Abstract
One of the ongoing difficulties in conducting research online as a sociologist is the lack of sociological theory and methodology on the internet as a social space. Instead, sociologists who study the internet often have to pull from other disciplines to inform their research. In Digital Sociologies, Jessie Daniels, Karen Gregory, and Tressie McMillan Cottom maintain that studying the internet is interdisciplinary but that sociology ought to form the foundation of internet research. The book is both a call for sociologists to focus on internet theory and methods and an illustration of the variety of research digital sociology can produce.
In the introduction, the editors contend that the shift from analog to digital communication changes how the social world is organized but that the discipline of sociology has yet to catch up. The wide range of methods in this collection—from content analysis, to network analysis, to quantitative analyses of big data—showcases sociologists pulling methods from other fields and adapting them for sociological inquiry. The editors argue for the development of digital sociological methods and for disciplinary support for collaboration among sociologists doing this work.
What sociologists can contribute to studying the online world is clear. Digital sociology has the capacity to recognize that online technologies free individuals from hierarchies and inequalities while also recreating those same hierarchies and inequalities. This critical lens informs the entire collection, as each piece calls into question how notions of power and inequality play out in the online world. For Daniels, Gregory, and Cottom, digital sociology potentially challenges existing power structures both in academia and in society as a whole.
The book is organized into three parts. In the first, Digital Sociology in Everyday Life, Gregory adapts C. Wright Mills’s concept of the sociological imagination to the digitized world. She argues that the boundaries between the individual self and the social world are blurred online. Also included are pieces that examine the geography of digital communities occupying physical environments (Alexia Maddox) and that imagine the digital world as a kind of Gemeinschaft where the maintenance of individual reputations involves the commodification of impression management (Alexandrea Ravenelle). In an evaluation of the ethics of “public” data online, Alison Mayne uses the example of an online knitting community to explore issues of privacy and identity.
Two other pieces in this section examine how online and offline interactions are organized by online technology. Harry Dyer’s ethnography of comic book websites shows how layout and design influence social interaction, and Trevor Jamerson’s examination of online tourism websites illustrates how the internet promotes a kind of “digital orientalism.” Timothy Recuber proposes methods for adapting discourse analysis to the online world, arguing that qualitative data and context remain important despite all the “big data” available online for analysis. Finally, Theresa Hunt studies how activists worldwide use the internet, but she contends that the internet is still not accessible to marginalized populations—and thus analog research methods are still important.
In the second part of the book, Digitized Institutions, Cottom argues that digital sociologists must consider institutions in their analysis. She uses education as an example of an institution driven by technologies that are often created by special interest groups. She asks how privilege and oppression are reinforced through online technologies. Following Cottom, Neil Selwyn, Selena Nemorin, Scott Bulfin, and Nicola Johnson suggest methodological and theoretical questions to help digital sociologists understand education. Johnson examines institutional research at universities, suggesting that universities focus on using student data to further the cause of justice instead of recreating existing inequities.
Two other selections also study higher education technology and inequality. Monita Mungo applies critical race theory to the digital presence colleges construct on their websites, finding that the inclusion of students of color in pictures can help those students feel more welcome and challenge racial inequality in higher education. Francesca Tripodi, on the other hand, finds that anonymous online communities at colleges can make some students feel a sense of belonging on campus, while making non-whites feel more isolated and invisible.
Cottom’s own essay on black cyberfeminism stands out. She argues that black cyberfeminism can help digital sociology understand intersectional identities, institutions, and politics online. The “strategic hypervisibility” employed by marginalized populations (women of color) online provides a lens to understand identities. Through the example of for-profit colleges that target women of color, Cottom argues that the internet is organized around the “typical” user (white male) and that this furthers inequality. Only through intersectionality, Cottom argues, can digital sociologists understand how online algorithms make the internet work for some and not for others.
Other essays examine how specific institutions organize the online world. Stephen Barnard traces the history of sociology and how sociologists have been slow to adapt theory and method to technology. Calle Rosengren and Mikael Ottosson analyze how workplace digital surveillance (email and internet) affects the relationship between’employees and employers. Andrew McKinney uses the case of the Bleacher Report, operating outside of corporate sports media, to examine issues of disruptive labor and free digital labor online. Jonathan Wynn provides a history of the communal practice of geocaching in New York City, examining how GPS technology helps people make real-life connections in public spaces. Apryl Williams examines the formation of a shared identity and formation of cultural knowledge on Black Twitter during communal viewings of television shows.
The third part of the book, Digital Bodies, opens with Daniels challenging the idea that the internet allows individuals to “escape who they are.” Instead, Daniels argues, with smart objects and social media, the internet is no longer separate from individuals and bodies. As such, the internet is not an escape from our racialized and gendered bodies.
This section includes pieces that examine how technologies shape sense of self. Kara van Cleaf analyzes “mommy blogs” to argue that daily maternal work (“attunement”) and running a blog have similar logics of practice. Deborah Lupton examines how people engage with data from their bodies from wearable sensors and communication technologies, arguing that individuals and technologies influence one another. Similarly, Yuliya Grinberg traces the trope of the naked body in technology, showing that data collected on individuals is like a “second skin” shaping how we understand ourselves. Elizabeth Wissinger asks whether wearable fashion technologies disrupt gender stereotypes by departing from a typical stereotype of male geeks. Similarly, Benjamin Haber argues that Facebook algorithms are queer in that relationships on Facebook are defined more through self-chosen connections instead of heteronormative notions of family.
Key chapters in this section focus on how’racialization and racism are recreated through online technologies. Kishonna Gray studies a gaming forum to argue that black gamers are marginalized in online communities because they are a challenge to white hegemonic masculinity online. Miriam Sweeney uses “critical feminist informatics” to analyze Microsoft’s experimental interactive search engine, Ms. Dewey, showing that racialized and gendered ideas can shape user experience online. Sanjay Sharma and Phillip Brooker examine racism’denial on Twitter, analyzing multi-hashtagging to show how the internet makes the complexities of racism visible. Finally, Adrian Cruz and Kazuyo Kubo conduct a content analysis of online news comments about undocumented immigration, arguing that anonymity online makes it easier to post racist and nativist comments without facing repercussions.
In sum, Digital Sociologies is the most complete volume of sociological theories and research on digital technologies to date. The book will be useful for researchers, and selections are accessible enough to assign in undergraduate classes. As a whole, the book models the variety of ways sociologists can adapt their methods to the online world. But most importantly, Digital Sociologies shows that when sociologists do digital sociology, they bring a much-needed critical lens to the dynamics of power and inequality online.
Digital Sociologies gives us a peek at the promise of what could happen if sociologists focus the discipline on the online world, while also showing the necessity of such work. Individuals are already experiencing their lives and bodies through technologies, and those technologies are recreating (and sometimes challenging) inequalities and power structures; so sociologists had better catch up and meet the social world where it is—online.