Midterm Flashcards
Social Media Prisim
Social media is like prisms that bend and refract our social environment—distorting our sense of ourselves, and each other, people are not aware that this exists and their influence. It normalizes extremes and creates a fallacy of unanimity. Mirror is dangerous because it stops ppl from meeting in the middle
Mimetic Desire
subconsciously taking images and imagining yourself in that situation. Desire to imitate what we see online, a mirror of something we could have. How could we do that too? measure ourselves up against it
External Mediators of Desire
desiring to have that life/be like that person (celebrities)
Internal Mediators of Desire
People we are in direct communication with, have some sort of competition with, more realistic to actually be like them. These mediators can inspire and encourage you, more attainable but there is also a danger of striving for something unattainable.
Networked Public Sphere
Habermas: it’s a choice to freely enter the public sphere. Realm of social and political life that rests between the government and society requires active engagement and good communication between equal participants. Guaranteed access for everyone. Public good over public interest (What is going to be the best thing for society?). Hold the government accountable for their actions, and need to effect social change. “We have multiple ever shifting publics that are formed and restricted by networked technologies.”
Public Sphere
way to communicate through the public composed of private people and formal decision making body, communicative and expressive. Act as spaces of discourse that allow for new ideas to be discussed. Policy is judged by merit of ideas not by the social standing of the person, it’s about us as the people who don’t have the social standing (blue check mark). In order for democracy to happen in society there needs to be a relm of social and political life that rests between the government and society. There should be something in the middle where we can come together and talk so we can put them forward to the state (mediates between state and society). Public sphere is constantly shifting and changing. Competition of ideas
Mediated Citizenship
“colonization of everyday life and civic engagement by logic and the practices with the media”. Our duty is to shape a democratic country, be engaged actively in society, have a duty in making things happen for yourself. Citizens should be treated equal to governments. Equal rights and responsibilities to exercise their power ex by voting (choose our leader). Media interferes with our social rights. Social media is not a vehicle through which we communicate and gain info, social media is rather a platform structure/form which shapes the messages we receive (sharing, likes, algorithms)
Digital Democracy
Being distorted by how the medium is shaped and formed. supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation typically involving periodically held free elections. We live in a digital democracy (can hold people accountable for actions, canceling)
Fallacy of Unanimity
idea that there’s an unanimous agreement based around a belief with no sound reason but everyone is unanimous around it. Extremists believe that others share their views. People get canceled if they speak against it. Difficult for people in the middle
Digital Social Capital
“sum of resources, actual or virtual, that accrue to an individual or a group by virtue of possessing a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition”. It’s not what you know but who you know that matters. Must network to get ahead in life. Like tallies are a measure of digital and social capital, leads to economic capital gain. social currency through building a social network
Phatic Communication
“ties of union are created by an exchange of words/gestures. Words used in phatic communication fulfill a social function (can be nonverbal like a nod)”. feeling seen, releases dopamine, what i did has value and has been seen, sociability
Gamification
introduction of gaming-like elements in our lives. Likes and followers are gaining points, battling for recognition, achievements (benchmark), neurological reward system
McDonald writes: “If we are not interested in getting the truth, but only getting likes, and if we know that others take this approach too, we will not be interested in exchanging information, reasons, and arguments with one another, but rather with fighting it out for the most exciting online content.”
Technologies of Subjectivity
“The various ways in which individuals in society come to understand themselves and their identities, and their roles within the broader social and cultural context”. How you act and respond with the world. happens not only through coercion but occurs by influencing individuals’ perceptions of themselves and their own agencies (not always aware of how our viewpoint is being shaped), leads people to present themselves differently (taught this as young children).
Neoliberal Governmentality
represents a shift in the way power and governance operate in modern societies. Power is not central but flowing everywhere. Government provides privacy for corporations over citizens. Hard to fight the power of privacy and surveillance because we don’t know where it comes from. Effective neoliberal subject attendees to trends
Digital Panopticon
Michel Foucault. Guard in the middle of prison. society mirrored the panopticon, fear that we are always being watched and not seen as individuals who can easily be tracked and numbered (silhouette, number) so the fear invokes us to behave. Continuous automated surveillance. Fear that you are being watched makes you behave.
