chapter 9: community in the network society

Question 1

what do skeptics such as turke see digital media as?

Answer 1

a tech that would draw people away from family and friends and alienate them from society

Question 2

what did early analysts such as Rheingold see the internet as?

Answer 2

utopian place where new communities could be formed without the constraints of space and time

Question 3

what is a community?

Answer 3

community is a group of people who live in a bounded geographic area

eg. Soho in NYC and Annex in Toronto

Question 4

what is a different way of studying community?

Answer 4

smaller units that come together because of shared interests

eg. medical community, the foodie community, etc.

Question 5

who was the first to study the fundamentals of community and what were the two concepts?

Answer 5

Tonnies

Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft

Question 6

what is gemeinschaft and its 3 characteristics?

Answer 6

“community”

1. bonds are strong and meaningful
   (eg. family ties that connects ppl in tightly knit groups
2. members usually belong to few social networks and most socialization occurs within primary social group
3. people in this know each other, trust each other and exchange a range of social support

Question 7

what is gesellschaft (utopian)?

Answer 7

“society” or “association”

1. loosely connected through bonds that are often goal-oriented
   - people should come together as more direct benefits to be gained from belonging
2. bonds are not close, as people have little investment in these bonds
3. communities are large and not everybody knows everybody else

Question 8

what is an example of gesellschaft?

Answer 8

nation state

members group tg as result of sharing the same geographic location and national identity

Question 9

what do these two concepts represent?

Answer 9

ideal archetypes of social relationships

• social groups cant be fully categorized as one but has elements of each other

Question 10

what is the difference between these two concepts?

Answer 10

Gemeinschaft - represent the utopian society where people are closely connected, share an identity, and engage in reciprocity

Gesellschaft - inferior form of social organization as members are only loosely connected, little willingness for co-operation and collaboration

Question 11

how has wellman used the term community question?

Answer 11

summarize the debate around how community has changed over time and the role played by technology

addresses how individuals are integrated into a social system and the interpersonal means by which its members have access to scarce resources

Question 12

what are 3 theoretical views?

Answer 12

1. community lost
2. community saved
3. community liberated

Question 13

what does the community lost theory entail?

Answer 13

• industrialization is the cause of decline in community resulting from long work hours leaving little time for other activities
• disregards constraints placed on identity formation and self-expression through shared norms and beliefs
• see pastoral community as composed primarily of local social interactions in closely bounded groups

Question 14

what is turkle of community lost?

Answer 14

form of socialization as alone together and contrasted it with togetherness

• along together as having negative repercussions for socialization and the maintenance of social relations

Question 15

what does the community saved theory who is opposite to community lost entail?

Answer 15

• how friendship and family networks continue to be dominant forms of social organization even in modern societies
• disregard changes in the structuring of society as a result of modernization by emphasizing the continued existence of geographically bounded ties

Question 16

when did wellman criticized when discussing this view?

Answer 16

narrow focus on documenting the continued existence of pre-industrialized forms of community without considering the changes that have occurred since IR

Question 17

what does community liberated entail?

Answer 17

• life is not lost but has undergone radical transformations
• mediated communication can make it possible to maintain simultaneously their immediate family ties and also ties outside their primary group

Question 18

what does bourdieu define social capital as?

Answer 18

accumulated actual and potential resources to which individuals have access through their memberships in groups and connections to networks

Question 19

what does social capital entail?

Answer 19

relations provide a collectivity shared capital and credentials that allow people to exchange favours, credits, and resources

sum of valuable resources that can be obtained through a person’s relationships with friends and relatives

Question 20

what do private effects and public effects entail in terms of social capital being?

Answer 20

private: benefits brought to individuals through their ties

public: positive characteristics of living in densely knit and reciprocal communities

Question 21

what does putnam say has contributed to the decline of social capital?

Answer 21

technology

argues that with industrialization came increased participation in more individualistic activities, such as watching television

Question 22

what are the 3 competing perspectives in terms of how ppl view the internet?

Answer 22

1. utopian perspective
2. dystopian perspective
3. supplement perspective

Question 23

what does the utopian perspective entail?

Answer 23

• Internet as stimulating positive change in people’s lives
• changed our concept of community as it spans geographic boundaries and connects individuals across times and space

Question 24

what does rheingold define online communications as?

