Social Theory after the Internet : Media, Technology, and Globalization / Ralph Schroeder.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schroeder, Ralph, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Internet--Social aspects.

Internet.

Internet--Political aspects.

Digital media--Social aspects.

Digital media.

Digital media--Political aspects.

Information society--Social aspects.

Information society.

Information society--Political aspects.

Physical Description:

xi, 196 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

London : UCL Press, 2018.

Summary:

"Social Theory after the Internet focuses on everyday uses and effects of the internet, including information seeking and big data, and explains how the internet has gone beyond traditional media in, for example, enabling Donald Trump and Narendra Modi to come to power. Schroeder puts forward a sophisticated theory of the role internet plays, and how both technological and social forces shape its significance. He provides a sweeping and penetrating study, theoretically ambitious and at the same time always empirically grounded."--Page 4 of cover.

Contents:

1 The internet in theory 1

1.1 Theories of media, new and old 1

1.2 Summary of the argument 6

1.3 The autonomy of the media (sub)system 10

1.4 The role of the media in politics, culture and the economy: separate and different 13

1.5 A limited attention space 15

1.6 Who's afraid of technological determinism? 18

1.7 Chapter overview 21

2 Media systems, digital media and politics 28

2.1 Theories of digital media and politics 28

2.2 Media systems in Sweden and America 32

2.3 Digital media and politics in Sweden and America 35

2.4 Media systems in China and India 45

2.5 Digital media and politics in China and India 51

3 Digital media and the rise of right-wing populism 60

3.1 Trump's ascent via Twitter 63

3.2 The Sweden Democrats' alternative media 67

3.3 Modi's religious nationalism on Twitter 70

3.4 Containing online nationalists in China 74

3.5 Prospects for mediated politics 78

4 The internet in everyday life I: sociability 82

4.1 Tethered togetherness 83

4.2 The spread of social media 85

4.3 Sociability and social divides 88

4.4 Visual co-presence 91

4.5 Alone or together? 93

4.6 Globalizing sociability 97

5 The internet in everyday life II: seeking information 101

5.1 A new information infrastructure 101

5.2 Seeking information 103

5.3 Search engine uses 104

5.4 Search engines as gatekeepers 108

5.5 Does Google shape what we know? 109

5.6 The Web of information 115

5.7 Is the Web global? 120

5.8 Wikipedia 122

5.9 Information seeking and gatekeeping 124

6 Big data: shaping knowledge, shaping everyday life 126

6.1 Defining big data 127

6.2 Advancing academic knowledge about digital media 131

6.3 The uses and limits of big data in the social sciences 133

6.4 Facebook's 'Brave New Worlds' 139

6.5 Targeting publics, and the uses and limits of big data in everyday life 142

6.6 Big data and policy in different media systems 146

7 Futures 149

7.1 Media, globalization, technology 149

7.2 The uses and limits of theory 151

7.3 Technological determinism revisited 153

7.4 Mediated politics 155

7.5 Information needs and an open culture of information 158

7.6 Big data and targeting 158

7.7 Digital versus traditional media 161

7.8 Separate changes and limited impact 164

7.9 What is to be done? 167.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 170-188) and index.

ISBN:

1787351246

9781787351240

9781787351233

1787351238

OCLC:

1001299849