Digital Media Sociology Practice Flashcards

Comprehensive practice flashcards covering digital media sociology concepts including network logic, rationalization, acceleration theory, CMC theories, and digital wellbeing.

Duality of Structure & Technology

The concept that social structures and technologies both enable and constrain human action, providing rules and resources without being strictly deterministic.

Apparatgeist

Defined by Katz & Aakhus (2002) as the 'spirit of the machine,' capturing how media technologies embed a logic that directs human behavior.

Technological Affordances

Possibilities for action that are structural (enabling outcomes), relational (perceived by users), contextual (dependent on use), and designed (readily perceived).

Informationalism

An economic paradigm from 1950 to the present characterized by electronics and ICT that augment 'brainpower' through horizontal or networked organizations.

Network Society

A form of social organization shaped by network technologies where ICTs allow nodes to be activated anytime and anywhere.

Scalability (ICT affordance)

The ability of a network to expand or shrink in size at low cost, such as Software-as-a-Service platforms scaling on demand.

Space of Flows

Castells' concept that contemporary social organization is defined by the relationship between nodes and information flows rather than physical locations.

Timeless Time

The redefinition of time in the network society characterized by being flexible (no longer bound to fixed slots), compressed (saturated), and fragmented (multitasking).

Time-Space Distanciation

A concept by Giddens where social interactions become disembedded from local contexts through symbolic tokens and expert systems.

Networked Individualism

The current social logic (2000–present) where each person is a node in various personal networks activated via mobile and personalized ICTs.

Absent Presence

Gergen's (2002) term for being physically present in a location but mentally absorbed in a mediated elsewhere, such as using a phone at a dinner table.

Hybrid Space

Physical space created by the constant movement of users carrying portable devices continuously connected to the internet, involving connectivities, mobilities, and sociabilities.

Rationalization

Weber's process characterizing modernity where behavior is motivated by efficiency, productivity, control, and predictability rather than tradition or religion.

Calculability

One of the three characteristics of scientific rationality involving the knowledge of what specific input leads to what specific output.

Instrumental Rationality

A form of rationality where efficiency becomes an end in itself, potentially leading to an 'iron cage' where life loses deeper meaning.

Disintermediation

The removal of intermediaries from processes, allowing interactions to be initiated directly between nodes without institutions or physical places.

Micro-Coordination

Ling's term for the real-time logistical arrangements of day-to-day life made possible by mobile connectivity, including mid-course adjustments and softening of schedules.

Flexible Alignment

The ability to look up information anytime and adapt rapidly to non-negotiable phenomena, such as checking real-time public transport updates.

Participative Warfare

Merrin's (2018) concept where every person can participate in conflict via digital media, such as crowdsourcing drone strikes or mapping minefields.

Acceleration Theory

Hartmut Rosa's theory identifying three interlinked processes: technological acceleration, acceleration of social change, and acceleration of the pace of life.

Paradox of Time Wealth

The phenomenon where people have more leisure time than ever before yet subjectively experience more time pressure and poverty.

The Shrinking Present

Rosa's concept where what is considered 'up-to-date' becomes outdated faster, requiring constant readaptation to avoid becoming anachronistic.

Technology-Assisted Supplemental Work (TASW)

The lengthening of working time by staying connected from home via digital devices, which often reduces psychological detachment and recovery.

Resonance

An antidote to alienation characterized by four elements: affection, self-efficacy, transformation, and uncontrollability.

Social Time Displacement Hypothesis

The theory that internet use replaces face-to-face interaction with close friends and family because media is less effortful.

Media Richness Theory

Daft & Lengel's theory that there must be a match between the equivocality of a task and the multiplicity of cue systems provided by a medium.

Social Information Processing (SIP) Theory

Walther's theory that people are motivated to reduce uncertainty in any medium and adapt their cue use (e.g., chronemics, emoticons) to form affinity.

Stimulation Hypothesis

Valkenburg & Peter's idea that CMC stimulates face-to-face interaction and friendship quality by facilitating self-disclosure.

Voluntary Disconnection

A deliberate non-use of devices or platforms aimed at improving well-being, productivity, or privacy, often framed as a 'detox'.

Locative Disconnection

When specific locations or contexts are designated for non-use, either top-down (school bans) or bottom-up (self-help apps).

Social Reproductive Work (SRW)

Activities like provisioning and care-giving essential for the reproduction of labor, often unpaid or invisible, and increasingly digitised.

Time Squeeze

Huws' (2019) term for the pressure to earn money while managing unpaid digital care labor, leading to increased stress and lack of disconnection options.