Media Sociography: On Usenet Newsgroups

摘要

This is a proposal for a new methodology that I term media sociography, which comprises a strategy for analyzing mediated social systems, a methodology for describing the social in relation to the media upon which it is based. Media sociography is inspired by two theoretical paradigms, namely, Niklas Luhmann's sociological systems theory and medium theory, also referred to as the Toronto School. The main premise of the present discussion is that medium theory needs to be complemented with a theory of communications based on sociological systems theory insofar as medium theory is capable of dealing only with the technical aspects of media, not the social aspects. On the other hand, sociological systems theory does not take technical media into consideration and lacks the concepts and parameters needed to understand the social in relation to the technical media it is based on. The empirical field examined in the present discussion is the community of Usenet newsgroups, which is considered the third most popular form of interaction media on the Internet after e-mail and the Web. The discussion utilizes the field of computer mediated communication as an empirical horizon, but also includes hands-on empirical observations. This makes possible a media sociographic analysis of self-organizing interaction systems that reproduce themselves through communication within the communicative space established by the digital medium of Usenet newsgroups.