Prelim 1 - Key Terms
Role of the internet in sex education/sexual subcultures (Doring)
"Institutions, companies, groups, and individuals use the internet to obtain and provide information about sexuality as well as to promote changes in attitudes and behavior" (Doring) Broad range of services including: Training Modules Visits of social workers in sex changes E-cards to warn people about STIs Professional sex therapy Online self-help groups Benefits: availability, anonymity Ex. Laci Green Risks: misinformation, unscientific, or uncorroborated evidence Sexual Subcultures For marginalized sexual communities, "the emancipation and empowerment brought on by the internet is typically welcomed" Importance for subcultures By providing easily accessible platform for the establishment of contacts between individuals of similar creeds and sexual orientations, the internet can ameliorate social isolation, facilitate social networking, strengthen self-acceptance and self identity, help to communicate practical information, and encourage political activism Readings Döring, "The Internet's impact on sexuality: A critical review of 15 years of research." Computers in Human Behavior. (BB). o Paper addresses (6) areas of onlien sexuality: pornogrpahy, sex shops, sex education, sex contacts, and sexual subcultures o Paper shows that sexually related online activities have become routine in recent years for large segments of the population in the western world o Internet exuality takes different forms based on the age/gender/sexual orientation of the individual o Triple A effect Reyes, (2014). YouTube is a lifeline for transgender young people. Los Angeles Times o Niko Walker on youtube shows his mastectomy scars/shows how he injects testosterone → at his westchester home 21y old sues the camera to feel safe o Feels that ti is his responsibility to support his transgender "brothers" o Videos are part of a growing visibility for transgender people but also a reflection of a younger generation used to broadcasting much more about their lives (trans or not) o Kat Blaque says "youtube was my place to vent when I couldn't say anything to anyone" • Finding a community in the online world to feel accepted
Monoculture (Scott Timburg)
"While there is plenty of diversity — of opinion, of musical style, of offerings in television and movies — the monoculture is as strong as ever" Information overload Readings Timburg, S. (2016). "The Revenge of Monoculture: The Internet gave us more choices, but the mainstream won anyway." Salon. o Some argue that having a shared anglo-american culture gives us a communal sense of belong together → sharing concerns/values at time when politics/religion divide us o Being excited over a movie/song is a sign culture worked, people listen to each other and connect through their tastes o We can probably predict what movies will dominate media coverage and the box office next year and who will make celebrated videos/best-selling songs of 2017
Three roles for government in regulation
1. Enforce standards 2. Authorize arrangements 3. Criminalize circumvention
Freemium
A funding model for internet content Tiered services, like Flickr and Flickr Pro Readings Anderson, "Why $0 is the future of business"
Citizen journalism
A shift in journalism People can report news freely and share their accounts/opinions to the public (social media, blogs, etc.) Citizens "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing, and disseminating news and information." Made possible by digital media Expectation that journalism will "thrive" with citizen journalism and new technologies for news gathering but it does not due to content aggregators like Google and Yahoo, the endurance of legacy publishers, and new ways to get news
Technological Determinism
Belief that technology in any given society defines its nature Technology is considered the driving force of culture in society for good or bad Readings: Boyd: "Introduction", It's Complicated Boyd: "internet mirror, magnifies, and makes more visible the good, bad, and ugly of everyday life" Curran: "The Internet of Dreams" Curran: "Neither society nor technology solely determines the nature of the Internet's impact. The issue is rather which of these influencers is more important, and how do they interact with one another?" Carr: "Is Google Making us Stupid" Carr: "What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski jet"
Internet Regulation: who does it?
