Internet's Impact on Society & Thoughts on White Supremacy
Back to blogging after a break for lots of off-line busy-ness. During that break, I've had two articles related to the book accepted for publication in special issues of peer-reviewed journals. Gotta love those special issues. I'm still waiting to hear back on the abstract I submitted to the cyberspace conference in the Czech Republic for November. The conference is scheduled for the same day as my birthday, how could they *not* ask me to present?
I've been reading a huge stack of articles about the Internet and about white supremacy. Sometimes these overlap, often they don't.
Most recently, I read a piece from the 2001 Annual Review of Sociology, by DiMaggio, et al., called “Social Implications of the Internet,” which is an excellent review article. Lots of relevant bits for my work, I'll just pull out a couple here. Supporting my argument (from the previous post) about the Internet and cultural hegemony, the authors write:
"With respect to content, US producers dominate the Web, creating and hosting a large percentage of the most visited Web sites (OECD 1997) and so establishing English as the Internet’s dominant language.” (p.312)
And, they also make a really interesting point about what they call "information abundance" (similar to what David Shenk has called "data smog").
DiMaggio, et al. write:
"Sociologists should be concerned not only with inequality in access to the Internet, but with inequality in access to the attention of those who use the Internet. By dramatically reducing the cost of the replication and distribution of information, the Internet has the potential to create arenas for more voices than any other previous communication medium by putting product dissemination within the reach of the individual.
p.313 “Information abundance creates a new problem, however: attention scarcity (Goldhaber 1997). Content creators can only reach large audiences if online gatekeepers – Web services that categorize online information and provide links and search facilities to other sites – channel users to them (Hargittai 2000b). Yet Internet traffic is highly concentrated: 80% of site visits are to just .5% of Web sites (Waxman 2000a). As was the case with broadcast media, the growth and commercialization of the Internet has been accompanied by a commodification of attention. A rapidly evolving mosaic of search engines and point-of-entry sites compete for dominance (NUA 2000a), playing a pivotal role in channeling users’ attention toward some contents and away from others (Hargittai 2000b)." (p.313)
This resonates with me and my own experience of Internet use. And, it also gives me pause to think about nuances of an argument I'm developing on the impact of white supremacists on the Net. The 'pro' argument, if you will, is (rather crudely stated) that white supremacists online can create a global network of organizations and rhetoric that gives rise to an increase in extremist movements, hate crimes, and global terrorism. The information abundance piece makes the 'con' argument, which is that white supremacist rhetoric online is *not* much of a threat because their discourse is lost in the data smog of vast amount of information available. Further, unless search engines direct web surfers to white supremacist sites, then the average user is not likely to visit them.
Something to ponder, as I continue to plow through the literature.
I've been reading a huge stack of articles about the Internet and about white supremacy. Sometimes these overlap, often they don't.
Most recently, I read a piece from the 2001 Annual Review of Sociology, by DiMaggio, et al., called “Social Implications of the Internet,” which is an excellent review article. Lots of relevant bits for my work, I'll just pull out a couple here. Supporting my argument (from the previous post) about the Internet and cultural hegemony, the authors write:
"With respect to content, US producers dominate the Web, creating and hosting a large percentage of the most visited Web sites (OECD 1997) and so establishing English as the Internet’s dominant language.” (p.312)
And, they also make a really interesting point about what they call "information abundance" (similar to what David Shenk has called "data smog").
DiMaggio, et al. write:
"Sociologists should be concerned not only with inequality in access to the Internet, but with inequality in access to the attention of those who use the Internet. By dramatically reducing the cost of the replication and distribution of information, the Internet has the potential to create arenas for more voices than any other previous communication medium by putting product dissemination within the reach of the individual.
p.313 “Information abundance creates a new problem, however: attention scarcity (Goldhaber 1997). Content creators can only reach large audiences if online gatekeepers – Web services that categorize online information and provide links and search facilities to other sites – channel users to them (Hargittai 2000b). Yet Internet traffic is highly concentrated: 80% of site visits are to just .5% of Web sites (Waxman 2000a). As was the case with broadcast media, the growth and commercialization of the Internet has been accompanied by a commodification of attention. A rapidly evolving mosaic of search engines and point-of-entry sites compete for dominance (NUA 2000a), playing a pivotal role in channeling users’ attention toward some contents and away from others (Hargittai 2000b)." (p.313)
This resonates with me and my own experience of Internet use. And, it also gives me pause to think about nuances of an argument I'm developing on the impact of white supremacists on the Net. The 'pro' argument, if you will, is (rather crudely stated) that white supremacists online can create a global network of organizations and rhetoric that gives rise to an increase in extremist movements, hate crimes, and global terrorism. The information abundance piece makes the 'con' argument, which is that white supremacist rhetoric online is *not* much of a threat because their discourse is lost in the data smog of vast amount of information available. Further, unless search engines direct web surfers to white supremacist sites, then the average user is not likely to visit them.
Something to ponder, as I continue to plow through the literature.
posted by Jessie Daniels at
9:41 AM
