Social Theory: After The Internet Media, Technology, And Globalization

Description

The internet has fundamentally transformed society in the past 25 years, yet existing theories of mass or interpersonal communication do not work well in understanding a digital world. Nor has this understanding been helped by disciplinary specialization and a continual focus on the latest innovations. Ralph Schroeder takes a longer-term view, synthesizing perspectives and findings from various social science disciplines in four countries: the United States, Sweden, India and China. His comparison highlights, among other observations, that smartphones are in many respects more important than PC-based internet uses. Social Theory after the Internet focuses on everyday uses and effects of the internet, including information seeking and big data, and explains how the internet has gone beyond traditional media in, for example, enabling Donald Trump and Narendra Modi to come to power. Schroeder puts forward a sophisticated theory of the role of the internet, and how both technological and social forces shape its significance. He provides a sweeping and penetrating study, theoretically ambitious and at the same time always empirically grounded.The book will be of great interest to students and scholars of digital media and society, the internet and politics, and the social implications of big data. Front-Cover......Page 1 Half-title......Page 2 Title page......Page 4 Copyright information......Page 5 Acknowledgments......Page 6 Contents......Page 8 List of figures......Page 12 1.1 Theories of media, new and old......Page 14 1.2 Summary of the argument......Page 19 1.3 The autonomy of the media (sub)system......Page 23 1.4 The role of the media in politics, culture and the economy: separate and different......Page 26 1.5 A limited attention space......Page 28 1.6 Who’s afraid of technological determinism?......Page 31 1.7 Chapter overview......Page 34 2.1 Theories of digital media and politics......Page 41 2.2 Media systems in Sweden and America......Page 45 2.3 Digital media and politics in Sweden and America......Page 48 2.4 Media systems in China and India......Page 58 2.5 Digital media and politics in China and India......Page 64 3 Digital media and the rise of right-wing populism......Page 73 3.1 Trump’s ascent via Twitter......Page 76 3.2 The Sweden Democrats’ alternative media......Page 80 3.3 Modi’s religious nationalism on Twitter......Page 83 3.4 Containing online nationalists in China......Page 87 3.5 Prospects for mediated politics......Page 91 4 The internet in everyday life I: sociability......Page 95 4.1 Tethered togetherness......Page 96 4.2 The spread of social media......Page 98 4.3 Sociability and social divides......Page 101 4.4 Visual co-presence......Page 104 4.5 Alone or together?......Page 106 4.6 Globalizing sociability......Page 110 5.1 A new information infrastructure......Page 114 5.2 Seeking information......Page 116 5.3 Search engine uses......Page 117 5.4 Search engines as gatekeepers......Page 121 5.5 Does Google shape what we know?......Page 122 5.6 The Web of information......Page 128 5.7 Is the Web global?......Page 133 5.8 Wikipedia......Page 135 5.9 Information seeking and gatekeeping......Page 137 6 Big data: shaping knowledge, shaping everyday life......Page 139 6.1 Defining big data......Page 140 6.2 Advancing academic knowledge about digital media......Page 144 6.3 The uses and limits of big data in the social sciences......Page 146 6.4 Facebook’s ‘Brave New Worlds’......Page 152 6.5 Targeting publics, and the uses and limits of big data in everyday life......Page 155 6.6 Big data and policy in different media systems......Page 159 7.1 Media, globalization, technology......Page 162 7.2 The uses and limits of theory......Page 164 7.3 Technological determinism revisited......Page 166 7.4 Mediated politics......Page 168 7.6 Big data and targeting......Page 171 7.7 Digital versus traditional media......Page 174 7.8 Separate changes and limited impact......Page 177 7.9 What is to be done?......Page 180 Notes......Page 183 References......Page 189 Index......Page 202 Back-Cover......Page 210