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Digital Culture and Sociology

Digital Culture and Sociology. Consumption. about today. Conceptual introduction “Consuming Communication Technologies at Home”, Mackay, Hugh. Case: “Welcome to Bisexuality, Captain Kirk”: Slash and the Fan-Writing Community, Jenkins, Henry. consumption. break. case: slash.

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Digital Culture and Sociology

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  1. Digital Culture and Sociology Consumption DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 5 – Susana Tosca

  2. about today • Conceptual introduction • “Consuming Communication Technologies at Home”, Mackay, Hugh. • Case: “Welcome to Bisexuality, Captain Kirk”: Slash and the Fan-Writing Community, Jenkins, Henry consumption break case: slash DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 5 – Susana Tosca

  3. consumption meanings Hall et. al. • “using up, destruction, waste...” • a disease (pulmonary phthisis) • as the antithesis of production in old economic theory (Raymond Williams), secondary • popular language: = use • cultural studies: active process, pleasure DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 5 – Susana Tosca

  4. traditional consumption Hall et. al. • secondary to production, less worthy, frivolous (protestant ethos) • male work more important than female domestic area • Commodification of culture (Frankfurt School), standarization, false needs, leisure and ideological control, consumers as passive DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 5 – Susana Tosca

  5. contemporary view Hall et. al. • important role as shows how cultural artifacts are used in everyday life • active consumers • Started with Veblen (1899), leisure class. Bourdieu continues, different groups + capacities for cultural value in symbolic goods, taste, articulation of identity (no gender and class as given) • Consumption tied to lifestyle rather than class (marketing) • Postmodernism: the increasing significance of the symbolic, Baudrillard. (focus on youth) DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 5 – Susana Tosca

  6. contemporary view II Hall et. al. • empirical studies of subculture (Hall) • protest against elitist culture • related to the pleasures of consumption approach: creativity of consumerism (De Certeau): empowering of subjects (not so for many) • consumption is not the end of a process, but the beginning of another • always situated • the value of qualitative, observational and ethnographic research methods (ex. Mackay p. 284-285) DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 5 – Susana Tosca

  7. DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 5 – Susana Tosca

  8. text goals Mackay • explore communication technologies in the home (how they affect this space and are themselves domesticated, used and made sense of) • consumption and production related • social shaping of technology is explored, including technological determinism theories • technology is not only utilitarian or material, but also symbolic • note link to our last storytelling exercise in the chapter (i.e. P. 279), about personal impact of technology DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 5 – Susana Tosca

  9. What did you note down as you read the text? Interesting? Controversial? Dated? DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 5 – Susana Tosca

  10. points for discussion Mackay • Activity 1, p. 264. Discussion: progress and democracy vs. Withdrawal from community • Technology is social = physical artifact + surrounding human activity + human knowledge behind it (265), example home computer • criticism of technological determinism (266 + reading A) • Appropriation and gendering of new technologies (telephone, radio, mobile) • p. 285-287, about reading B. How good is the ethnographic approach? • Last section (6) how is the text dated? DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 5 – Susana Tosca

  11. slash Jenkins His text centered on sexual identity, our emphasis is consumption / appropriation / the Internet • Anglosaxon culture (American), moral standpoint, do we identify ourselves with the discussions • A particular TV culture: series only DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 5 – Susana Tosca

  12. slash text discussion Jenkins • What kind of texts did you read + what was your reaction? (Bored / Amused / Offended / Indifferent...) • Did the narratives adapt to the kind of content and structure Jenkins describes in his article? • How far is slash from the originating texts? • What kind of consumption is this? • Does it work better with certain kinds of stories? • What is the role of the Internet in this? DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 5 – Susana Tosca

  13. complementary bibliography • DE CERTEAU, M. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: UCLA Press. • HALL, S. and JEFFERSON, T. 1976. Resistance Through Rituals: youth subcultures in post-war Britain. London: Hutchinson. • MACKENZIE, D and WAJCMAN, J. (eds.). 1985. The Social Shaping of Technology. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. • VEBLEN, T. 1899 (1989). The Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: MacMillan NOTE: There is a list of related and interesting bibliography in the Mackay article. DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 5 – Susana Tosca

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