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Summary New Media Studies (De Wolf): all lectures + notes €8,99   In winkelwagen

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Summary New Media Studies (De Wolf): all lectures + notes

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Full resume of notes from all the lectures of "New Media Studies" at UGent

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  • 1 juni 2021
  • 61
  • 2020/2021
  • Samenvatting
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Samenvatting New Media Studies 1



1 INTRODUCTION AND THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON TECHN. AND SOCIETY

1.1 PERSONALIZED ADS ON TV
“You have a cat? Brace yourselves for ‘Whiskas- advertising”
à thoughts?
• Social dynamics in home context that you don’t have.
• Grasp your attention on products you might buy instead of walking away or doing something else
whilst watching the ad
• Might make you think about “creepy” that they know these » intrusive, “big brother”

Problem: lower income for commercial broadcasting because of delayed/ online viewing
Solution: implementing online targeted advertising in television context

Societal issues/reflections?
• Privacy: “creepy” social privacy issues: most of us have own devices. Imagine young girl who is
pregnant and receives pregnancy ads on tv and has to confess to her parents à different dynamics
• Opt-in versus opt-out: can someone opt in for it? à digital literacy issues
• Filter bubble: online environments can be personal environments with your bubble

Example poster of world’s fair in Chicago with technical developments that were showed at this fair.
Quote: “Science finds, industry applies and man adapts” à from nowadays perspective: not how it should be,
like sheep following the technology

Positive view on social media: Zuckerberg claims that it will empower people, will help us. “Give people the
power to share and make the world more open and connected.”
Negative view on social media: now as a digital gangster that’s destroying democracy

Other things that will make our lives easier, more energy efficient, structured like smart home technology. Not
just smart thermostats but also about how household should work (what is appropriate interaction) à smart
home automation is intensifying our way of life.

What do these images have in common? Technological determinism

1.2 THEORIES

TECHNOLOGICAL DETERMINISM SOCIAL DETERMINISM
= technology is the driving force in developing the Proposes that factors in society create specific uses
structure of society and culture. It moulds society to of technology. Social norms, attitudes, cultural
fit its patterns and will change it. practices, religious beliefs are directly impacting how
technology is used and what its social consequences
“Scots kids who spend the most time online are most are.
unhappy” à “Scots kids who are most unhappy spend the
most time online” Ignore technology to a certain ascend. What matters
isn’t the technology itself, but the social or economic
system in which it’s embedded.

FB isn’t an open system that makes us more social & open,
it’s a manifestation of neo-liberal system that exploits its
users (= social deterministic, dystopian). It doesn’t
empower society

Truth? In the middle of these 2 things:
• Technology influences society
• Society influences technology
= mutual shaping without being too technological of social deterministic

,Samenvatting New Media Studies 2


Example of determinism:
Integration of online social network platforms in daily life. These communication channels are more accessible
+ made to work alongside existing channels (telephone, face-to-face conversations).

Who would say what?
• Technological determinism: this technology directly affects our ability to network (without it, it is
impossible to maintain friendships over a long distance)
• Social determinism: this technology was born out of the need to be able to maintain friendships over a
long distance
• Mutual shaping: it is both, and can also be viewed both separately. Technology and society are linked
and work together to reinforce each other

1.3 STRUCTURE VS AGENCY
Structural tradition: society is an independent entity that influences how humans act, think and feel
Agency perspective: more emphasis on humans, their actions and especially the meaning they assign to those
actions.

Examples social media as…

… ‘NETWORKED PUBLICS’ (BOYD)
“Spaces constructed through networked technologies; and imagined communities that emerge as a result of the
intersection of people, technology and practice” (Boyd)

Social media acts as a facilitator. View = all the dots are connected (community).

• Interactionist perspective: not technological/social deterministic, but shaping each other
• Emphasis on identity or community development or presentation of self-development » agency
• Affordances & dynamics

How are the affordances shaping social media? (Affordances = object that enables certain aspects and clarifies
how something should be used. You can do other things with it, but that’s not how it should be used)

… EXTENSIVE COMMODIFICATION (FUCHS)
View = “we have to pay nothing, even the food is free!” à you’re selling your own personal info for “free”.

Personal data is being used and re-used to send personalized ads)

“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)

• Emphasis on economic aspects, no interaction: a “like” isn’t a confirmation of an identity, but is part
of capitalist logic
• Double commodification: 1) we’re being exploited because of our information being used whilst not
being paid for that, and 2) they are using our info for sending personalised ads to sell us something à
our personal information is adapted to principles of the market

New media are deciding how we behave. We’re being exploited or being estranged from the technology that
we’re using.
NETWORKED PUBLIC VS COMMODIFICATION
Social media as networked publics: what about structure?
Social media as commodification: what about agency, do we have a voice?

