Forum: New Media & Society

Design and dispersion of new socio-technological configurations are studied by many varying sorts of scientific disciplines, ranging from communication studies to technology studies. In this article, the configuration and appropriation of new socio-technical constituencies are studied and subsequently interpreted in terms of a rather novel concept: social learning. On top of what is known about appropriation and configuration processes, social learning adds another point of view, elaborated from a perspective known as the social shaping of technology. It takes Beck and Giddens’ reflexive modernization as starting point, and uses this to elaborate social learning into two dominant modes: the mode of experimentation and the mode of control. The Digital City of Amsterdam is used as exemplar to demonstrate configuration and appropriation processes and how these can be interpreted as elements of the mode of experimentation.

This article explores the father-son-computer triangle in an attempt to shed light on the role of the machine in the articulation of male identity in particular, and family relationships in general. The article outlines a framework for the investigation of families and domestic communication technologies, arguing that the study of identity construction through the medium must be accompanied by a study of the relationships around the medium; and that men and boys need to be (re)incorporated into the work on the human-machine problematic. Drawing on an analysis of the discourse of three families that were observed and interviewed in the course of one year, the article proposes that the notion of computer expertise and the sense of dependence are key for the construction of fatherhood and masculinity vis a vis the home computer, and points to the metaphor of immigrants’ language acquisition, which was offered by one of the fathers, as capturing the complexity of contemporary paternal emasculation.

Despite the column inches and policy statements dedicated to arguing that young people need to use computers, very little is known about the reasons why young people themselves might value and acquire computer expertise. Drawing on a survey of 855 children and 16 detailed case studies of children’s use of computers at home this article explores the influence of software design, family discourses, peer group culture and gender identity on children’s perception of the potential uses and benefits of ICT expertise. The article goes on to argue that young people value and acquire computer expertise primarily in order to achieve practical objectives and in relation to the construction of (gendered) peer group identities. Given these findings the article questions the continued emphasis in educational policy on the acquisition of decontextualized information and communications technology (ICT) `skills’ within a rationale of future relevance to the workplace.

Electronic democracy rhetoric has proliferated with the growth of the internet as a popular communications medium. This rhetoric is largely dominated by liberal individualist assumptions. Communitarianism has provided a resource for an alternative vision of electronic democracy. A third model, deliberative democracy, has recently been employed by electronic democrats who want to move beyond the individualism/communitarianism opposition. In this article, I outline each of these visions, describing the democratic assumptions and electronic democracy practices that each embraces. In particular, I explore the ways in which each vision sees the internet as aiding its cause. I conclude by pointing to the relative lack of research into the possibility of the deliberative position being realized through cyberspace. I suggest that a more regorous analysis of the intersection between the internet and deliberative democracy would not only be sociologically fruitful but may provide interesting possibilities for enhancing contemporary democratic forms.

Through the analysis of Walkman use I propose a reevaluation of the significance of the auditory in everyday experience. I argue that the role of sound has been largely ignored in the literature on media and everyday life resulting in systematic distortions of the meanings attached to much everyday behaviour. Sound as opposed to vision becomes the site of investigation of everyday life in this article. In focusing thus, I draw upon a range of neglected texts in order to provide a dialectical account of auditory and technologically mediated experience that avoids reductive and dichotomous categories of explanation. I propose a new evaluation of the relational nature of auditory experience whereby users manage their cognition, interpersonal behaviour and social space. The Walkman is perceived as a tool whereby users manage space, time and the boundaries around the self.