Different types of regulation Self-regulation Industry modified behavior in response to agreed codes Co-regulation with state Often means a more lightly controlled environment Infrastructure and policy (net neutrality) Technological controls Readings See: Government vs. Governance
Inequalities in the Gig/On Demand Economy
Economy: volume of online shopping still small, new players in "gig" economy, economic inequality is deepening, new "big players" Readings Smith "Gig Work, Online Selling and Home Sharing o 24% of americans report earning income from the digital platform economy in the past year → people have long been takens piecemeal work vs a traditional salary o Those w/ the greatest personal exposure or shared/on-demand services had more + views, those who used 6+ shared/one-demand services were more likely than those who sued <=5 services to feel that gig economy was good (for above reasons) still hesitant about the ultimate impact of these jobs
Net neutrality
Freeman: regulatory response to the ability of certain providers to restrict or segregate distribution of content online Federal judge rejected cable and phone companies attempts to stop net neutrality. Internet is a public utility Readings MTI Chapter 4: "The Internet of Rules." Pp. 119-129; 136-140. o Dyson suggests it's important to have a limited relation b/w the government and the internet, to focus the public's imagination on a better solution, not government regulation or even industry self-regulation o An environment where consumers themselves can exercise their power/control their own info o Not all regulation is about banning content/spying → when the internet's underlying principles of openness/decentralization are threatened many commenters (who were reluctant to involve government) turn to the state for support/action o Tim Berners-Lee insists that net neutrality is needed to preserve the dynamic/innovative/egalitarian internet when these principles are threatened by the walled gardens of social networks/proprietary programs o Regulatory actions are required to fend off the distortion of the public good by special interests "Net Neutrality in a new administration: Wired Fast Company (others TBA) o FCC has passed new regulations to protect net neutrality by banning "slow lanes" on the internet, created new rules to protect internet subscriber privacy and levied fines against big companies o FCC under Obama took spte sot prevent internet providers from favoring certain kind of content over others, preserving the core principles of free/open internet (not sure what Trump's future FCC appointees will pursue) o In 2015 FCc commissioners enacted its current net neutrality policy → Open Internet Order, asserted the FCC's right under federal law or regular broadband internet similarly to traditional phone service • Expressed concerns that internet providers could slow or even block controversial content or content from publishers unwilling/unable to pay to have it expedited to consumers o While many are against FCC rules, groups are also averse to regulatory uncertainty/shifting legal frameworks → Trump in 2014 expressed concerns that the urles were stifling conservative voices
Research streams for "gender and internet"
Gender differences in online behavior (including linguistic) Gendered online communities Mobilizing for social and political causes Performing gender in online contexts Gender disparities in tech/design 1990s: Turkle discussed importance of gender play whereby the internet is a "significant social laboratory for experimenting with the constructions and reconstructions of self" Remember that gender is socially constructed Much of this research leaves "make-female dichotomy unchallenged" (van Zoonen and van Doorn)
MTI: "Internet of Dreams" versus reality
In 1990s, experts thought the internet would transform the world Readings MTI, "Internet of Dreams" o Everyone thought that internet would change society permantenly. o Shift from passive to active participation o Uprisings in middle east - internet is transformative force
Features of mass media versus "new media"
Mass media: Ex. TV, radio, film, newspapers, magazines, advertising, recorded music One or few to many Passive audience Capacity to reach large audience Same text delivered to all Provide common culture, shared meaning across a nation Industrial production Intended for public consumption New Media Limited length Content Narrative style: reflection vs. accounting 21st century catchall term used to define all that is related to the internet and the interplay between tech, images, and sound Reading mass audiences in an individual fashion Fulfilling need in society Useful for younger generations Addictive Media with new interface and impact Widespread participation Visual widespread population Engaging and interactive
McLuhan, "Medium is the Message"
McLuhan Medium Theory The medium is far more significant than the content itself
Catfishing
Pretending to be someone else on the internet in order to lure another user Readings Gentile, J. (2013). "Romantic Deceit via Telegraph: How 'catfishing' worked in the 1880s." The Atlantic. o Using tech to fabricate identities to then pursue relationships is not new (134y novel "wired Love" about a pair of telegraph operators shows this) o Today, even when online romantic relationships successfully manifest themselves beyond the Internet, there's often a desire to maintain some sort of digital component as an extension of the couple's identity. → burgeoning virtual wedding industry o It is not just the mystery that sustains the relationship but the malleability of identity as well → season 2 of Catfish online lovers Ramon and Paola meet and Ramon is so blinded by his online love for Paola he insists on meeting her in person o Despite knowing she lied about her appearance his delusion is so strong that upon meeting her he claims to have blocked the memory of seeing Paola's actual physician appearance via webcam
Media convergence
