Is There a Digital Microsociology?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22394/2074-0492-2018-3-14-37Keywords:
digital technologies, erving goffman, interactionism, ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, human-computer interaction, screen, agencyAbstract
This article examines various intuitions of understanding the digital within the framework of microsociological approaches. First, we characterize the thematic areas in which microsociological research of digital technologies was conducted, and the arguments that - at the turn of the 1980s-1990s-made a case for the relevance of microsociological optics for studying the use of technology in the workplace and in corporations: workplace studies, human-computer interaction, and communication studies. We then describe how the convergence of the research positions of technical specialists and social studies occurs, and how this convergence makes it possible to translate technical and digital elements into the language of the social. Subsequent discussions concern the relationship between technology and the social in microsociological approaches. We demonstrate that technologies are secondary to everyday situations in the context of Conversational Analysis, Ethnomethodology and the Goffmanian Interactionist Framework. The prevalence of technology makes its "manufacturability” invisible to its users; failures and breakdowns play the role of an epistemic instrument, as they put digital technologies into question and help researchers discover the interactive mechanisms for maintaining their non-problematic character. In conclusion, we propose a program for studying digital technologies within the framework of microsociological approaches consisting of four options for conceptualizing digital artifacts: as objects, as tools, as a medium and as a subject. We formulate a number of conceptual and methodological principles that, in our view, will allow us to take the next steps towards developing a new language for the microanalysis of digital technologies.Downloads
References
Arminen I., Licoppe С., Spagnolli A. (2016) Respecifying Mediated Interaction. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 49 (4): 1-20.
Bannon L. (1993) CSCW: An Initial Exploration. Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems, (5): 3-24.
Begin R. (2016) GoPro: Augmented Bodies, Somatic Images. D. Chateauand, J. Moure (eds.). Screens, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press: 107-115.
Boelstorff T. (2010) Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Bowker G.C., Star S.L., Turner W., Gasser L. (2014) Social Science, Technical Systems, and Cooperative Work: Beyond the Great Divide. New York, Psychology Press.
Button G., Sharrock W. (1995) On Simulacrums of Conversation: Toward a Clarification of the Relevance of Conversation Analysis for Human-Computer Iinteraction. P. Thomas (ed.) The Social and Interactional Dimensions of Human Computer Interfaces, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 107-125.
Chesher С. (2004) Neither Gaze nor Glance, but Glaze - Relating to Console Game Screens. SCAN Journal of Media Arts Culture, 1 (l): 1-8.
Crabtree A. (2004) Technomethodology. Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Social Science Methodology, Session 1. Recent Developments in Ethnomethodological and Conversation-analytic Research, Amsterdam: International Sociological Association.
Dourish P., Button G. (1998) On ‘‘Technomethodology": Foundational Relationships between Ethnomethodology and System Design. Human Computer Interaction, 13 (4): 395-432.
Garfinkel H. (2002) Ethnomethodology's Program: Working Out Durkheim's Aphorism, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Hanna P. (2012) Using Internet Technologies (such as Skype) as a Research Medium: A Research Note. Qualitative Research, 12 (2): 239-242
Heath C., Luff P. (2000) Technology in Action, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Heath C., Luff P., Knoblauch H. (2000) Technology and Social Interaction: the Emergence of‘ ‘Workplace Studies". The British Journal of Sociology, 51 (2): 299-320.
Heritage J. (2005) Conversation Analysis and Institutional Talk. R. Sanders, K. Fitch (eds) Handbook of Language and Social Interaction, Mawah, NJ: Erlbaum: 103-146.
Hindmarsh J., Heath C., Fraser M. (2006) (Im)materiality, Virtual Reality and Interaction: Grounding the ‘‘Virtual’ in Studies of Technology in Action. Sociological Review, 54 (4): 795-817.
Hjorth L., Sharp K., Williams L. (2014) Screen Ecologies. A Discussion of Art, Screen Cultures, and the Environment in the Region. L. Hjorth, N. King, M. Kataoka (eds.) Art in the Asia-Pacific Region: Intimate Publics, New York: Routledge: 105-122
Housley W., Smith R. (2017) Interactionism and Digital Society. Qualitative Research, 17 (2): 187-201.
Ingold T. (2008) Bindings against Boundaries: Entanglements of Life in an Open World. Environment and Planning A, (40): 1796-1810.
Jenkins R. (2009) The 21st Century Interaction Order. M.H. Jacobsen (ed.) The Contemporary Goffman, New York: Routledge: 257-274.
Knoblauch H. (2013) PowerPoint, Communication, and the Knowledge Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Licoppe C. (2010) The ‘‘Crisis of the Summon": A Transformation in the Pragmatics of Notifications from the Phone Ring to Instant Messaging. The Information Society, 26 (4): 288-302
Licoppe C. (2013) Merging Mobile Communication Studies and Urban Research: Mobile Locative Media, ‘‘Onscreen Encounters" and the Reshaping of the Interaction Order in Public Places. Mobile Media Communication, 1 (l): 122-128
Ling R. (2008) New Tech, New Ties: How Mobile Communication is Reshaping Social Cohesion, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
Ling R. (2010) The Unboothed Phone. The Contemporary Goffman, London: Routledge: 275-292
Luff P., Hindmarsh J., Heath С. (eds) (2000) Workplace Studies: Recovering Work Practice and Informing System Design, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Luke R. (2005) The Phoneur: Mobile Commerce and the Digital Pedagogies of the Wireless Web. P. Trifonas (ed.) Communities of Difference, New York: Palgrave Macmillan: 185-204
Lynch M. (1993) Scientific Practice and Ordinary Action: Ethnomethodology and Social Studies of Science, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McQuire S., Cubitt S., Papastergiadis N. (2008) Public Screens and the Transformation of Public Space. Refractory: A Journal of Entertainment Media, (12).
Pinch T. (2010) The Invisible Technologies of Goffman’s Sociology From the Merry-Go-Round to the Internet. Technology and Culture, 51 (2): 409-424.
Reeves S. (2017) Some Conversational Challenges of Talking with Machines. Talking with Conversational Agents in Collaborative Action. Workshop at the 20th ACM conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW'17), Portland, Oregon, USA
Sacks H. (1992) A Single Instance of a Phone-call Opening; Caller-Called. Lectures on Conversation, Oxford: Blackwell
Schegloff E. (2002) Beginnings on the Telephone. J.E. Katz (ed.) Perpetual Contact. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 284-300.
Suchman L. (1987) Plans and SituatedActions: the Problem of Human-Machine Communication, Cambridge University Press.
Wooffitt R., MacDermid C. (1995) Wizards and Social Control. P. Thomas (ed.) The Social and Interactional Dimensions of Human-Computer Interfaces, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 126-141.
Zhao S. (2005) The Digital Self: Through the Looking Glass of Telecopresent Others. Symbolic Interaction, 28 (3).
Гоффман Э. (2017) Поведение в публичных местах, М.: Элементарные формы. Goffman Е. (2017) Povedeniye v publichnykh mestakh [Behavior in Public Places], Moscow: Elementary Forms Press.
Утехин И.В. (2012) Взаимодействие с «умными вещами»: введение в проблематику. Антропологический форум, (17): 134-156.
Utekhin I. (2012) Vzaimodeystviye s "umnymi veshchami": vvedeniye v problematiku. [Interaction between Humans and Smart Artifacts: Introductory Remarks]. Antropologicheskiy forum, (17): 134-156.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
How to Cite
Коды статьи
- EDN VKPLNE
- Тип статьи (РИНЦ) Научная статья (Научная статья)
