Food For Thought

The Social Construction of Reality is rooted in a sociological interest in the concepts of Reality and Knowledge. Berger and Luckmann argue that from a sociological perspective this interest is justified by the social relativity of these concepts.  Berger and Luckman say,  “What is ‘real’ to a Tibetan monk may not be ‘real’ to an American Businessman.  The ‘knowledge’ of the criminal differs from the ‘knowledge’ of the criminologist.  It follows that specific agglomerations of ‘reality’ and ‘knowledge’ pertain to specific social contexts, and that these relationships will have to be included in an adequate sociological analysis of these contexts.” (p15)

Berger and Luckmann believe that the sociology of knowledge should be concerned with a society’s criteria of knowledge and how this is developed.  Their postpositivist stance is clearly laid out when they write of how members of society arrange their world view around their ‘here and now’, both originating and maintaining their ideas of reality and knowledge from their own thoughts and actions (and other significants in their life) rather than anything truly objective.

The world of everyday life is not only taken for granted as reality by the ordinary members of society in the subjectively meaningful conduct of their lives.  It is a world that originates in their thoughts and actions, and is maintained as real by these. (p 33)

Berger and Luckmann believe that semiotics or signification is the primary means by which human beings categorise their subjective view of the world.  They define a sign as anything that has an “explicit intention to serve as an index of subjective meaning.” (p50)   These include gestures, body language, material artefacts, and the most important is language, which they say may be defined as “a series of vocal signs”.

Language provides me with a ready-made possibility for the ongoing objectification of my unfolding experience. (p53)

Berger and Luckmann believe that society and social order are solely products of human activity, and that social norms and rules are a man-made, rather than natural, process.

Society is a human product. Society is an objective reality.  Man is a social product. (p79)

Because of this social construction, members of a society or ‘institution’ who were involved in the construction of the social norms are much more likely to conform to their constraints. Social disorder generally comes from new members of society that were not part of the construction. In order to properly ‘socialise’ new members of the society, sanctions must be put in place to prevent them from breaking the rules.

Deviance from the institutionally ‘programmed’ courses of action becomes likely once the institutions have become realities divorced from their original relevance in the concrete social process from which they arose.  To put this more simply, it is more likely that one will deviate from programmes set up for one by others than from programmes that one has helped establish oneself.  The new generation posits a problem of compliance, and its socialisation into the institutional order requires the establishment of sanctions. (p80)

Institutional segregation causes the formation of “socially segregated sub-universes of meaning”.  These sub-universes can be structured based on criteria such as sex, age, occupation or religion. Each sub-universe has it’s own structured values, norms, rules and barriers to entry.  Berger and Luckmann give the example of the medical profession as a sub-universe and the various mechanics in place to keep non-medical professions following the instructions of doctors and to keep doctors from resorting to unapproved conduct like religious or homeopathic healing.

The increasing number and complexity of sub-universes make them increasingly inaccessible to outsiders.  They become esoteric enclaves, ‘hermetically sealed’ (in the sense classically associated with the Hermetic corpus of secret lore) to all but those who have been properly initiated into their mysteries. […] The outsiders have to be kept out, sometimes even kept ignorant of the existence of the sub-universe. If, however, they are not so ignorant, and if the sub-universe requires various special privileges and recognitions from the larger society, there is the problem of keeping out the outsiders and at the same time having them acknowledge the legitimacy of this procedure. This is done through various techniques of intimidation, rational and irrational propaganda (appealing to the outsiders’ interests and to their emotions), mystification, and, generally, the manipulation of prestige symbols.  The insiders, on the other hand, have to be kept in. This requires the development of practical and theoretical procedures by which the temptation to escape from the sub-universe can be checked. (p104-105)

On the topic of revolution and revolutionary leaders Berger and Luckmann say that often a group will take on an ideological doctrine because it has gain for them and people of their status in society.  Involvement in such a group provides them with solidarity and legitimation for their cause.   The revolutionary leader likewise must have others who agree with him and help to maintain the subjective plausibility of his ideology in his own mind.  Practical success of the ideology fortifies the reality it possesses for the leader and the group as a whole.

