topic 6: effects of global digital comms on social inequality Flashcards
LSE
children from better off backgrounds 🤑 have GREATER ACCESS TO WWW and are more likely to EXPLOIT ITS RESOURCES
working class lack digital cultural capital that internet-literate middle class do: this gets passed down generations, widening the DIGITAL DIVIDE
CASTELLS 2000
if not included in global networked society, you’re EXCLUDED AND MARGINALISED: lack of access to jobs, friends, info (info more important now)
BUT working class can use digital media to help reduce social inequality (proletariat in North African countries used social media to organise revolution + overthrow governments 💪
Sutton Trust 2020 (global digital comms)
digital divide in education 📚 increased by lockdown😷
- 69% of private school teachers felt prepared to do video lessons compared to 40% state school teachers
- schools w highest proportions of students eligible for free school meals: 34% said they could broadcast a lesson for their class to access, 53% said they could accept work remotely from class
Boyle (negative impacts of digital revolution)
DIGITAL DIVIDE ➗: new form of stratification
—> 40% of homes in 2015 didn’t have digital TV 📺
—> 40% didn’t have reliable internet access
we must be digital CITIZENS (take control of digital media), not digital CONSUMERS 🛍 (being fed what commercial forces profit from)
Kleeman
gender inequality via WIKIPEDIA 📝
— 13% of contributors are women
— female porn star list edited >2,500 times but female poets list edited <100 times
— womens’ status as mother/wife/daughter often prioritised
CIRCULAR MARGINALISATION: ⭕️
Given woman seen as unimportant.
Doesn’t get detailed wiki page.
People see undetailed wiki page and think she’s unimportant.
Atkinson
— online beauty industry harms young women 💋😔 (Snapchat filters, “Fix Me” Instagram filter)
— internalising cultural appearance ideals + appearance comparison 📊 results in body dysmorphia for young women
— plastic surgeons have seen 📈 in patients asking to “look like their online face”
Saarkeesian
Tropes vs Women in Video Games blog series
gaming = male-dominated, objectifying/sexualising/trivialising women e.g. Grand Theft Auto
🎮
Walter
LIVING DOLLS: negative impact of media on women.
New sexism: women judged on physical appearance more.
—> HYPERSEXUAL CULTURE, OBJECTIFICATION of women
Internet + media allow:
-pornography, sexualised images of women (UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS)
-emphasis on clothes, plastic surgery (EATING DISORDERS)
Increasing pressure to look GOOD for MEN.
increased by digital tech:
most searched term = porn
ratemygirlfriend.com
Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto
Cieslik + Pollock
secretive 🤫 online 💻 female subculture:
Pro-Ana websites
Sufferers of anorexia shared tips on and encouraged each other to lose weight: DAMAGING
Contemporary, postmodern society: future path is overwhelming, unpredictable and uncontrollable (more so than the past). 😰
—> young women respond to risk society with eating disorders? obsessed with controlling their bodies in response to lack of control over their future?
Haraway
- new tech 📱 should be EMBRACED by women: solution to misogyny?
—> future tech e.g. cyborgs break down gender dualities - women were previously left behind in AGRICULTURAL 🥕 and INDUSTRIAL 🏭 revolutions due to structural constraints
- if women don’t step out + assert themselves into digital revolution they risk being sidelined
—> Apple 🍎 health app ♥️ doesn’t include menstrual cycle
—> female astronaut couldn’t do spacewalk bc spacesuit was designed for man so she couldnt see out
(MALE STREAM THINKING PERVADES TECH)
Already happened: the pill, fertility treatments
muted voices are amplified
Haenfler
Online 💻 subcultures
virtual world gives new types of masculinity, e.g. NERD 👾 MASCULINITY
— multiplayer online role-playing games give ALTERNATIVE PATH TO MASCULINITY that differs from hegemonic (reward through competitive and persistent effort, status)
allows men to achieve masculinity without doing crime 😌
POSTMODERNISM. Fluid, unstable and fragmented
#notallmen
Berry 🍓🫐
DIGITAL DIVIDE in age.
— only 8% over 55 have profile page 📱🙋
— only 1/4 of over 60s had bought something online 💻💳
FOUR factors impacting internet usage: CUSP
- COST 💸
- UNINTERESTED 😐
- SKILL LACK 🤷❓
- PHYSICAL DISABILITY 🤚😖
OLDER PPL MARGINALISED BC OF DIGITAL DIVIDE?
Barbosa Neves
older people feel angry 😡 afraid 😧 exhausted 😴 and excluded ✋ from digital world
high levels of frustration at lack of digital linguistic knowledge (‘swipe’, ‘zoom’) in care home 🏠
Office of National Stats on digital age divide: LABOUR FORCE SURVEY (LFS)
number of older people going online increased from 29% to 54% 2013–2020
Smith et al (age divide)
younger people experience more CYBERBULLYING.
Peer groups HIGHLY influential, both +tive and -tive
20% teens experienced CYBUL.
1/3 victims kept CYBUL. secret.
Girls more than boys.
Sample: questionnaire 100 teens in 14 schools, yr 7-10.
Megan Meier, Ryan Halligan, Rebbeca Sedwick all committed suicide bc of cyberbullying
McGonigal (age divide)
younger people benefit: media enhances identity as it TEACHES YOUTH SKILLS 👩🏫
— average 21 yr old man has 10,000 hours of gaming 👾
— helps deal with boredom, anger 😑😡
teaches creativity 🎨
problem solving 🤔
teamwork
dealing with failure
optimism
consumed less snacks
Youthnet
online relationships very positive for digital natives
internet EMPOWERS 💪 youth and allows them to b creative 🎨
45% of sample said they felt happiest online
75% couldn’t live without internet
Turkle (impacts all ages negatively)
ALONE TOGETHER
Digital world + addiction to social media isolates us —> less satisfying communication —> breakdown of face-to-face relationships.
Parents = bad role models, using phones too much in front of children. Setting disconnectedness as the NORM! (post-familial family)
Goldilocks Effect: physically together, mentally alone. Relationships are in the inbetween.
Royal Society for Public Health (age divide)
impacts young people negatively
1,500 14-25 yr olds surveyed
Instagram has negative effect on mental health
users suffer from
loneliness,
depression,
bullying,
body image problems,
addicted to social media,
neglecting irl friendships,
insecurities from comparing
edited posts should be marked as edited/enhanced
OFCOM Survey 2015
ethnic minorities more likely to have HIGHER levels of internet access, smart phone usage, and wide internet usage than white population
stats about global internet usage
60% of African population have mobile phones 📱
25% of African population use internet daily
Columbia: home internet connection costs 20% of minimum wage
Dal Yong Jin
🌍 🇺🇸 💰 💻
— platform imperialism: dominance of capitalist, American platforms in digital world
—> 98% of internet platforms are for-profit organisations
—> 78% USA based
so digital global world is becoming a HEGEMONIC FORCE
— media convergence: media companies in the hands of a few e.g. Rupert Murdoch (owns 1/5 of UK news consumption)
—> lack of democracy
Curran and Seaton abt global digital revolution
digital revolution is NOT global!!! 🌍 ❌
in 2000: London had more websites than the whole of Africa
advantages are limited to privileged groups e.g. Europe, North America 🇺🇸
50% English digital comms, 20% speak english
