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Answer
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Hint
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Brian McNair (2006)
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This journalist claims that 'Information, like knowledge, is power'.
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Marshall McLuhan (1962)
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This sociologist says we live in a 'Global village': -People throughout the world are interconnected through the use of new media technologies. |
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Neophiliacs
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This sociological perspective has a positive outlook on the new media: -They like progress and change - they argue that the new media is beneficial to society, giving us more choice and quality in our media consumption. -We have an 'e-commerce revolution' with all aspects of consumption being driven by choice and competition. -Postmodernism focuses on individualisation and identity and how the new media has enabled us to have more freedom and choice in our lifestyles. -New Media is: Portable, interactive, dispersed, 24/7 and has choice.
Evaluations: -The need for an 'Instagram-worthy life'. -Marxist sociologists are concerned by the materialism and consumption caused by the new media - leading to 'conspicuous consumption' and false needs. -The platforms make loads of money and are very powerful. -Consumers are easily targeted through algorithms that track our consumption habits but also other aspects of our lives. |
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Henry Jenkins (2009)
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This sociologist argues that technological convergence and interactivity have produced a participatory culture: -Technological convergence: It is increasingly the case that 1 device can be used to access a wide variety of media - for example, a smartphone can be used to listen to music, read the news, connect with others, etc. -Participatory culture: Where new media audiences are no longer passive receivers of entertainment, knowledge and so on - instead they often actively collaborate with new media and other users. -He suggests that participatory culture is producing a collective intelligence - he notes, "none of us can know everything, each of us knows something; and we can put the pieces together if we pool our resources and combine our skills". -He claims this can challenge traditional media as an 'alternative user-led source of information'. |
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Postmodernism
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This sociological perspective argues that postmodern society is characterised by individualism - in today's globalised world we can 'pick n' mix' from a massive choice of identities, images, lifestyles from across the world: -National cultures are increasingly diluted and are becoming global cultures. -In modern society people were defined by social structures: the family, the world of work, social class - often these were interlinked. -Postmodern society is seen as a rejection of these structures and is based on choice. -We are more likely to form our identities from our global consumer lifestyle and the influence of coming into contact with different cultural groups than from our national or social class background. |
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Curran & Seaton (2018)
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These media historians claim the big media companies have 'power without responsibility'.
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Stefana Broadbent (2009)
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This anthropologist claims that there is now a 'Democratisation of intimacy': -Compartmentalisation of peoples' lives, wherein there became a separation between the world of work (public sphere) and private family life (private sphere), only began in the 1800s with the Industrial Revolution. -This compartmentalisation is now ending. -For example, at work, the boss is now not the only one who can keep in touch with their family and friends during working hours - ordinary workers can and do use mobile phones to text family members while at work. |
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Marxism
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This sociological perspective is concerned with the materialism and consumption caused by the new media - leading to 'conspicuous consumption' and false needs.
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Answer
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Hint
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Jean Baudrillard (2001)
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This postmodernist sociologist says that our identities come from media-created desires and images in today's 'media-saturated society'.
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Ellen Helsper (2011)
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Concerning the Digital Class Divide: -She claims that despite the narrowing of the class divide, a digital underclass - characterised by unemployment, lower education levels and low digital skills - does exist in the UK. -The evidence suggests that this group has increased its use of the internet at a much slower rate than other social groups, and those members of this group that do have internet access rate their skills as poorer than other more educated groups. |
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Zygmunt Bauman (2000)
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This postmodernist sociologist argues that postmodern society is like a shopping mall, where people can stroll around consuming whatever they like, trying out and constructing whatever identities they choose and changing them whenever they like: -The new media has facilitated the lifestyle. -He states, 'We no longer conform to the traditions of the old occupational cultures and instead we choose a lifestyle'. |
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Raymond Boyle (2005, 2007, 2020)
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This sociologist, a neophiliac, describes the developments in the new media.
Technological Convergence (2005): -He found the use of a single device now allows individuals to pay their bills, connect with others, research maps and articles, purchase goods, take photographs and plan their lives. -Economic convergence also allows companies to come together to provide packages of information for individuals.
Concerning the changing nature of television (2020): -He claims society's use of television has gone from a system of 'supply-led television to a demand-led television' organised around the idea that viewers or subscribers choose what they want to watch and when. -Viewers are no longer constrained by television schedules.
Concerning the Digital Generation Divide (2007): -He notes that new media are often associated with young people. -He states that young people have grown up with the latest developments in new media - describing them as 'digital natives'. -There is no doubt that the media experience of young people growing up in the UK in 2015 is markedly different from that of previous generations as the generation that has grown up in the last 15 years has had a more intensive experience of new media across a shorter period of time. -The new media of the internet, social networking sites, the smartphone and texting are 'new' media, significantly different from previous media because of their immediacy and accessibility. |
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Li & Kirkup (2007)
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Concerning the Digital Gender Divide: -They found significant gender differences between men and women in the UK in their use of new media technology. -Men were more likely than women to use email or chat rooms, and men played more computer games on consoles such as the Xbox than women did. |
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Rebecca MacKinnon (2012)
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This sociologist defines 'the sovereigns of cyberspace' - companies like Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon now exercise the kinds of power that were hitherto reserved for real 'sovereigns' – governments operating within national jurisdictions: -For example, Amazon arbitrarily removed Wikileaks from its cloud computing servers without any justification that would have withstood a First Amendment legal challenge; or the way that Facebook took down a page used by Egyptian activists to co-ordinate protests on the grounds that they had violated the company's rules by not using their real names. |
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Cultural Pessimists
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This sociological perspective has a negative outlook on the new media: -They see it as containing digital divides including the Gender Digital Divide, Social Class Digital Divide, Global Digital Divide and the Generational Digital Divide. -The new media has marginalisation, commercialisation, a lack of regulation and digital divides. -Churnalism: News agencies package up news stories to 'fill the gaps' on other news publications, often sold and not fact-checked. Similarly, it also refers to how news is increasingly being spread without fact-checking. -Snacking: people are serially consuming small, incomplete chunks of information - people are not paying full attention to news stories - they are engaged with many but not deeply, may just be reading the headlines. |
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Sherry Turkle (2012)
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This sociologist, as a cultural pessimist, has become quite negative about the use of the new media: -She argues we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection because 'human relationships are rich and they're messy and they're demanding' and so, 'we clean them up with technology'. -She defines the 'Goldilocks Effect': across generations, people can't get enough of each other, if and only if they can have each other at a distance, in amounts they can control - for them they want 'not too close, not too far, just right.' -This might feel just right for a middle-aged executive but can be a problem for an adolescent who needs to develop face-to-face relationships. -We are 'alone together' - 'people want to be with each other, but also elsewhere -- connected to all the different places they want to be.' - for example, physically with friends but everyone is on their phone doing something else. -This can lead to people hiding from each other. -With reference to how technology has been used to make conversations with humans, she states that 'we expect more from technology and less from each other'. -Overall, she argues 'I am not anti-technology, I am pro-conversation'.
Her arguments reflect a negative perspective of the concept of proto-communities: i.e. virtual communities online, for example, those who are active members of a subreddit or discord server: -Cultural pessimists argue people spend too much time in the virtual world, wireless communication such as text messaging is not the same as speaking to someone in real-time. |
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