The Digitalisation of Social Representations : The Influence of the Evolution of Communication Technology on the Development of Shared Ideas
Year: 2012
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Human mentality is in constant change as new ideas emerge, are challenged, become concrete and are compared to existing concepts in the societal discourse. The theory of social representations is an attempt to explain this process. The study contributes to this field of enquiry by discussing how changes in communication technologies influence the process. New digital communication technologies, such as broadband Internet connections, smartphones, sophisticated Web search engines and similar developments, have influenced how people are able to communicate their views and make sense of the world. The work addresses the question of the ways in which change in communication technologies influences how shared ideas develop by applying a synthesising research approach in consideration of both past and future, both sensemaking and dissemination of messages and both individuals interaction with technologies and broad societal structures in communication. The study applies varied methods and sources: survey-based statistics, historical reflection and ethnographic observations and interviews. Some illustrative phenomena related to digital communication technologies are explored with case studies: 1) the World Wide Web, 2) plurality of communication technologies in sensemaking practices, 3) hard-disk-drive-based television watching and 4) immersive virtual reality. The interpretations and concepts considered are varied, at times contradictory, and offer different degrees of plausibility. In the past, the communication technologies complemented myths and other tales with content less suitable for human cognition. Eventually, they afforded decentralised communication, because of a decrease in the resources an individual needs for disseminating messages. Recent digital communication technologies, the Internet in particular, have 1) increased plurality in media sources, 2) given individuals greater capability to filter and choose messages, 3) dissolved the centrality of communication power (especially increasing the ability for those outside the mainstream media to gain wide audiences) and 4) enabled more efficient gaining of various vantage points with differing arguments and different types of presentations (picture, sound, text etc.). Possible changes in the development of shared ideas include the following: 1) The development is faster with more information available and with it sought more efficiently than before. 2) Increase and/or decrease in human intellect can be seen expert or researcher-styled perspectives are gained while the quality of knowledge has deteriorated in the absence of truly expert journalist gatekeepers, and new learning is reduced on account of easier access to content corresponding closely with existing interests. 3) There is increased sharedness of ideas globally, but with an increase in fragmentation of attitudes within smaller geographical and cultural areas ideas can be explored, and commonality felt, in online groups. 4) The influence of taboos has declined, as anonymous and non-professional alternative online media are more likely to break taboos and norms may change within online communities. Futurologist reflections envision scenarios of utopias and dystopias in which the consequences of current technologies are total and futures in which the latest or currently niche technologies (immersive virtual reality in particular) have entered the commonplace. Implications for the theory of social representations are discussed. These pertain to its processes (e.g., a narrower gulf between the scientific and lay sphere), its concepts (e.g., challenging the emphasis on strict attachment to culturally distinct social groups in the definition of social representations) and the way in which social representations are studied (e.g., need to explore media use habits and a more varied field of societal actors). The overall message of the study is that the social influences of communication technologies are varied in the extent to which they have influence on which methods and concepts are suitable in social sciences, similarly to any radical variation in the societal context. My study exemplifies reform and synthesis that is, subtle considerations regarding the existing theories rather than reconceptualising the social order.
Source: Työväentutkimus Vuosikirja
Author: Mikael Wahlström
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funders: Tekes, Terveyden ja hyvinvoinnin laitos
OpenAlex ID: W1555715531