Is There a Digital Microsociology?
EDN: VKPLN
Abstract
This article examines various intuitions of understanding the digital within the framework of microsociological approaches. First, we characterize the thematic areas in which microsociological research of digital technologies was conducted, and the arguments that - at the turn of the 1980s-1990s-made a case for the relevance of microsociological optics for studying the use of technology in the workplace and in corporations: workplace studies, human-computer interaction, and communication studies. We then describe how the convergence of the research positions of technical specialists and social studies occurs, and how this convergence makes it possible to translate technical and digital elements into the language of the social. Subsequent discussions concern the relationship between technology and the social in microsociological approaches. We demonstrate that technologies are secondary to everyday situations in the context of Conversational Analysis, Ethnomethodology and the Goffmanian Interactionist Framework. The prevalence of technology makes its "manufacturability” invisible to its users; failures and breakdowns play the role of an epistemic instrument, as they put digital technologies into question and help researchers discover the interactive mechanisms for maintaining their non-problematic character. In conclusion, we propose a program for studying digital technologies within the framework of microsociological approaches consisting of four options for conceptualizing digital artifacts: as objects, as tools, as a medium and as a subject. We formulate a number of conceptual and methodological principles that, in our view, will allow us to take the next steps towards developing a new language for the microanalysis of digital technologies.
Keywords
digital technologies,
Erving Goffman,
interactionism,
ethnomethodology,
conversation analysis,
human-computer interaction,
screen,
agency
Supporting agencies: Russian Science Foundation grant (RSF No17-78-20164) “Sociotechnical barriers of the implementation and use of information technologies in Russia: sociological analysis”.
About the Authors
Alisa S. Maximova
NRU “Higher School of Economics”
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
PhD in Sociology, Research Fellow, Research Assistant
Konstantin P. Glazkov
NRU “Higher School of Economics”
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Research Fellow, Lecturer
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Review
For citations:
Maximova A.S., Glazkov K.P. Is There a Digital Microsociology? Sociology of Power. 2018;30(3):13-37. (In Russ.) EDN: VKPLN
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