Suchergebnisse

In recent years, media attention has been placed on "Black Twitter," a collective composed primarily of African Americans who have managed to effect change through the microblogging platform Twitter. This collection of users has been credited with injecting uniquely Black concerns and perspectives into the national discourse. However, Black Twitter as an entity has not been theoretically contextualized and grounded in empirical research. In this case study, the author describes how he and his colleague explored this social media phenomenon. The author emphasizes the importance of understanding the way in which Twitter was designed, its architecture, to developing insightful research, and choosing appropriate methods. The author discusses (1) process of conceptualizing theoretically important ideas and operationalizing them, (2) the considerations involved with sampling, and (3) the use hierarchical cluster analysis to draw conclusions about from Twitter data.

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) produce public goods for societies. Through ICTs people can be more politically active, construct their social identities, strengthen bonds with significant others, and more. However, businesses provide access to the Internet, produce and sell hardware and software, while maintaining platforms that are used for the generation of these public goods. There is a contradiction inherent in this dynamic as the continued provision of these public goods is contingent upon private entities deeming them profitable. Within the United States, federal policies have not adequately addressed this contradiction. In this paper, I argue that a change in the way ICTs are conceptualized is needed in order to increase interest in protecting the public goods produced by ICTs. To this end, I describe a model in which interconnected ICTs work in layers to produce a single digital environment. People must have access to each layer in this environment in order to benefit from the goods produced. In this environment, there is room for both market spaces that support commerce and non-market spaces that support public goods. I argue that this model can aid citizens and advocacy groups in framing and justifying the need for nurturing non-market spaces.

AbstractFrom a global perspective, the mobile phone is by far the most widely used information and communication technology (ICT). People in both developed and developing nations have found ways to integrate the mobile phone into their daily lives. Despite the ubiquity of the mobile phone, the cultural impact of the mobile phone in and of itself has not been a major topic within the sociology of culture. To this end, there are two goals of this paper. First, three common uses of the mobile phone are presented. To separate cultural practices associated with mobile phones from practices associated with other domains of social life, the term digital practices is used. Second, this paper will discuss the domestication of technology approach, and its applicability to the study of mobile phones. Identifying practices and providing a framework for interpreting these practices can help scholars interested in theorizing and teaching the cultural (as opposed to economic or technological) aspects of mobile telephony.

This study sought to answer two questions. First, who within the African American community is consuming jazz music? Second, are African American jazz consumers cultural snobs or cultural omnivores? Nationally representative data sets from the Cultural Policy and National Data Archives for the years 1982, 1992, 2002, and 2008 were used to answer these questions. Using classification and regression tree analysis and binary logistic regression, the author draws several conclusions. First, African American jazz consumers are educated and urban. Furthermore, since 1982, the level of education associated with the jazz consumer has increased. Second, African American jazz listeners are omnivores who reject rap. It is suggested that this particular consumption pattern reflects a form of segmented assimilation in which middle-class African Americans consume jazz in order to retain their racial heritage but reject rap in order to distance themselves from working- and lower-class African Americans.

What are the key indicators determining groups' attitudes towards the use of ICT in the United States? Nationally representative data from the Pew Internet and American Life Project ( N = 4100) were used to address this question. This research found that (1) the most salient divider in the American population with respect to attitudes towards ICT is education; (2) the two social groups reporting the highest levels of social improvement were respondents under the age of 30, and older African-Americans with low educational levels; (3) higher income but lower educated respondents who are over 30 and are not African-Americans report relatively low levels of social improvement. In effect, the population surveyed was stratified based upon their attitudes about ICT use in their everyday life. This stratification system is clearly of a different nature than our past understanding of haves and have-nots based upon ICT access.

This research addresses the question: What are the predictors of internet leisure patterns? With the barriers to internet access receding the question can be asked: Whether or not social groups are beginning to distinguish themselves through different types of internet activities? This research will focus on the domain of internet leisure and entertainment within the United States population. Internet leisure is measured in this study by playing games, doing hobbies, reading, watching videos and listening to music. Predictors are drawn from a digital inequality and a Weberian status group perspective. Binary logistic regression models are run on a nationally representative survey from the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project (N = 2013). This research suggests that: (1) both digital inequality and status group perspectives tend to work together to explain all internet activities, but a status group perspective provides more explanation for leisure patterns, (2) internet leisure is best conceptualised as a form of popular culture with minorities and people of low socioeconomic status consuming leisure at higher rates.

Much media attention has been placed on "Black Twitter," a collective composed primarily of African Americans who have managed to effect change through the microblogging platform Twitter. Organized around the hashtag #BlackTwitter, this collection of users has been credited with injecting uniquely black concerns and perspectives into the national discourse. However, Black Twitter as an entity has not been theoretically contextualized and grounded in empirical research. In this research, the authors situate Black Twitter within the public sphere–counterpublic literature and ask the question: can Black Twitter be understood as a counterpublic? The authors compare Black Twitter, as indicated by the #BlackTwitter hashtag, with hashtags indicating the public sphere—#TCOT (Top Conservatives on Twitter) for conservatives and #UniteBlue for progressives—and with a hashtag indicating another potential counterpublic—#BCOT (Black Conservatives on Twitter). Using a corpus of 16,000 tweets collected during a 10-day period, comparisons were made in interaction patterns (tweets, favorites, and replies) and thematic content. The findings suggest that compared with other hashtags and the publics they represent, #BlackTwitter possesses more of the characteristics of a counterpublic.