Humphrey\'s Chapter 7 PDF

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Humphrey's Chapter 7...

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CMS 242 Communication and Social Media From Social Media: Enduring Principles by Ashlee Humphreys Chapter 7: Digital Inequality, Age, and Social Class Key concepts What is “literacy”? What is computer literacy? What is digital literacy? The term “digital divide” is a simplification. It is not a divide. The term digital divide foreground physical infrastructure, rather than the social and cultural factors necessary for achieving electronic literacy. Rather, computer literacy exists on a spectrum. Digital literacy is best understood as a “hierarchy of access to various forms of technology in various contexts, resulting in differing levels of engagement and consequences.” Literacy is “having mastery over the processes by which culturally significant information is encoded.” And, having the skills to decode it, including knowledge of how to access trustworthy information, produce digital works/artifacts, and communicate effectively via digital devices. Digital literacy: intersecting spheres. Digital literacy is an essential skill as many everyday tasks are now accomplished online, e.g., managing finances, finding a job, participating in civic discussions, finding health care, applying to college/graduate school/financial aid, etc. What else?

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Social capital: (Pierre Bourdieu) Capital as a resource is not only economic wealth. It is also social and cultural. Social capital is connections, relationships that you have with other people that can gain you access, information, knowledge, and other resources. E.g. your brother knows the manager where you are applying for a job. Cultural capital: is the set of knowledge, tastes and practices that signal your social class to others and create a sense of affiliation between you and other of the same class. “He/She/They are one of us.” Cultural capital can be explicit articulation of tastes, embodied in practices, or institutionalized through formal education. Do you enjoy the theatre or monster truck shows? Do you shop at Walmart or boutique shops? Do you travel to Las Vegas or Paris? Do you read historical biographies or romance novels and comic books? Often these are intangibles and invisible until we start talking about them. Habitus: Habitus is the life world, the context into which one is socialized. E.g. Did your parents take you to museums, art galleries and travel? Was it always assumed you would go to college? By being exposed to particular tastes and habits at a young age, you might think your tastes and habits are “yours”—your “personal” preference. But they are actually socially constructed and accomplished through material/economic resources. E.g. ethics of class: do you prefer “simplicity” “clean lines” to “bling”? Do you prefer avocado to pork rinds? These are classed and raced terms. Not neutral “preferences.” And, they are not really personal at all. They mark social class and race to a great extent. Approaches to technology use can reproduce social class. E.g., those with high socioeconomic status use the internet for “capital-enhancing” activities like checking stock prices, looking up travel information. The digital divide will not be bridge merely through access to hardware an bandwidth. In many ways, existing patterns of inequality in knowledge and social advantage are reflected in and reproduced in online activities. Cultural capital can also be institutionalized, usually through formal education, e.g. college, and the type of college, graduate study, occupation and its related social status, etc. Subcultural capital: the knowledge, tastes and practices that are valued within a particular subculture or group. Social class: the combination of education, income, and prestige of occupation that places one in a hierarchy relative to others. It is further reflected in and reinforced by consumption habits and media habits. What do you buy? What do you view? Where do you go on the internet? Class differences along consumption vs. production online. Social class is related to how people use the internet. Those of high socioeconomic status are more likely to not only consume information and entertainment online, they are more likely to produce information and entertainment. While, in theory, anyone could produce online content, those who actually do are more likely to have higher levels of education and economic status.

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Social reproduction is when inequalities in the past or present reinforce structures of inequality in the future. Homophily is the tendency for people to affiliate with others who are like them. “Birds of a feather flock together.” Homophily is one important, yet often subtle, way in which social reproduction occurs, usually through self-segregation rather than overt discrimination. Such patterns occur online and in social media platforms. E.g. historical example of race and MySpace vs. Facebook use in youth.

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