 Frequently an ideology is taken on by a group because of specific theoretical elements that are conducive to its interests. For example, when an impoverished peasant group struggles against an urban merchant group that has financially enslaved it, it may rally around a religious doctrine that upholds the virtues of agrarian life, condemns the money economy and its credit system as immoral, and generally decries the luxuries of modern living. The ideological ‘gain’ of such a doctrine for the peasants is obvious. […] Every group engaged in social conflict requires solidarity.  Ideologies generate solidarity.  The choice of a particular ideology is not necessarily based on its intrinsic theoretical elements, but may stem from a chance encounter. (p141-142)

We come to see ourselves differently as we catch? sight of our images in the mirror of the machine. (p643)

In this essay Turkle concentrates on the creation of online personae.   She conducted an ethnography and clinical study of how people represent their virtual and ‘real’ selves via the Internet.

The Internet challenges all aspects of our identities as we are navigating virtual worlds, often in the company of others.  Turkle says that life on the screen is shifting the notion of identity to one that is multifaceted and flexible.   Because self-presentation online is written in text, users have the ability to choose how they wish to present themselves (everything from their physical characteristics, sex and sexuality and personality) to others online. The anonymity of the web gives users the chance to explore various aspects of their personality. Online MUDs, or Multi-user Domains, are specified online spaces where users create a persona or avatar and role-play with others.  Turkle says that though this is one of the most explicit examples of role-play and identity exploration online, it is by no means the only one.   Bulletin boards, newsgroups and chatrooms all allow for the creation of one or more personae, and modern computer environments allow for shifting from one online space to another in very little time.

As a user, you are attentive to just one of the windows on your screen at any given moment, but in a certain sense, you are a presence in all of them at all times[…]  The windows metaphor suggests a distributed self that exists in many worlds and plays many roles at the same time. P644

Turkle compares online life to Erik Erikson’s “psychosocial moratorium”, a relatively consequence-free adolescent time for intense experimentation and interaction with other people and new ideas. Erikson was writing in the 50s and 60s, and Turkle argues that in today’s society adolescence is no longer consequence-free- virtual communities generally are however, and this is part of what makes them so attractive. Turkle says that while many modern psychologists, social theorists, psychoanalysts and philosophers argue that the unitary self is an illusion, the requirements of everyday life mean that people need to accept responsibility for all of their actions.  Turkle calls cyberspace “an element of cultural bricolage” that we can use to think about identity, particularly this notion of decentred identity.

The instrumental computer, the computer that does things for us, has revealed another side: a subjective computer that does things to us as people, to our view of ourselves and our relationships, to our way of looking at out minds.  In simulation, identity can be fluid and multiple, a signifier no longer clearly points to the thing that is signified, and understanding is less likely to proceed through analysis than by navigation through virtual space. (p646)

Turkle says that the online personae we write can be used by us for self-reflection, as a sort of Rorchach test for us to examine who we are, and what we want and need from life.  In essence she is saying that we can use the personae we create online as a mirror for different aspects of ourselves that might otherwise remain hidden from our view.

Copies of all of these articles can be found here.

I am reading Jones from the perspective of what his writing can offer in terms of both the historical and more recent developments in information technology (specifically the Internet) and how community and communication online diverges and converges worth traditional forms of communication.

Jones’ early work deals mainly with the impact of technology on space and time. Jones makes the point that as digitisation becomes more prevalent, space becomes more transparently and technologically a social construction.  He looks to anthropology for discourse on space, location and identity and his understanding of the social construction of space is influenced by the work of McLuhan, Innis and James Carey. In a number of his early works he deals with how audio (specifically recorded music) and space relate. He investigates the idea of re-creating a sense of 3D space in the home when listening to digital audio recording, (Sound, Space, and Digitisation, 1993) although he notes that in music consumption, like film, fidelity and realism are not problematic as it is clear that the sound is recorded, rather than live.

