- Sociology of the Internet
Sociology of the Internet or sociology of cyberspace explores the social implications of the
Internet , newsocial network s, online societies (virtual communities) andsocial interaction on the Internet.The Internet - the newest in the series of major information breakthroughs - is of interest for sociologists in various ways: as a tool for research, for example, in using
online questionnaire s instead of paper ones, as a discussion platform, and as a research topic. Sociology of the Internet in the last sense includes analysis ofonline communities (e.g. as found innewsgroups ),virtual communities and virtual worlds, organizational change catalyzed throughnew media like the Internet, and social change at-large in the transformation from industrial toinformational society (or toinformation society ). Online communities can be studied statistically throughnetwork analysis and at the same time interpreted qualitatively, such as thoughvirtual ethnography . Social change can be studied through statisticaldemographics or through the interpretation of changing messages and symbols in onlinemedia studies .Emergence of the discipline
The Internet is relatively new phenomenon. As
Robert Darnton wrote, it is a revolutionary change that however "took place yesterday, or the day before, depending on how you measure it."Robert Darnton, " [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21514 The Library in the New Age] ", The New York Review of Books, Volume 55, Number 10 · June 12, 2008. Retrieved on 28 May 2008.] The Internet developed from theARPANET , dating back to 1969; as a term it was coined in 1974. TheWorld Wide Web as we know it was shaped in early 1990s, whengraphical interface and services likeemail became popular and reached wider (non-scientific and non-military) audiences andcommerce .Paul DiMaggio, Eszter Hargittai1, W. Russell Neuman, and John P. Robinnson, "Social Implications of the Internet", Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 27: 307-336 (Volume publication date August 2001), (doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.27.1.307) [http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.soc.27.1.307] ]Internet Explorer was first released in 1995;Netscape a year earlier.Google was founded barely a decade ago, in 1998. Over time, the amount of information available on the net and the number of Internet users worldwide has continued to grow quickly.Research trends
According to DiMaggio et al. (2001), research tends to focus on the Internet's implications in five domains:
#inequality (the issues ofdigital divide )
#community andsocial capital (the issues oftime displacement )
#political participation (the issues ofpublic sphere ,deliberative democracy andcivil society )
#organization s and other economic institutions
#cultural participation andcultural diversity After an early period in which there were predictions that the Internet will change everything (or nothing), a consensus has emerged that the Internet tends to complement rather than displace existing media. In the end, the Internet still offers a valuable opportunity to study changes wrought by the newly emerged - and still evolving - communication technology.
ocial impact
The Internet has made possible entirely new forms of social interaction, activities and organizing, thanks to its basic features such as widespread usability and access.
Social networking websites such as
Facebook andMySpace have created a new form of socialization and interaction. Users of these sites are able to add a wide variety of items to their personal pages, to indicate common interests, and to connect with others. It is also possible to find a large circle of existing acquaintances, especially if a site allows users to utilize their real names, and to allow communication among large existing groups of people.Sites like
meetup.com exist to allow wider announcement of groups which may exist mainly for face-to-face meetings, but which may have a variety of minor interactions over their group's site at meetup.org, or other similar sites.Political organization and censorship
In democratic societies, the Internet has achieved new relevance as a political tool. The presidential campaign of
Howard Dean in 2004 in theUnited States became famous for its ability to generate donations via the Internet. Many political groups use the Internet to achieve a whole new method of organizing, in order to carry outInternet activism .Some governments, such as those of
Cuba ,Iran ,North Korea ,Myanmar , thePeople's Republic of China , andSaudi Arabia , restrict what people in their countries can access on the Internet, especially political and religious content. This is accomplished through software that filters domains and content so that they may not be easily accessed or obtained without elaborate circumvention.In
Norway ,Denmark ,Finland andSweden , major Internet service providers have voluntarily (possibly to avoid such an arrangement being turned into law) agreed to restrict access to sites listed by police. While this list of forbidden URLs is only supposed to contain addresses of known child pornography sites, the content of the list is secret.Fact|date=April 2007Many countries, including the United States, have enacted laws making the possession or distribution of certain material, such as
child pornography , illegal, but do not use filtering software.There are many free and commercially available software programs with which a user can choose to block offensive websites on individual computers or networks, such as to limit a child's access to pornography or violence. See "
Content-control software ".Leisure activities
The Internet has been a major source of leisure since before the World Wide Web, with entertaining social experiments such as
MUD s andMOO s being conducted on university servers, and humor-relatedUsenet groups receiving much of the main traffic. Today, manyInternet forum s have sections devoted to games and funny videos; short cartoons in the form of Flash movies are also popular. Over 6 million people use blogs or message boards as a means of communication and for the sharing of ideas.The
pornography andgambling industries have both taken full advantage of the World Wide Web, and often provide a significant source of advertising revenue for other websites. Although many governments have attempted to put restrictions on both industries' use of the Internet, this has generally failed to stop their widespread popularity.One main area of leisure on the Internet is
multiplayer gaming . This form of leisure creates communities, bringing people of all ages and origins to enjoy the fast-paced world of multiplayer games. These range fromMMORPG tofirst-person shooter s, from role-playing games toonline gambling . This has revolutionized the way many people interact and spend their free time on the Internet.While online gaming has been around since the 1970s, modern modes of online gaming began with services such as GameSpy and MPlayer, to which players of games would typically subscribe. Non-subscribers were limited to certain types of gameplay or certain games.
