Internet sociology

The sociology of the internet involves the application of sociological theories and methods in terms of the digitization in general and the Internet as a source of information and place of communication . Sociologists take care of the social effects of digital technology . The spectrum of topics is wide and ranges from social networks , virtual communities and forms and paths of social interaction to computer and internet crime or cyber war .

The Internet as the latest form of the “information revolution” interests sociologists in many ways: as a research tool (for example in the form of online surveys ), as a discussion and collaboration platform and as a separate research object. Internet sociology in the narrower sense deals with the analysis of digital societies , communities , collectives, such as can be found in newsgroups, for example , but also with virtual worlds; it is dedicated to organizational change - catalyzed by new media such as the Internet - and also to that (social) change from the industrial to the information society . Online communities can be statistically researched, for example through network analysis , but at the same time they can also be interpreted qualitatively, for example through virtual ethnography. Social change can be analyzed using demographic tools or through the interpretation of changing messages and symbols, which is also common in media studies , for example .

Development of the discipline of internet sociology

In terms of media history, the Internet is not only a young but also a revolutionary development. Robert Darnton says it is a revolutionary change that “happened yesterday, or the day before yesterday, depending on how you measure it” (Original: “took place yesterday, or the day before, depending on how you measure it”). The Internet developed from the forerunner ARPANET , which dates back to 1969; the term was coined in 1974. The World Wide Web as we know it today was shaped in the mid-1990s when graphical user interfaces and services such as e-mail became popular and reached larger (non-scientific and non-military, but private and commercial) target groups. The Internet Explorer browser appeared in 1995, the Netscape Navigator a year earlier. Google was founded in 1998, Wikipedia was added in 2001. Facebook , MySpace and YouTube followed around 2005. Web 2.0 continues to grow rapidly, as does the amount of information that is generally available on the Internet and the number of users continues to rise sharply. This also increased the influence of the Internet on society and thus the relevance of a sociological analysis.

Research trends

DiMaggio and others see five areas that research into the Internet from a social science perspective is focused on:

1. Inequality (e.g. digital divide )
2. Social (collective) capital (related to the shift from analog to digital activities, e.g. from non-digital club life to the social network Facebook)
3. Political participation (related to the public , civil society and deliberative democracy )
4. Organizations and Trades
5. Cultural participation and diversity

In the early days of the Internet, people “ oracles ” that the Internet would change everything - or nothing; over time, however, the view developed that there would be additions to, rather than replacements, traditional media. This led to a rethinking of the 1990s idea that there would be a convergence of new and old media. Regardless, the Internet opens up the rare opportunity to study the changes that emerging information and communication technology brings with it.

Social impact

The digitization of society has effects in all areas of our living environment. A few examples should clarify the necessity and relevance of the social science debate on digitization:

General

The Internet has created new forms of social interaction and relationships, including social networks such as Facebook and MySpace , but also websites such as meetup.com, Couchsurfing and Warm Showers , which are intended to promote offline interaction.

While virtual communities should often remain purely virtual, researchers have now found that digitally based social relationships are often maintained both online and offline.

There is intense debate about the impact of the Internet on strong and weak ties: does the network create more or less social capital, does it play a role in terms of social isolation, and does it create more or less social environments.

Political organization and censorship

The Internet has undoubtedly gained importance as a political tool in the industrialized nations. Are for example the election of Barack Obama in 2008 or the networking of transnational parties such as the Pirate Parties . Social movements and other organizations use the net to carry out offline as well as online activism . In some countries, such as Cuba , Iran and North Korea , filtering and censoring software and hardware are used to enforce access restrictions. Other countries, on the other hand , criminalize the possession of certain data, for example child pornography , but do not filter the Internet specifically . In countries like Germany , websites are blocked when an authorized government agency requests it, for example with the help of a court ruling .

philanthropy

The spread of cheap internet access in developing countries has opened up new opportunities to donate money from one individual to another or to grant microloans . Websites such as Donors Choose or Global Giving allow micro donations that flow directly to individual projects. Peer-to-peer loans are a special type of digital philanthropy : donations are collected for microfinance organizations, which in turn publish information and stories (in the name of) the debtors in order to create a direct connection between donors and recipients - you can see immediately how and where the money is used individually. Due to the continued strong expansion of cheap internet access in developing countries, it is becoming ever easier to establish such individual connections and thus to enable microcredits across the board. In 2009, the US non-profit organization Zidisha made it possible for the first time to grant peer-to-peer loans without a local middleman. Inspired Zidisha while Facebook and eBay, which rely on the direct dialogue between donors and recipients. Loans are already supported with one US dollar.

leisure

Long before the advent of the World Wide Web, the Internet was a major source of idleness. There were entertainment - oriented experiments like multi-user dungeons and Master of Orion , located on university servers, but also humorous Usenet groups that attracted a large part of the network traffic. YouTube is home to numerous videos that are exclusively intended to have entertainment character or to amuse. Tens of millions of people use blogs and other forms of collaboration to share ideas or enter into a discourse without having to be technology-centric, for example by programming a website or setting up their own server .