In Video Literacy (1989), Jones once again deals with the dichotomy of realism and fidelity in digital media, this time in video.  He draws a parallel between written word and video, saying that while text is often difficult to refute, because its ‘context-free’ language prevents it from being easily contested, video is even harder to refute.  He makes the point that there is often no place for argument or right to reply when video evidence is given, and to the American public “seeing is believing”.  Drawing on Ernst Cassirer’s theories of symbolic communication (An Essay on Man, 1962; The philosophy of Symbolic Forms Vol 1-3, 1923,1925,1929) Jones says “Human beings create and locate themselves in cultural patterns that are created by use of symbols, interpret and transcend those patterns, and communicate with each other using naturally evoked images that acquire meaning through use and shared experience.” (p94) In essence he is arguing that human narrative is the systematic structuring and restructuring of cultural patterns.  Because culture affects perception of space and time a change in culture can also effect human perception of space and time. Jones also touches on the notion that as oppositional, avant-garde practices are brought into mainstream TV, rebellious movements such as Rock and Roll lose their oppositional status.

In Unlicensed Broadcasting: Content and Conformity (1994) Jones discusses the results of a study of the reasons why pirate broadcasters believe that their stations were shut down by the FCC.  Jones starts out by saying that recent scholarship “Claims that most unlicensed broadcasters believe the FCC shuts down their operation because program content is offensive, obscene, unpatriotic or tasteless” (p395) but Jones’ content analysis indicates that unlicensed content is generally much the same as licensed content. He posits that shutting down pirate operations is rather the Police’s way of retaining control over what Yoder describes as “clandestine” operations which are radically and politically motivated and support violent change. (A. Yoder, Pirate Radio Stations, Blue Ridge Summit, PA:Tab Books, 1990)  Jones makes two generalisations, based on his results.  The first is that the content of pirate stations is very similar to licensed stations with broadcasters mostly relying on Rock.   From this he speculates that pirate stations do not so much provide an alternative to commercial stations, but rather they are a means of ‘joining in’ for disenfranchised youths.  The second finding is that generally the unlicensed broadcasts are outside of standard AM and commercial FM frequencies and this implies a desire to avoid complains from licensed broadcasters and to stay off the mainstream radar.  Jones concludes that the connection between unlicensed broadcasting, youth and rebellion may simply be that pirate stations are the youth’s way of joining in on their own terms and creating their own space.

In Hyperpunk: Cyberpunk and Information Technology (1994) Jones examines the Cyberpunk ideology, typified by contemporary science fiction novels as near-future constructs in which information fuels both global economy and individual existence.  Jones says “The consumption of information via the mass media is an ideological practice within the realm of symbolic activity.” There is no such thing as Nationalism in Cyberpunk as it is seen as a barrier flow.  Rather than governments, the economic structure is dominated by Zaibatsu – the multinational corporation. The core of the Cyberpunk ideology is that all information should be free to everyone.  This is largely due to their perception that information is power and an uneven distribution of power allows the Zaibatsu to exert control over the masses.  Tesla first set out the cyberpunk ‘ethos’ in 1904 when he wrote of his desire to transmit information for free to everyone.  It is also important that the information be separate form it’s context and that the audience be allowed to make their own sense of it (hypertext). The heroes of cyberpunk books are the people who can master cyberspace, a virtual space of information through which the mind “has immediate access to a global information network” (p83) and Jones concludes that this is what those who subscribe to the Cyberpunk ethos aspire to.

In The Consequences of Interaction in Electronic Communities (1997) Jones notes that throughout history every advance in technology/development, from nuclear power to the written word, has had a positive and negative side. He posits that once we get used to the technology, we learn to accept it for its positive side and we feel that we have gained some measure of control of its negative side. Any new communications medium is deemed to cause revolution when it is initially introduced and there will always be a proportion of the population that will oppose this.