Answer 24

social aggregations that emerge from the Net when enough people carry on those public discussion long enough to form webs of personal relationships

Question 25

what does the dystopian perspective entail about the internet?

Answer 25

draws people away from their immediate, local environments alientaing them from social engagement and civic participation

smartphones remove ind from their communities and immegate public spaces by enticing them to spend time on screens

Question 26

what are critiques of these two perspectives?

Answer 26

utopian and dystopian perspectives both provide rather simplistic views of the impact of digital media on the structuring of society

given too much weight to digital media’s ability to rasically transform community

Question 27

what are the 5 factors we need to consider when how digital media has affected society?

Answer 27

1. A user’s previous experience with digital media
2. A user’s personal characteristics
3. The existence of prior forms of community, whether online or offline
4. The type of Internet use
5. Life events

Question 28

what are the two trends of the supplement perspective regarding how the internet has affected society?

Answer 28

1. the richer get richer hypothesis
2. networked individualism

Question 29

what does the rich get richer hypothesis entail?

Answer 29

• internet had diff effects on all users
• users who are already socially involved and who have existing social support the Internet will further strengthen and expand these networks

eg. facebook

Question 30

what does networked individualism refer to or is similar to?

Answer 30

durkheims notion of organic solidarity

Question 31

“shared understandings around social roles, revealing a cohesive social structure with a strong collective conscious”

Answer 31

mechanical solidarity

Question 32

what is organic solidarity?

Answer 32

society in which individuals occupy specialized social roles that evolve around labour, social status, and other defining variables

• all have diff specialized skills and all tg create a whole

Question 33

how does rainie and wellman show that there is a “triple revolution” taking place?

Answer 33

• long-term turn away from being bound up in solidarity groups to manoeuvering among social networks
• proliferation of the personalized Internet as a means to communicate and acquire information with fewer distance constraints
• spread of mobile devices providing always-accessible communication and information

Question 34

What Tonnies referred to as Gemeinschaft; Durkehim referred to as…..

Answer 34

mechanic solidarity

Question 35

What Tonnies referred to as Gesellschaft; Durkheim referred to as……

Answer 35

organic solidarity

Question 36

what are the 3 types of social connectivity

Answer 36

1. networked ind (diverse variety of roles within larger works using more digital channels)
2. socially connected ind (not networked and differ in scope, magnitude and breadth of networks)
3. social limited ind (smaller less diverse networks, more individualized and limited in use of digital media)

Question 37

who created the idea of public spheres?

Answer 37

Habermas

Question 38

what is the public sphere used for?

Answer 38

democracy

discursive space in which individuals and groups congregate to discuss matters of mutual interest and, where possible, to reach a common judgment

deliberate about normative standards and develops new frameworks for expressing and evaluating social reality

Question 39

what are the three areas of the bourgeoisie public sphere?

Answer 39

1. Status: public debate to be open, opinions need to be voiced regardless of a person’s status
2. Domain of common concern: the issues addressed need to be relevant to larger social group and not restricted to the interests of small, influential groups
3. Inclusivity: the issues discussed must be open and accessible to everyone in terms of their content

Question 40

how does habermas define the notion of ideal speech situation?

Answer 40

rules structure debate and allow all individual the equal and unbiased opportunity to voice their opinion

Question 41

how does noelle-neumann define the theory of spiral of silence

Answer 41

participants of the public sphere are willing to share their opinions if they believe they are in accordance with those of the majority

Question 42

what are third places defined by oldenburg?

Answer 42

first place - home with fam and friends
second place - work where ppl spend a lot of time with certain ppl
third place - places ppl vist routinely (coffee places, restaurants etc.)

Question 43

why are these places good?

Answer 43

• ground people in their neighbourhoods and communities allowing them to interact and develop a sense of place
• important locations for public opinion to form and for civil society to thrive

Question 44

“new forms of associations that are developed online and the possibilities that they provide for citizens to organize and mobilize”

Answer 44

digital public sphere

Question 45

what are the main changes that have occured due to digitization of the public sphere?

Answer 45

• Changes and processes occur on a global scale
• Various media converge and blur
• commercialization of the media

Question 46

what is slacktivism?

Answer 46

practice of supporting a cause in a minimal way with the use of social media, such as signing an online petition

Question 47

what does nayar argue?

Answer 47

argues that despite the former’s negative connotations, online and offline activism work together