Current Research on Information Technologies and Society

Papers from the 2013 Meetings of the American Sociological Association

Jennifer Earl, Katrina Kimport

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317615255
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Research on communication and information technologies is of growing importance to sociology and the interdisciplinary examination of communication and (new) media. This volume includes eight chapters examining recent developments in the field, illustrating the maturation, vibrancy, and diversity of this field of study as well as pointing to rich new avenues for scholarly exploration. Contributions aptly chart three key developments that characterize current research on communication and digital media. First, chapters demonstrate the maturation of work on measurement, demonstrating the importance of refining measurements of online activities and their consequences. For instance, contributions evaluate: social network measures frequently used in online research; alternative measures for online activity; and alternative measures of Twitter activity. Second, the volume showcases continued work on understanding user behaviour, including research on the consequence of reward systems similar to badges and on the limitations of purely technological solutions to social dilemmas in emergency preparedness. Finally, chapters identify emerging questions for the field related to social media, such as research on potential privacy and identity implications of social media, different dispositions toward social media use, and variation in levels of social media usage.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Information, Communication & Society.

Hitting middle age never felt so good: introduction

Jennifer Earl^a and Katrina Kimport^b

^aSchool of Sociology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA; ^bAdvancing Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) program, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

In 2013, the Communication and Information Technologies section of the American Sociological Association (CITASA) hit a milestone: we had the largest membership total in section history at 375 members. Just as those membership figures suggest the maturation of our section – as well as the growing importance of topics we collectively study to sociology and to the interdisciplinary examination of communication and (new) media – as Guest Editors of this special issue, we saw that same maturation, vibrancy, and diversity in the set of papers submitted for consideration for this issue. We received a wonderful set of papers to review, with those included in this issue representing the best of that crop. We also realized how far the intellectual tentacles of CITASA reach as we worked to identify reviewers (to whom we offer our deep thanks for their service) – it was amazing to see how broad our collective expertise has become over time.

The eight articles that we ultimately accepted represent the best work from our section that was presented at the 2013 annual meetings of the American Sociological Association. They also aptly chart three key developments that we think characterize current research on communication and digital media and point toward future avenues of exploration: (1) the maturation of work on measurement; (2) continued work on understanding user behaviour; and (3) research on social media. Below, we briefly comment on each key development and introduce readers to the articles representing that area in this special issue. In the Conclusion, we make suggestions for what a promising research future might hold for us collectively.

Maturation of measurements

Three articles in this special issue mark the maturation of measurement in the study of communication and digital media. When research on digital media was in its earliest stages, scholars struggled with how to measure and study the dynamics related to new media. One could think of the field as being divided into two methodological halves: (1) for scholars who were interested in how users adopted or used technologies, basic methods were readily adaptable, such as random digit dialing surveys (Hampton, Sessions, & Her, 2009; and more recently online panels, Wojcieszak & Mutz, 2009), participant observation (Beyer, 2011), and interviewing (Earl & Schussman, 2003; Schussman & Earl, 2004); and (2) for scholars interested in what content was online and/or the structural characteristics of that content, basic sampling problems existed. While it was straightforward to randomly sample people, or to observe social spaces (even if that required a few new observational tools online), it was not as clear how random sets of websites on particular topics could be identified, let alone entire populations. As a consequence, a great deal of early work in the field focused on case studies where online content, such as social movement websites (della Porta & Mosca, 2005), were non-probabilistically sampled.

These methodological differences, in turn, led to different growth rates around different research questions. For instance, questions about access-based versions of the digital divide and broadband divide could be addressed with surveys, enabling research on this topic to flourish (DiMaggio, Hargittai, Neuman, & Robinson, 2001; Katz, Rice, & Aspden, 2001). Likewise, research on uses of technology grew vigorously (Flanagin et al., 2010; Hampton, 2003; Hargittai & Hsieh, 2010).

But, research on online content struggled to develop alternatives to case studies. One initially promising technique for creating larger catalogs of sites capitalized on hyperlinks (Thelwall, 2004) to establish communities of shared interest to study (Garrido & Halavais, 2003). While a number of scholars have used these techniques, link-crawling techniques have been slower to gain traction in many areas of sociology because of nagging theoretical questions about the social meanings of links (Ackland, 2009). For instance, little is systematically known about how website creators choose to establish links, how often those links are updated (and so how connections can be understood temporally), and whether social competitors create disconnected niche communities. This has created problems for studies based on hyperlinks because the theoretical underpinnings of the set of sites created is certainly socially structured but in ways social scientists don’t yet fully understand.