Jones is influenced by Schuler’s work in New Community Networks (1996) when he says that communications communities are groups of people with common goals. He once again comes back to the concepts of space and time and how the Internet can break these down.  He also quotes McLaughlin et al. (Standards of Conduct for Usenet, 1985, p105) when he says that Internet users feel that the Internet’s content ‘belongs to them’.  There is a touch of the long-running Technological Determinism vs Social Shaping of Information Technology­­­­­ debate in the article, as when Jones says, “We are, simply, more likely to restart the computer than to think of alternatives to it, or how it shapes and defines the activities we believe we solely define, or how we (and not it’s designers) think it should work.” (p31) The eventual conclusion he reaches however is that it is not the technologies that make the quality of socialisation, but rather the way in which we choose to use and view them.

In Understanding Community in the Information Age (1999) Jones once again focuses on the spatial and temporal issues that Internet technology brings.  He says that in online communities space is illusory and time is problematised by the “instantaneity” of Computer Mediated Communications.  The whole notion of ‘space’ online is built around the presence of knowledge and information and the beliefs and practices of communities and societies “abstracted from physical space”.  It is the “Ritual sharing” (Carey, 1987) of this information that binds an online community.

Likewise in Rheingold and the Illusion of Community (2000) Jones talks about the ability the Internet gives us to “surmount time and space and ‘be’ anywhere”.  Jones adds “The manner in which we seek to find community, empowerment, and political action all embedded in our ability to use [Computer Mediated Communication], is thereby troubling. No one medium, no one technology, has been able to provide those elements in combination, and often we have been unable to find them in any medium. CMC has potential for a variety of consequence, some anticipated, some not.” (p227)

In The Bias of the Web (2000) Jones discusses the parallels and differences between the history of Journalism and the Internet.  Beyond that they are both vessels for content and information, they share the trait of being potential public forums which create and host imagined communities.  Jones equates the Internet in some ways to old penny papers because it gives the public what they are looking for.  Having said that, Journalism on the web differs from traditional journalism as the focus and context has shifted to centre on the user rather than the journalist/medium. The history that Internet journalism catalogues is largely driven by the public interest.  Jones says “on the web, referral is built in via the hyperlink. As a result, news on the web has less to do with creating a local record of life [...] and more to do with anticipating what’s next by accumulating information and making connections among stories, hearsay, gossip, disparate pieces of information that are sometimes coupled in the readers imagination, and other times linked via hypertext markup language or HTML.” (p178)

In Internet Use and the Terror Attacks (2002) with Lee Rainie, Jones examines the ways that Americans used the Internet for communications and to gather information in the days following the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.  Although people relied more heavily on the telephone and television at this time, 50% of Internet users went online looking for news about the attacks and 72% of users used email in some way related to the event, to display patriotism, contact family, discuss the events, etc.  Jones and Rainie suggest that this engagement with the internet at this time may have influenced many of these users to continue to use the internet to engage with news topics etc in a way that they previously had not.

In Political Activism in the Digital Age: The Use of the Internet for Political Engagement Among Meetup Attendees (2008) Jones and Francisco Seoane Pérez  examine the use of the Internet in Howard Dean’s 2004 campaign for the Democratic Presidential candidate position.  The campaign had a huge online backing and most of the people who involved themselves initially online had not been involved in politics before.  They had found out about the campaign through the internet rather than through their own personal connections and the article examines whether the internet better facilitates the involvement of those who were previously not politically active.

In this instance Jones and Pérez equate the Internet to a Greek Chorus, with a cast telling people how they should invest their time and which candidates they should be putting money behind.  The Greek Chorus not only helps the audience to follow the play, but also represents the reactions of an ideal public and this type of role, played out by supporters online, helps to engage the unengaged.

They asks the question “Once the system is radicalised, enraged, alarmed by a threat, where does he/she go to find a solution, or a way of contributing to respond to that menace?” (p4)  This is where the Internet comes in, fulfilling the need to communicate and learn about, and ultimately take action in relation to perceived changes or threats as they occur.