsible
for his/her own actions and how a right of privacy should be seen as a weapon to defend
their privacy.
- Photography and paparazzi started at that time and it was the reason why they
wrote this case.
- Fundamental human right perspective on privacy
- One of the first that made a connection between privacy and technology or innovation.
10
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