Forum: New Media & Society

Anthropologist Victor Turner suggested that all social worlds are composed of two parallel, yet seemingly contrasting models: society as social structure and society as communitas. The relationships between these two basic elements of human social and cultural life are mediated by ephemeral experiences of liminality. Other major theoretical traditions also recognize these relationships, representing a distinct conceptual framework of direct significance to advancing understandings of the internet. The internet is a natural environment for liminality and ekstasis, a place where self and society must be made to exist in a process where both are translated into the conventions of the medium. Some people actively toy with these representations while others do not. However, in the final analysis these communicative dynamics are rooted in the liminal characteristics of the medium – not the motivations and intents of internet users themselves. Approaching the internet in this way stands in stark contrast to other latent conceptual orientations that are largely concerned with moral dynamics.

This article examines the influence of the social environment on adolescents’connectedness to the internet in East Asia, one of the most wired regions in the world. Connectedness is a qualitative conceptualization of an individual’s relationship with the internet, taking into consideration the breadth, depth, and the importance of individuals’ internet experience. This study seeks to situate adolescents’ internet connectedness in three spheres of social environment: (1) the general social support measured by how easy it is to get help when adolescents encounter problems in using the internet; (2) the parents, where we examine parents’ socioeconomic status and their internet use; and (3) the peer group, where we look into the proportion of friends who connect to the internet. The results from a survey of 1303 adolescents in Seoul, Singapore and Taipei support our major hypothesis that among the internet-using adolescents, their internet connectedness patterns differ by the nature of their social environments.

The introduction of the internet in American life has led to debate among media scholars, sociologists and political scientists about the role of the internet in society. Two areas of research that have received substantial attention in the domain of internet effects are the digital divide and social capital. Digital divide researchers have pointed out the critical gaps in society among different groups in the context of their access to new media and technology. Social capital researchers have focused on the influence of the internet on community life. The article contributes to the literature by (a) consolidating the two concepts of access and community participation to articulate the community correlates of the digital divide, and (b) applying a complementary resource-based perspective to capture the relationship between the internet and community outcomes. It investigates the role of community access to the internet in the context of the participation of individuals in their communities and their satisfaction with community life.

Changes in the visual presentation of news media provide insight into the complex, dynamic relationships that exist between print, television, and the internet. This study explores the longitudinal visual development of five major newspapers, seven network and cable news programs, and twelve news websites by examining the progression of structural and graphic design elements that contribute to the trend of ‘scannable’ information presentation. The analysis is broken down by decade, beginning in 1960 and ending in 2002, and the findings indicate that a visual convergence of media has become more pronounced over the decades as the acceleration of information has increased over time. Implications of this study regarding interdisciplinary research are explored and future research avenues are discussed in the conclusion.

This article explores how the internet is being studied and conceived of as a sacramental space. The internet as sacramental space demonstrates how religious users see the internet as a viable place for presenting their beliefs and practices. In order to understand this model, several other dominant conceptions of the internet are offered: information space, a common mental geography, an identity workshop and a social space. Each of these accents a specific use of the internet. The internet as sacramental space is further investigated by considering several typologies of online spiritual communities emerging from a recent online community study. Each typology highlights how the internet as sacramental space encompasses traits of the previously stated models and illustrates how the internet is used as a spiritual tool, religious identity, a space for personal spiritual pursuits and a social spiritual support sphere. A survey of current CMC research on religion is also presented.

Past research has presented mixed results in regards to the time displacement effects of the computer. In this field experiment, subjects were asked to give up using the computer (except for school work) for one day. The amount of time shift within each traditional medium between the normal day and the non-computer day was examined. The results showed that giving up computer use did not increase time allotted to other media. In addition, no differences in time shifts existed between light and heavy users. Overall, this study provides no support for the claim that using computers takes away time from using traditional media.