Localizing the Internet beyond Communities and Networks

Essay: Localizing the internet beyond communities and networks. John Postill. New Media & Society, Vol. 10, No. 3, 413-431 (2008)

How can we conceptualise the relationship between technological and social change at the local level? More specifically, what conceptual tools have we got at our disposal to study the emergence of new Internet-related forms of local sociality?

URL = http://nms.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/10/3/413

Draft for download at http://johnpostill.co.uk/articles/postill_localising_net.pdf

Abstract

"As the numbers of internet users worldwide continue to grow, the internet is becoming `more local'. This article addresses the epistemological challenge posed by this global process of internet localization by examining some of the conceptual tools at the disposal of internet researchers. It argues that progress has been hampered by an overdependence on the problematic notions of community and network whose paradigmatic status has yet to be questioned by internet scholars. The article seeks to broaden the conceptual space of internet localization studies through a ground-up conceptualization exercise that draws inspiration from the field theories of both Pierre Bourdieu and the Manchester School of Anthropology, and is based on recent fieldwork in suburban Malaysia. This exploration demonstrates that a more nuanced understanding of the plural forms that residential sociality can take is needed in order to move beyond existing binaries such as `network sociality' versus `community sociality'." (http://nms.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/10/3/413)

Excerpts

John Postill:

"As the numbers of internet users worldwide continue to grow, the internet is becoming `more local'. This article addresses the epistemological challenge posed by this global process of internet localization by examining some of the conceptual tools at the disposal of internet researchers. It argues that progress has been hampered by an overdependence on the problematic notions of community and network whose paradigmatic status has yet to be questioned by internet scholars. The article seeks to broaden the conceptual space of internet localization studies through a ground-up conceptualization exercise that draws inspiration from the field theories of both Pierre Bourdieu and the Manchester School of Anthropology, and is based on recent fieldwork in suburban Malaysia. This exploration demonstrates that a more nuanced understanding of the plural forms that residential sociality can take is needed in order to move beyond existing binaries such as `network sociality' versus `community sociality'." (http://johnpostill.co.uk/articles/postill_localising_net.pdf)

On the alternative concept of "Social Field":

"In view of these difficulties with public sphere, I wish to propose instead the concept of ‘social field’ as one possible way of overcoming the community/network impasse3. Put simply, a social field is a domain of practice in which social agents compete and cooperate over the same public rewards and prizes (Martin 2003). One advantage of field is that it is a neutral, technical term lacking the normative idealism of both public sphere and community. Field theorists have developed a sophisticated vocabulary that is increasingly being recruited to the study of media (Benson 2007, Benson and Neveu 2005, Couldry 2007, Hesmondhalgh 2006, Peterson 2003). More pertinent to the case at hand, Field Theory offers us a framework with which to analyse the Internet-mediated relations between local authorities and residents by treating these two parties not as discrete entities but rather relationally, as two sectors of a porous, conflict-prone ‘field of residential affairs’ (see Epstein 1958, Venkatesh 2003)." (http://johnpostill.co.uk/articles/postill_localising_net.pdf)

On field theory:

"Today we associate field theory with Pierre Bourdieu (1993, 1996), yet this theory has a far longer history originating in physics and Gestalt psychology (Martin 2003). Bourdieu was critical of social network analysis (SNA) for what he regarded as its naïve commitment to interaction as the basis of human life and developed his field theory in opposition to SNA. He argued that by concentrating on people’s visible interactions and ties, SNA practitioners fail to grasp the invisible network of objective relations binding human agents within a common cultural space (e.g. France) and its fields of practice (art, sociology, photography, etc). For Bourdieu, SNA conflates structure with interaction, exaggerating the importance of ‘social capital’, i.e. the capital that accrues from social connections, whilst neglecting other species of capital such as cultural and symbolic capital (Knox et al 2006). For example, two Parisian artists who have never met may nonetheless possess similar amounts of symbolic capital (prestige, renown, etc) and occupy neighbouring positions within the field of art. In Bourdieu’s field theory, it is agents’ relative positions and amounts of fieldspecific capital that matter, not with whom they interact." (http://johnpostill.co.uk/articles/postill_localising_net.pdf)

And from the conclusion:

"The field of local Internet studies appears to suffer from semantic agoraphobia – a fear of open semantic spaces. Yet researching local settings should not necessarily limit one’s conceptual space to one or two familiar notions, especially if these are of questionable sociological value, as is the case with community. This is particularly noticeable in suburban studies where a reliance on community and network is strangely at odds with a frontier-like scenario in which people, technologies, and other cultural artefacts are co-producing new forms of residential sociality in unpredictable ways.

By drawing on the field theoretical lexicon of both Bourdieu and the Manchester School I was able to bring a set of concepts that lie partly outside the community/ network paradigm (field, interaction, sociality, arena, etc) to bear on the ethnographic analysis." (http://johnpostill.co.uk/articles/postill_localising_net.pdf)