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?

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

Do we need more relational concepts to understand the social dynamics where the physical world intersects with our virtual tools?

That is the thesis of John Postill, who reviews other possible concepts, in the essay above.

The draft version is available online, here.

Here’s the 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‘.”

John re-explains his motivation and method here:

“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’.”

After citing the critiques of the insufficiencies of using community, network and public sphere as concepts for operational research, he proposes his own alternative, rooted in field theory, i.e. the 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).”

After reviewing a number of such concepts from various anthropological studies, Postill offers the following 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.”