Merging of mass communication outlets - print, television, radio, the Internet along with portable and interactive technologies though various digital media platforms Merging of media technologies on a single platform Made possible by digital code Readings Russell, A., Itō, M., Richmond, T., Tuters, M. (2008). "Culture: Media Convergence and Networked Participation." Networked Publics (BB). o Ad industry is embracing the connective chaos of the network by using individual consumers/agency-created consumer avatar sto push products o Even as the definitions of journalism fades and new environment expands over cultural/genre borders the industry is reluctant to let its audience in o We are still at the beginning of the trajectory toward lateral networking of public culture o Each industry/medium/fandom will need to find its own point of longer-term stability • Hs some commercial media apparatus in it o Standards won't be abandoned entirely but we may welcome a louder voice of critique/remix from diverse publics o Shifts in cultural referents/creative form that are coming → convergence cultural is also important for norms/common culture o Professional commercial media gave us a common culture that is a fact of life (language/shared cultural reference) → commercial media provide much of the source of material for our modern language of communication o Network public culture is a narrative of convergence and participatory culture → we are at the crossroads of multiple unfolding trajectories
Inventing the internet
Military-science Internet: developed form ARPAnet (Advanced research projects agency) in 1969 Cold War Decentralized communication Initially military; not commercial Researchers/Scientists Avacemics/scientists sought to share papers, files, and games Ephasis on public disclosure, open access, shared knowledge
Chris Anderson's "Long Tail" hypothesis
More products with more popularity, fewer products with less popularity More content that is general (more popular), less content that is specific (less popular) Few products become extremely popular Diverse products are unpopular Readings Anderson, "Free! Why $0.00 is the Future of Business" • At age 40 King Gillette did do much, had the idea to make something people use and throw away (razor w/ a thin metal strip)\ → the disposable blade safety razor) • Strauss (head of the Atomic Energy Commission) promised we would be entering an age where electricity would be "to cheap to meter" → not true but what if? • Today it's digital tech to elicit that have become to cheap to meter
Algorithms as neutral
Morozov: "After all, the algorithms are written by humans, and they are likely to contain biases and errors." Readings Morozov, E. (2011). "Don't Be Evil," The New Republic. o Optimist try to trust, pessimist say company can be a threat and our laws are incapable to treating it (shouldn't detract us from trying) o Google founders review any opposition to google as the work of anti-enlightenment forces that would like to keep the world's knowledge to themselves → have shed some details for pragmatism as they know public might not see disruptions are valuable o Google starts on a purely scientific domain but ends in the social/moral domain of privacy/knowledge/information dissemination (where scientific outline is insufficient) → company has been blind in this distinction o Google naively believes we all are modern but we need search engines to show us → google is trying to enable citizens of the world to act out their inherent middle class aspirations o Vaid highlight the importance of not letting google become the primary and exclusive guardian of our cultural heritage (doesn't get into heart of the policy debate) o Shows google's holes in its "technocratic consciousness" and to the highly political nature of tis algorithm and to the ways in which the company's needs to be viewed against the influence of public libraries.
Key attributes of the internet
New Media and personal relationships: facilitates millennial friendships instead of stunting them (boyd) Economy: volume of online shopping still small, new players in "gig" economy, economic inequality is deepening, new "big players" Political participation: slacktivism Global understanding: world remains unequal, divided by language, ongoing conflict, different degrees of cultural capital, free speech can be hate speech Journalism: content aggregators like Google and Yahoo Four strands of innovation o Computer innovation o Computer networking through shared codes to cloud computing o Connective software: social media o Infrastructure: cable, wifi
"Second Screen"
Part of new viewing culture Second-screen viewing: more than 80% of smartphone and tablet owners use their devices while watching television Readings Lowrey, "Advertisers Seek a 'Second Screen' Connection with Viewers • "Second screen advertising" is a marketing trend, more than 80% of smartphones/tablet owners use their devices while watching television o To reach multitasking viewed ads are making new rules • Brands are asking themselves how they can make themselves relevant to first-screen content → to add levity to show's dark octane humor has got good response on twitter/facebook (2 biggest platforms for second-screen ads) o Creating second-screen ads remains guesswork given the novelty of the trend/difficulty of knowing how/when to connect social media experts o 1/6th of viewers engage in "real time" socializing when they are watching, younger viewers are the more likely they are watching w/ a second screen
Humphreys et al.'s arguments about Twitter and "historicizing new media"
Readings Humphreys, "Historicizing New Media" o Papers seeks to historicize twitter within a larger historical framework of diaries to better understand twitter and broader communication practices/patterns → findings suggest commentary/accounting styles are most popular twitter narrative styles o Sample suggests that the kinds of things people wrote about historically are similar to the kinds of things people write about today
Nicholas Carr's perspective on learning and technology ("Is Google Making Us?")
Readings Carr: "Is Google Making us Stupid" • Scene from 2001: Space Odyssey where astronaut Bowman is disconnecting the memory circuits that control the supercomputer HAL's artificial brain • Author feels his brain is being remapped immersing himself into a book or long article used to be easy → now concentration starts to drift • Now concentration starts to drift • Before had to spend a lot of time searching and surfing but now can spend 1 minute on Google. • Mind takes in info the way the net distributes it • Lost ability to read/absorb long articles • Research: hopped from one source to another, read half the article • Weakened capacity for deep reading. • Earlier, worried that the ease of books would lead to intellectual laziness and undermine religious authority • Deep readings o Make our own associations and foster own ideas. • If we lose quiet spaces or fill them with content, we sacrifice ourselves and culture • Info overload and become "pancake people" who are spread too wide and thin • As we go about understanding the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens to a single artificial intelligence.