Fast forward to the present and some of these basic methodological disparities have dissipated. There are now multiple techniques for drawing random samples of websites on particular topics (Earl, 2006, 2013; Earl & Kimport, 2011; Earl, Kimport, Prieto, Rush, & Reynoso, 2010; Stein, 2009). The dual shifts toward platform-specific research (i.e. research on Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and the shift toward ‘big data’ have also been boons for researchers interested in online content. Within these bounded platforms, it is sometimes possible to build on big data advances and collect data on a significant share of the population, making sampling less essential for economizing on research resources and less necessary, in some instances, for reducing potential selection bias. And, ingenious uses of online content continue to be developed (Bail, 2012). Meanwhile, survey research has also grown, benefitting from the creation of online panels.

We argue that greater resolution in many of these basic methodological debates is allowing research on digital media to begin a new chapter in which a larger number of scholars can push forward with research questions focused on how we refine our methods and measurements. We see this as a lovely maturing shift in our collective scholarship, as scholars join to refine our measures and measurement techniques in the hope of producing the most rigorous research possible. We are not the only ones to notice this shift in scholarship: Neal Caren recently edited an issue of Mobilization (December 2013) on methods in social movement research that featured a number of articles on online data collection and measurement.

While this special issue is not alone in foregrounding the field’s methodological maturation, it does feature three articles that we think will significantly contribute to this cause. Hampton, Appel, Dadlani, Dwyer, Kitzie, Matni, Moore, and Teodoro (this issue) examine the veracity of social networks measures that are commonly used in research on information and communication technologies (ICTs). The Internet Social Capital Scales (ISCS), first developed by Williams (2006) and then revised by Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe (2007), have been widely influential social network measures. But, Hampton et al. argue that the original scale and its derivatives actually tap constructs that are related to social networks, such as tolerance, community involvement, and trust. The authors compare these commonly used measures to more structural social network measures created through the use of name, position, and resource generators; they find that the different measures do not converge. Hampton et al. warn that using scales such as ISCS and its derivatives can lead to incorrect interpretation of findings as scholars attempt to tie social networks (which ISCS and its derivatives don’t directly measure) to various social outcomes. We see Hampton et al.’s contribution as a wonderful example of refining common and important measures in our field. As importantly, we see this article as using better measurement to make important gains in theoretical precision and clarity.

Blank and Groselj (this issue) make a similar move in terms of building better measures to build better theory: they critique standard metrics for measuring Internet usage, arguing that such metrics tend to conflate multiple independent dimensions of Internet use. Specifically, Blank and Groselj argue that previous studies describing or analysing Internet use have often conflated the amount (i.e. length of time online), the variety (i.e. how many different kinds of activities people do online), and the specific types of activity (e.g. online shopping; online gambling). The authors argue that these are three orthogonal dimensions of Internet use that should be used as independent predictors and/or as discrete dependent variables, depending on the goal of the analysis. They discuss central tendencies in each using data on a British random sample. Their analyses also reveal that for survey researchers for whom every question is costly, there are ways to reduce the types of usage measures to key indicators of each type, allowing theoretically meaningful analyses with less costly survey lengths.

While Hampton et al. and Blank and Groselj are both concerned with improving long-standing measurement techniques used in research on ICTs, Rojas, McKelvey and DiGrazia (this issue) raise issues with very new measurements. Specifically, Rojas et al. have two methodological concerns: are all forms of Twitter mentions the same (i.e. free text mentions, @ mentions, and # mentions), and does one of the measures work better in predictive analytical analyses of larger social preferences? In their study, the authors examine Twitter mentions of US congressional candidates during the 2010 election. On the one hand, they find that free text mentions, @ mentions, and # mentions are not interchangeable: users with varying skills levels use these mention styles at different rates and users vary in how they combine these mention styles in ways that suggest purposeful choices. This is a critical insight for the surge of research on Twitter. On the other hand, they find that only free text mentions were predictive of vote tallies in the elections. This suggests that whether one is using mentions in post-hoc analyses or predictive ones, it is important to discriminate between different types of mention styles.