The porn and gambling industries also use the internet in all conceivable ways, e.g. B. with the help of websites, via file sharing networks , for chats and as an advertising platform. Even if there are repeated efforts to regulate or even prevent the spread of pornography, these plans sooner or later failed, mainly thanks to the decentralized structure of the network.

Multiplayer games are a very popular form of entertainment in the digital space . This type of game creates communities, brings people of different ages and origins together to enjoy the dynamic world of multiplayer games together. These games range from massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG) to first-person shooters , from computer role-playing games to online gambling. This has decisively changed, if not revolutionized, the way many people spend their free time, as digitalization has made game forms popular that would not have been possible without them.

Music , films and other creations are used with pleasure and often, both for free and against payment and both legally and illegally. Although digitization has enabled new, interesting sales structures and channels, the uncontrolled distribution of (paid) content is also possible, so that there is a hotly debated area of ​​tension between authors and users.

The use of the Internet to obtain information from everyday life such as weather reports , news and sports results should meanwhile be described as common practice.

Synchronous and asynchronous communication are also very popular. Network users write e-mails, chat or use internal communication channels, for example the Facebook messaging system reserved for users, to keep in touch with friends and family or to make new contacts.

Cloud computing and the use of remote services, which enable data to be outsourced to other systems, are also becoming increasingly popular . The advantage is the location-independent use, as you are no longer tied to your own (possibly immobile) computer, but there are also disadvantages such as giving up direct (material) control over your own data (memory).

Internet sociology in Germany

While some scientists only refer to internet sociology as part of their work, the sociologist Stephan G. Humer is considered to be the founder of the research field of internet sociology with the first institutionalization in German-speaking countries (initially at the University of the Arts in Berlin with Joachim Sauter , since March 2016 as a research and work area at the Hochschule Fresenius in Berlin).

See also

• Internet censorship
• Cyber ​​Society · Cyber Anthropology · Netnography
• Computer science in social work
• Sociology of Science

More material

• Rainer Dringenberg: Internet - presented and discussed. Impressions of the border traffic between real and virtual worlds. Bochum 2002, ISBN 3-926013-53-0 . PDF (Series Thinking and Acting Vol. 46 of the EFH RWL Bochum)
• Kai Dröge: transitory social relationships or: Against the inequality blindness of internet sociology. In: Christian Stegbauer (Ed.): Inequality. 2012 V, pp. 281-299. doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-531-94213-1_14
• Stephan Humer: Digital Identities. The core of digital action in the field of tension between imagination and reality. CSW publishing house. Winnenden 2008.
• Stephan Humer: Internet sociology . Theory and methodology of a new science. De Gruyter Oldenbourg. Berlin / Boston 2020.
• Ulrich Dolata , Jan-Felix Schrape : Internet, Mobile Devices and the Transformation of Media. Radical change as gradual reconfiguration. Berlin, Edition Sigma 2013, ISBN 978-3-836-03588-0
• Christian Papsdorf: Internet and Society. How the network is changing our communication. Frankfurt a. M./New York, Campus 2013, ISBN 978-3593399713

Web links

• Internet sociology.de
• 4communication - sociological advice
• Facebook page on internet sociology
• Sociology of the Internet
• IUWIS.de - literature on Internet sociology
• Podcast with the scientist Stephan Humer about the research field Internet sociology ("Kiezbiografien")

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c} Robert Darnton: The Library in the New Age . In: The New York Review of Books. Vol. 55, No. 10 June 12, 2008. Retrieved June 26, 2012.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Paul DiMaggio, Eszter Hargittai , W. Russell Neuman, John P. Robinson: Social Implications of the Internet. In: Annual Review of Sociology. Vol. 27, pp. 307-336 (Volume publication date August 2001), doi : 10.1146 / annurev.soc.27.1.307
3. ↑ Lauren F. Sessions: How offline gatherings affect online community members: when virtual community members 'meetup'. In: Information, Communication, and Society. 13.3 (April, 2010), pp. 375-395.
4. ^ B. Bo Xie: The mutual shaping of online and offline social relationships. In: Information Research. 1.3 (2008).
5. ↑ Lee Rainie, John Horrigan, Barry Wellman, Jeffrey Boase: The Strength of Internet Ties. Pew Internet and American Life Project. Washington, DC 2006.
6. ↑ NB Ellison, C. Stein Field, C. Light: The benefits of Facebook "friends," Social capital and college students' use of online social network sites. In: Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. 12 (4) 2007.
7. ^ Social Isolation and New Technology Pew Internet and American Life Report
8. ↑ Zidisha Set to "Expand" in peer-to-peer microfinance. ( Memento of the original from September 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Microfinance Focus. Feb 2010.  
9. ↑ Tom Chivers: Internet pornography block plans: other attempts to control the internet . In: The Telegraph , December 21, 2010. Retrieved February 24, 2012. 
10. ↑ Internet Society - Sociology of the Internet ( Memento of the original from July 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
11. ↑ University of Trier: Brinkmann ( Memento of the original from January 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
12. ^ Karlsruhe Institute of Technology: Lecture series online and offline society
13. ↑ Stephan Humer - Internet sociology  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
14. ↑ Samsung - Business Life - Digital Identity
15. ↑ Mentioned in the profile of Stephan G. Humer on the second page of the teacher overview ( memento of the original from March 13, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.