Remediation and remix
Remediation: medium today, and no single media event, seems to do its cultural work in isolation from other media, any more than it works in isolation from other social and economic forces. What is new about new media comes from the particular ways in which they refashion older media and the ways in which older media refashion themselves to answer the challenges of new media. Remix: small portions of one song are extracted and used in a new derivative work Russel, "Culture: Media Convergence and Networked Participation" o Ad industry is embracing the connective chaos of the network by using individual consumers/agency-created consumer avatar sto push products o Even as the definitions of journalism fades and new environment expands over cultural/genre borders the industry is reluctant to let its audience in o We are still at the beginning of the trajectory toward lateral networking of public culture o Each industry/medium/fandom will need to find its own point of longer-term stability • Hs some commercial media apparatus in it o Standards won't be abandoned entirely but we may welcome a louder voice of critique/remix from diverse publics o Shifts in cultural referents/creative form that are coming → convergence cultural is also important for norms/common culture o Professional commercial media gave us a common culture that is a fact of life (language/shared cultural reference) → commercial media provide much of the source of material for our modern language of communication Network public culture is a narrative of convergence and participatory culture → we are at the crossroads of multiple unfolding trajectories
Content Moderation: Who does it? Critiques?
Schmidt: "When markets get regulated, creative innovation is slowed. A much better outcome is for us to use good judgment. We take what we see as the consumer interest as our guiding principle." Readings See: Government vs. Governance
Gendered differences in self-presentation
Self presentation is generally considered to be motivated by a desire to make a favorable impression on others, or an impression that corresponds to one's ideals" Importance of impression management Profile content: females post "cute" pictures, while males post self promotional, references to sexual content and alcohol Females more concerned about future employers (alcohol, drugs) Visual Self-presentation How do you select a profile photo What are you trying to convey? Belief they look attractive Look seductive; boys at further distance "Pornified" culture (Ringrose) What accounts for the difference Concerns about privacy, harassment, cyber-misogyny Cultured norms about gender and display "By looking at others' profiles, teens get a sense of what types of presentations are socially appropriate" (boyd 2007_ Hetero-normativity Readings Herring and Kapidzic, "Teens, Gender, and Self-Presentation in Social Media" (BB) o Focus is on how teens present themselves online, describes/considers the implications of social media us and other facts of the teens' slef-presentaiotn in relation to their gender o While some similarities in social media sue by teen girls/boys, online presentations differ in various aspects o Girls choose to limit the visibility of their profiles by completely restricting access by people they were not connected to while boys allow their profiles to be viewed publicly o Boys more often post false info, males/females differ in textual self-presentation • Boys' linguistic choices reflect assertiveness in both style/tone • Girls seem to aim to please boys/facilitate social interaction o In their visual presentation girls most often choose pictures that indicate a desire to be attractive/seually appealign while boys patterns were less clear o Authors suggested teens growing up w/ internet and at easy w/ many platforms may facilitate interactions beyond stereotypically gendered behaviors in online communication o Research contributes to a body of info of computer mediation on human social behavior, profiles constitute invitations to social interaction in much the same way as offline self-presentations do o As today's young "digital natives" become tomorrow's adults their practices might enter the mainstream w/ a lesser concern for privacy and more open attitudes towards sex o Young people today are more tolerant of diversity than their parents' generation → also more non-traditional gender identities will be openly expressed online
Funding internet content: subscriptions, advertising, etc.
Sites involved in Image-making Cultivate good feeling/offline sales Selling products/services Selling subscriptions Content sites like Netflix Selling advertisements Commercial surveillance Use of sophisticated technology to send tailored ads Get information through Registration Online behavior Third-party data Personalization of content, interactivity Funding models "freemium" tiered service Flickr Ad-supported Cross subsidy Free Wii with the purchase of a game 0 Marginal Cost give it away bc it cant be sold Labor exchange Free search in exchange for traces of info Gift economy Readings Anderson, "Why $0.00 is the future of business" "Once a marketing gimmick, free has emerged as a full-fledged economy. Offering free music proved successful for Radiohead, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, and a swarm of other bands on MySpace that grasped the audience-building merits of zero. The fastest-growing parts of the gaming industry are ad-supported casual games online and free-to-try massively multiplayer online games. Virtually everything Google does is free to consumers, from Gmail to Picasa to GOOG-411. The rise of "freeconomics" is being driven by the underlying technologies that power the Web."
