L6: digital affordances and (in)group dynamics (tech)

imagined communities

• Symbols & rituals

• Imagined communities by Benedict Anderson

  • Coined term

  • Discussion of the printing press and how this changed epistemology

• Sense that we have something in common even if you don’t know them personally

  • Think religions

• “roots of interests”

no mere ‘aggregates’

• The only group that matters is the ones that know each other face to face?

  • Some anthropologist think this, but disagree

• Experience special interest groups as actual ‘groups’

• Digital communities matter

  • Ex. Swifties

(Amplified) para-soical relationships

• Ex. Podcast hosts, fictional characters, musicians, influencers

• Reality TV boom —> para social relationships became more mainstream media

 

Group construction 

• Realist concerns: not part of a group, someone will come and attack

• Tension between wanting to belong and sense of self (setting oneself apart)

  • Both inform how we join groups

• In-group bias: members of the groups we are a part of, we think they are good

  • Think good of the in group

• Out-group bias: putting people in other groups into boxes based on negative encounters

  • Think poorly of out groups

What comes first, out group or in group bias?

• Find something that isn’t you and latch onto it

• Can’t be an in group without an out

Digital tribalism

ICT-mediated group attachments that feel so deep-seated that they inspire a strong sense of loyalty to the group and its perceived values, along with often radical rejection of anyone and anything outside the group

Digital tribalism examples

• Ex. Gamer gate 2014

  • Gamers upset of journalists critique of female representation in video games

    • Went so far as these journalists and other females in the gaming industry getting murder and rape threats

• Ex. Connection between alt-right, incel and MAGA

  • People connected to gamer gate were found to be part of at least one of these groups

  • Connection between gamer gate and Jan 6th?

What is technology?

any systematic, practical application of human knowledge (to solve a human problem)

Why design matters?

• NYC Kew Gardens 1955 highways system with low bridges

  • Public transport could not make it through these tunnels —> poor POC are the ones who used busses —> made sure POC could not make it to Long Island

    • Moses was a white supremacist

• ‘Technology is neither good nor bad, nor is it neutral’ - Melvin Kranzberg

Media: how important is delivery mechanism? 

• ‘The medium is the message’ - Marshal McLuhan 

• Importantly: follow the medium !

Technological affordances

The functional and relational aspects which frame, while not determining, the possibilities for agentic action in relation to an object

• Better version? The functional and relational aspects of an objects design that encourages, while not determining, certain uses of that object.

  • Invitation to use something in a certain way

• Some important ‘objects’ —> social media

Nested networks

• Major kinds of power that happen in a network society —> each network has a network within it —> zoom in even more and you have the people making up the networks

  • Switching power

    • Ex. Elon musk on X: can ban people bc he can

  • Programming power

Calibrating network architectures 

• Many thought that the internet will always stay in many-to-many communication

• Media really ended up in one-to-many communication

Network concepts

• node

• Ties

• Centrality

• Degree

Node

user accounts, words in novel (how is everything related/connected)

Ties

directional, multidirectional, etc.

Centrality 

what is the center of these nodes and ties (what power does this hold)

What type of centrality does it have?

• degree

• Page rank

• Betweenness

• Closeness

Degree centrality

more followers has more power

PageRank centrality

the type of follower will grant you more or less power (influence)

Betweenness centrality 

• one node that is effectively a bridge

  • If you take this bridge out they are no longer connected, gives them lots of power

Closeness centrality 

how to reach other people (the most people)

Communities in networks

• When a node has at least one connection that has one connection back