Jeremy Schulz

Digital inequalities and why they matter

While the field of digital inequality continues to expand in many directions, the relationship between digital inequalities and other forms of inequality has yet to be fully appreciated. This article invites social scientists in and outside the field of digital media studies to attend to digital inequality, both as a substantive problem and as a methodological concern. The authors present current research on multiple aspects of digital inequality, defined expansively in terms of access, usage, skills, and self-perceptions, as well as future lines of research. Each of the contributions makes the case that digital inequality deserves a place alongside more traditional forms of inequality in the twenty-first century pantheon of inequalities. Digital inequality should not be only the preserve of specialists but should make its way into the work of social scientists concerned with a broad range of outcomes connected to life chances and life trajectories. As we argue, the significance of digital inequalities is clear across a broad range of individual-level and macro-level domains, including life course, gender, race, and class, as well as health care, politics, economic activity, and social capital.

New Avenues for Sociological Inquiry Evolving Forms of Ethnographic Practice

This work examines evolving forms of ethnographic practice generated in response to advances in mediated communication. It chronicles phases in the transformation of offline ethnography, beginning with pioneering virtual ethnographies concerned with identity work and deception. Subsequently, analysis illuminates cyberethnographic redefinitions of traditional methodological concerns including fieldwork, participant observation, and text as data. It concludes with an examination of current cyberethnographic practice.The work closes with the argument that the methodological adaptations made by ethnographers indicate the increasing salience of mediated communication in the social world. The research sheds light not only on issues connected to methodology but invites larger methodological and ethical questions that will grow ever more pressing as the information revolution continues to unfold. We suggest that just as ethnographic practice continues to benefit from its encounter with mediated communication, so will other forms of sociological practice be enriched from engagement with new media.

Vehicle of the Self The social and cultural work of the H2 Hummer

In this article I draw on material from in-depth interviews with car owners and dealers to investigate the meanings and uses of a new luxury SUV, the Hummer H2, for affluent California hyper-consumers. The study identifies several distinct orientations towards the H2, considered both as a status symbol and a branded commodity. The mediating roles played by the vehicle in the personal and impersonal relationships of Hummer owners, enthusiasts and observers are examined. Competing theories of social differentiation and conformity pressures are analyzed in light of the data regarding the responses of owners and non-owners towards the vehicle.

Eliciting Frontstage and Backstage Talk with the Iterated Questioning Approach

This article advances interviewing methods by introducing the authors’ original contribution: the iterated questioning approach (IQA). This interviewing technique augments the interviewer’s methodological arsenal by exploiting insights from symbolic interactionism, particularly Goffman’s concepts of frontstage and backstage. IQA consists of sequenced iterations of a baseline question designed to elicit multiple forms of talk. The approach consists of four distinct steps: (1) establishing the baseline iterated question, (2) eliciting frontstage talk, (3) going backstage, and (4) eliciting backstage talk. To illuminate IQA’s versatility, transcript excerpts are reproduced from interviews with two very different populations: disadvantaged high school students and business professionals. IQA promises to invigorate future interview-based inquiry by offering significant advantages compared with conventional interviewing procedures. IQA’s theoretically informed question design offers a more formalized and structured approach to gather interview data on identity-relevant themes. Capitalizing on Goffman’s dramaturgical framework, IQA produces readily classifiable forms of talk that correspond to frontstage and backstage self-presentations. As a result, IQA ensures replicability and allows interviewers to systematically analyze comparable talk within the same interview as well as across multiple respondents. For these reasons, IQA promises to be an innovative interviewing technique that pushes forward the methodological frontier.

Interlocking Inequalities: Digital Stratification Meets Academic Stratification

This article examines the effects of digital inequality in conjunction with curricular tracking on academic achievement. Capitalizing on an original survey administered to seniors (fourth-year secondary school students), our survey data (N = 972) come from a large American public high school with a predominantly disadvantaged student body. The school’s elective tracking system and inadequate digital resources make for an excellent case study of the effects of a differentiated curriculum and digital inequalities on academic achievement. Multilevel random-effects and fixed-effects regression models applied to the survey data reveal the important role played by digital inequalities in shaping academic achievement as measured by GPA. As the models establish, academic achievement is positively correlated with both duration of digital experience and usage intensity regarding academically useful computing activities, even when students’ curricular and class placement are taken into account. In contrast, both leisure computing and smartphone usage are negatively correlated with academic achievement as measured by GPA. Also with regard to GPA, findings show that students in the higher curricular tracks benefit more from longer durations of digital experience than do students in lower curricular tracks. These results underscore the importance of focusing attention on the ways in which digital inequalities combine with curricular tracking in shaping academic achievement.

Communication and Information Technologies Annual

Sponsored by the Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Section of the American Sociological Association, Digital Distinctions & Inequalities, brings together studies of this increasingly important form of inequality. The volumes contributions provide an indispensable guide to emergent forms of digital inequality as it rapidly evolves.

Digital Inequality Across Major Life Realms

This issue of the American Behavioral Scientist probes digital inequality as both an endogenous and exogenous factor shaping key life realms and social processes. These include aging and the life course, family and parenting, students and education, prisoner rehabilitation, and social class. The relationships between digital inequality and these life realms are explored in different institutional and national contexts. By drawing connections between digital inequality and these distinct—yet interconnected—life realms, this issue marks a new frontier in the study of digital inequality.

Brazil: Media from the Country of the Future

Cangaço was a form of banditry that occurred in the North-East of Brazil between 1870 and 1940. The movement has inspired many films over the years. This chapter explores the contribution of Cangaço-inspired productions to Brazilian cinema, as well as the particular characteristics of what constitutes the Cangaço genre. Following a historical survey of the Cangaço, the films were divided into different categories and ranked in terms of relevance. Only the most important are discussed in this chapter. The Cangaço has been portrayed in Brazilian cinema through the decades in diverse ways, dating back to the 1920s. After becoming a consolidated film genre in the 1950s, then known as Nordestern, the Cangaço finally acquired a proper structure, featuring multiple Western references among its common characteristics. In the 1960s, Glauber Rocha, one of the most prominent filmmakers of the Cinema Novo avant-garde movement, added his own symbolism to the genre. Eventually, the Cangaço was also revisited by directors who combined it with other genres such as comedy, documentary, and erotic films. Another relevant reinterpretation came in the 1990s, when filmmakers of the so-called New Brazilian Cinema offered a new view on the subject. Despite its strong association with Brazil, the Cangaço has not been thoroughly investigated by researchers. This chapter presents a historical survey Brazil: Media from the Country of the Future Studies in Media and Communications, Volume 13, 3 18 Copyright r 2017 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 2050-2060/doi:10.1108/S2050-206020170000013003