DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 5

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Digital Culture and Sociology

• Consumption

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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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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

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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

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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)

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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)

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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

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What did you note down as you read the text?

• Interesting?
• Controversial?
• Dated?

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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?

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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

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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?

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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.