Understanding how people use technology

A second key development in the field of communication and digital media that the articles in this special issue represent is a focus on understanding how people use technology. A first principal in research on the relationship between technology and society is that technologies do not fully determine their own uses and often only very partially do so. For instance, it is not inevitable that someone will use a technology according to its instructions, or even for the purpose its creator and/or manufacturer imagined. Indeed, many a page has been spent on arguments against technological determinism. For instance, in our own work, we have argued that Internet-enabled technologies create certain key affordances (Earl & Kimport, 2011), which users may recognize and use, may not recognize, or may recognize and choose not to use.

Several articles in this special issue implicitly argue against technologically deterministic claims, revealing instead how human interpretation and the actions/uses of technologies (whether hardware or software) are critical. Restivo and van de Rijt (this issue) show that creating badges or other technological rewards for activity will not always motivate action. More specifically, prior research has shown that giving ‘barnstars’ (i.e. peer-awarded badges or rewards) to very active editors on Wikipedia increased their subsequent contributions. However, in their study, Restivo and van de Rijt find that awarding these same informal digital rewards to only somewhat active editors does not increase participation. In fact, it had quite the opposite effect: not only did these informal rewards not increase editing activity; the rewards seemed to hasten the exit from editing altogether. When read through the lens of technological determinism, it appears that creating systems of informal rewards does not guarantee positive returns and may even have markedly different results on different user bases within an online community.

Similarly, Sanders (this issue) shows that technologies are not silver bullets to social problems in her examination of the interoperability of emergency response systems. During the emergency response to the 9/11 attacks, a number of first responders perished because they could not effectively communicate with one another. Many within emergency services saw this as a purely technological problem: the hardware and software used in emergency response systems was not interoperable across different kinds of agencies (e.g. fire, emergency medical services, and police) and across different jurisdictions (e.g. police in one city could not communicate easily with police in another city). Hoping a technological solution could easily save lives in the future, a massive amount of money was invested in developing and distributing interoperable emergency communication systems. Unfortunately, as Sanders shows, the ‘making’ of interoperability is only partly technological: varying laws and social norms about which agencies can have access to information and/or share information significantly impact the real flows of information. Different perceptions about who ‘needs to know’ what information shape information flows as do different constructions of professional roles and duties. Indeed, her research reveals that interoperability is not something that is engineered so much as something that can be afforded through technology but actually built through social interaction.

Understanding social media

Finally, several articles in this special issue speak to the burgeoning attention to understanding social media by scholars of communication and digital media. That social media are becoming an important part of the online landscape is an understatement. Although it has historically been the case that instrumental computer routines were hijacked for social purposes, the tide has shifted such that a large number of online platforms are now built primarily to contribute to sociality. Understanding how people use these social media and the effects of people’s usage of social media are becoming critical questions. In addition to Rojas et al.’s examination of Twitter, three other articles in this issue speak directly to questions of import about social media.

First, Davis and Jurgenson (this issue) connect to two themes running through the issue: (1) the importance of understanding user practices; and (2) the increasing importance of studying social media. Like Sanders and Restivo and van de Rijt, Davis and Jurgenson argue that users of social media are affected by its design but not beholden to it. They focus on the blurring of segmented identities online. As any Facebook user is aware, some platforms are built in ways that push an individual’s social networks and segmented identities together. Family members, old friends, new friends, colleagues, and acquaintances are at risk of virtually interacting with one another and exposing different facets of your identity to one another. Davis and Jurgenson note that just because Facebook and other platforms are engineered to encourage such ‘context collisions’ does not mean that users accept them. The use of the so-called Fakebooks in which individuals keep multiple Facebook accounts so that they can still segment their online identities by audience is but one example of the many ways users manage to limit or avoid engineered...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• 1. Hitting middle age never felt so good: introduction
• 2. Testing the validity of social capital measures in the study of information and communication technologies
• 3. Dimensions of Internet use: amount, variety, and types
• 4. Twitter publics: how online political communities signaled electoral outcomes in the 2010 US house election
• 5. No praise without effort: experimental evidence on how rewards affect Wikipedia’s contributor community
• 6. Need to know vs. need to share: information technology and the intersecting work of police, fire, and paramedics
• 7. Context collapse: theorizing context collusions and collisions
• 8. Are we all equally at home socializing online? Cyberasociality and evidence for an unequal distribution of disdain for digitally-mediated sociality
• 9. Revisiting the digital divide in Canada: the impact of demographic factors on access to the internet, level of online activity, and social networking site usage
• Index