Many use the Internet to access and download music, movies and other works for their enjoyment and relaxation. As discussed above, there are paid and unpaid sources for all of these, using centralized servers and distributed peer-to-peer technologies. Discretion is needed as some of these sources take more care over the original artists' rights and over copyright laws than others.
Many use the World Wide Web to access news, weather and sports reports, to plan and book holidays and to find out more about their random ideas and casual interests.
People use chat, messaging and e-mail to make and stay in touch with friends worldwide, sometimes in the same way as some previously had
pen pal s.Social networking websites likeMySpace ,Facebook and many others like them also put and keep people in contact for their enjoyment.The Internet has seen a growing number of
Web desktop s, where users can access their files, folders, and settings via the Internet.Cyberslacking has become a serious drain on corporate resources; the average UK employee spends 57 minutes a day surfing the Web at work, according to a study byPeninsula Business Services . [ [http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=914&id=1001802003 Scotsman.com News - Net abuse hits small city firms] ]ocially Identifible Groups/Individuals
The Internet has given rise to a new sense of individualism much like the
Renaissance . However what has cateogorized the internet's individualism is its grouping and collectivisation of like mindeness or 'Super individualism' (the state of socialising with groups of the same or similar interests).An emergant socialisation of this individualism has arisen akin toSocial Isolation . [ [http://www.stanford.edu/group/siqss/Press_Release/press_release.html] Traditional media has cateogorized this positively and pejoratively, most notorious of this type of behaviour has been theBridgend Sucides , [ [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3399528.ece] ] where the internet was seen as decisive in forming a like minded group.ee also
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social informatics
*sociology of science and technology
*technology diffusion References
Further reading
* John A. Bargh and Katelyn Y. A. McKenna, "The Internet and Social Life", Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 55: 573-590 (Volume publication date February 2004), (doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.55.090902.141922) [http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.psych.55.090902.141922?journalCode=psych]
*Allison Cavanagh, "Sociology in the Age of the Internet", McGraw-Hill International, 2007, ISBN 0335217257
*Christine Hine, "Virtual Methods: Issues in Social Research on the Internet", Berg Publishers, 2005, ISBN 1845200853
*Rob Kling, "The Internet for Sociologists", Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 26, No. 4 (Jul., 1997), pp. 434-444
*Joan Ferrante-Wallace, Joan Ferrante, "Sociology.net: Sociology on the Internet", Thomson Wadsworth, 1996, ISBN 0534527566
*D. R. Wilson, "Researching Sociology on the Internet", Thomson/Wadsworth, 2004, ISBN 0534624375External links
* [http://www.sociology.org.uk/olinset.htm Sociology and the Internet] (A short introduction, originally put-together for delegates to the ATSS 2000 Conference.)
* [http://www.sociosite.org/index_en.php Peculiarities of Cyberspace - Building Blocks for an Internet Sociology] (Articles the social structure and dynamic of internetcommunities. Presented by dr Albert Benschop, University of Amsterdam.)
* [http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/0/4/1/6/p104169_index.html The Impact of the Internet on Sociology: The Importance of the Communication and Information Technologies Section of the American Sociological Association]
* [http://camden-www.rutgers.edu/~wood/445syl.html Sociology and the Internet] (course)
* [http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/soc/courses/soc4jj3_99/soc4jj3_99.htm Sociology of Internet/Cyberspace] (course)
* [http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/1214/ Scoiology of the Internet] (link collection)
* [http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/he/tutorial/sociologist Internet sociologist]
* [http://www-frd.fsl.noaa.gov/~moninger/NOAATech2002/Relaxation.html The Sociology of the Internet]
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