Inventing the Web
Tim Berners-Lee invented the web
Trending, sorting (Gillespie)
Trending Measure some activities and not others - rendering the latter irrelevant Amplify popularity: self-affirming Fetishize speed Readings Gillespie, T. (2013). "The Relevance of Algorithms' and (2016). "#trendingistrending: when algorithms become culture."Algorithmic Cultures. o "Critical sociology of algorithms" has received concerns about the automation and rationalization of human socility o Potential for discrimination inside of bureaucratic and formulaic precures o Trending algorithms and how they work • Most variation mechanism are either search of recommendation (need of users on social media platforms) → trending is also a common feature ○ For trending, besides identifying/highlighting what might be relevant to you these algorithms show what is popular for us o The effects of trending? • Because trending algorithms attend to such a broad who/narrow when their shape could affect the temporal quality of cultural discourse • Evidence that metrics not only describe popularity but also amplify it o Knowing the popular, form tastemakers ot audience metrics to infomediaries • Putting trending algorithms as apart of a historical lineage of efforts to know the popular highlights features about it and how they mediate our engagement w/ culture o Trends is a powerful/consequential measure of the popular and is often taken to be so in the wider culture → if the wider culture assumes tends= importance it might be worrying As algorithms become more visible (both as the core functionality of social media and as points of contention in recent controversies they too could become culturally meaningful → when CNN talks about what's trending from twitter that's making the algorithms culturally meaningful
Influence of counter-culture on internet's development
Values of openness and togetherness for humanity Stewart Brand and Whole Earth Catalog "Hippy strand of the counter culture helped to turn the computer into a playground. During the 100-s, a cult was created around text-based adventure games in which participants could take on assumed identities... freed from the visual markers of age gender, ethnicity, class, and disability
Government versus governance (MTI)
Why is internet governance different? Geographic borders less useful: National law has no place in cyber law Size and scope Belief in principles of "non-discrimination, decentralization, and connectivity" sit uneasily with market logic Ideal of internet governance Contrasted with top-down "government" by Dispersed and flexible Shaped by diverse actors Coordination "in the absence of an overarching political authority" Readings MTI Chapter 4: "The Internet of Rules." Pp. 119-129; 136-140. • Dyson suggests it's important to have a limited relation b/w the government and the internet, to focus the public's imagination on a better solution, not government regulation or even industry self-regulation • An environment where consumers themselves can exercise their power/control their own info • Not all regulation is about banning content/spying → when the internet's underlying principles of openness/decentralization are threatened many commenters (who were reluctant to involve government) turn to the state for support/action • Tim Berners-Lee insists that net neutrality is needed to preserve the dynamic/innovative/egalitarian internet when these principles are threatened by the walled gardens of social networks/proprietary programs • Regulatory actions are required to fend off the distortion of the public good by special interests Chen, A. "The Laborers Who Keep Dick Pics and Beheadings Out of Your Facebook Feed" • As social media connect people more than before has the "grandma problem" → grandparents sue service like facebook to link w/ kids/grandkids who are exposed to the internet's dark side • Work is done more in the philippines, as a former us colony and gained cultural ties to the U.S → content moderation companies help filipinos determine what americans find offensive (pay is less) • Given that content moderators may comprise 1⁄2 o the total workforce for social media sites, insight to its long-term psychological toll is interesting → Stevenson launched Workplace Wellbeing that focused on high-pressure industries Internet Regulation: who does it? Different types of regulation Self-regulation Industry modified behavior in response to agreed codes Co-regulation with state Often means a more lightly controlled environment Infrastructure and policy (net neutrality) Technological controls Readings See: Government vs. Governance
Danah boyd's perspective on internet and social relationships among teens
• Its complicated • Boyd notes how social media facilitates millennial friendships instead of stunting them... refuting the common meme" Readings Boyd, "Introduction" It's Complicated o Author in nashville football game to understand how social media and other technologies had changed teens' lives (note 80% o h.s student in the U.S had a cell phone in 2010). → social media has allowed teens to participate in "networked publics" o "social media" as cultural mindset and reshaped communication. o Internet is not the great equalizer people thought it would be o Parents must realize teens social motivations o Social media is a social lifeline o These myths distort the reality of teen life, sometime by idealizing it but more frequently by demonizing it