, Samenvatting New Media Studies 3


1.4 THEORIES OF TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY (FEENBERG)
Classic vision on technological innovation =
• Linearity
Fundamental research à Applied research à Technological development à Product development à Production à Usage
• Image of a ‘genius’ inventor in social vacuum (1 genius has developed something new, it gets developed and we use it (= the continuum). But: technological
development doesn’t happen in a vacuum (with 1 genius). It goes through a lot of different processes

How to look
at society
AUTONOMOUS HUMAN CONTROLLED
How to look Structure. We have little influence in how it evolves. Technology alters Agency. People have a choice in how the technology should be used, which
at technology social structure. value it has.

Determinism (technological/social) Instrumentalism
NEUTRALITY • TD: technology as driving force for social change. We’re undergoing Technology has a purpose to fulfil user’s perspective thoughts à
Separation of means and social reality and need to adapt to it. Technologies are neutral and technology is a neutral tool. Individual agency to use technology as a
ends. Technology doesn’t have structural effect, operate autonomously. Example: “FB is making positive or negative tool, according to people’s intentions.
have a preference in a us more self-absorbed”. TV is centralized in the living room.
certain outcome.
• SD: social factors decide how technology is used, and what its social Example: “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” (guns don’t have
consequences are. different values, only people do). With AI, “AI isn’t biased, society is biased”.

VALUE-LADEN Substantivism Critical theory
Technology is developed Technology brings forth new social systems. Nature of technology decides The same technology can be applied in a different way. Technology must
with a purpose in mind how it’s used, works to its own logics and goals. Technology can act as an be understood in the context of its use (» dependent of social influences, a
to steer society in a independent force that is uncontrollable by humans. Can have big user’s values, a different country, …). Agencies of groups, communities and
certain direction. Every structured effects on humans, be discriminative against certain minorities,.. societies. Steers the direction of how technology can function in society.
new technology
Our values form technology, while technology reinforces them.
experience = progress for Example: guns are made to hurt and kill (means and ends are clear),
all humanity (we have printing press is made to diffuse information. Example: use of Twitter to create awareness around a topic à alternative
landed on the moon).
choice about means and ends possible.

Where does Feenberg himself fits? à more like value laden but with human twist. Not too deterministic (like Marx) but. We as agents do have power or agency to change
the fate of technology. He’s not going to say that technology is fully human controlled. Technology is out there and I can resource it and assign my own meaning to it

, Samenvatting New Media Studies 4



2 PRIVACY AND SURVEILLANCE PART 1
Privacy?
“Living the public life is the new default”
“Transparency will replace privacy as the social norm and ideal”
“Privacy is a passing artefact of the industrial age”

It’s important that we have a good conceptualization of “privacy” à the way how we see or conceptualize
something influences what we can/cannot see.

2.1 CONCEPTUALIZATION OF PRIVACY

1. INDIVIDUAL
WARREN & BRANDEIS
“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).

• Privacy as “the right to be let alone”: because of the GDPR, today that’s possible. Tensions between
privacy and freedom of speech, censorship, … Good thing to delete certain things? à complex on how
you use media, what you’re doing online. It’s not totally gone online, but it’s not a link with you as
individual
• Fundamental human right perspective on privacy: we as an individual shouldn’t have to worry about
it, it should be made for us.

WESTIN
“Privacy is the claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to determine for themselves when, how, and to what
extent information about them is communicated to others” (Westin).

• Privacy as “information control”: privacy isn’t seen as a right, but we need to look at it as control: it’s
not just a right, but we ourselves are responsible for what we disclose. For certain moments we’d like
me-time and close “the door” (we can close it ourselves, but sometimes it’s decided for us).
• Instrumental perspective on privacy (achieve personal autonomy, emotional relationship, self-
reflection): privacy is not an end but a mean to achieve something else

Side notes: contact tracing applications. Now: legal and technology experts try to have privacy as fundamental
right à anonymize certain information so that 3rd parties can’t use it, it’s made for us. Also give people agency
and individual control about what they do/don’t share.

Privacy as a right is more or less integrated in technology. On contextual level not really.
2. CONTEXT
ALTMAN
“Privacy as the selective control of access to the self” (Altman)
Privacy “as information control… but with a focus on the environment where the disclosure takes place”

Unlimited sharing as a privacy strategy
Example: “The appearance of unlimited sharing (in SNSs) allows them [referring to young users] to achieve
privacy meaningfully” (Boyd, 2014, p.75)

Example of girl sharing embarrassing pictures of herself on social media to have control & undermines friends’
ability to define the situation of the pictures differently à context is very important to understand individual
privacy.

Privacy is beyond individual control. This context: she controls the situation by posting embarrassing photos.
“She’s giving up voluntarily her private information. She doesn’t care about privacy, puts everything online.”

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