Davide Bennato, Sociologia dei media digitali. Relazioni sociali e processi comunicativi del web partecipativo, Laterza, 2011
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17061
application/pdf
2038-3460
17061
2
en
Fausto Colombo
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
Davide Bennato, Digital Media Sociology. Social Relationships and Communications in Participative Web, Laterza, 2011
Text.Serial.Journal
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/
3
Book Reviews
2013-01-06
2023-05-28
2013-01-06
2023-07-14
178-180
TS
Fausto Colombo
2012
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17061
178
Università Cattolica di Milano
2038-3460
2
en
180
Davide Bennato, Digital Media Sociology. Social Relationships and Communications in Participative Web, Laterza, 2011
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/download/17061/15949
3
178   BOOK REVIEWS




                                                to social-casting, following the most
                 Davide Bennato                 diverse steps, with the most diverse,
                                                temporary and sometimes overlap-
       Sociologia dei media digitali.           ping names such as narrowcasting,
        Relazioni sociali e processi            web casting and data casting.
      comunicativi del web partecipa-           According to the author, social
                   tivo                         casting means the way of broad-
                                                casting which is peculiar to social or
          (Digital Media Sociology. Social      participatory web, in which distri-
       Relationships and Communications in      bution regards a community of
                 Participative Web)             people who autonomously decide to
                                                let circulate contents by exploiting
              2011, Laterza, 177 pp.            the sharing opportunities of these
                                                new technological platforms. This
                Fausto Colombo                  definition encompasses both a
          (Università Cattolica di Milano)      technological dimension (i.e. web
                                                platforms), and a cultural and
      The book is divided into three major      symbolic dimension (that enables
      sections, linked by the attempt to        sharing among people). For this
      describe and to understand why the        reason, the author reviews those
      web (or Web 2.0, or the participative     theories that have tried to describe
      web) allows to exchange ideas,            digitization, and he considers the first
      opinions, interests, passions, values,    achievements of media studies and
      thus creating a medium (articulated       then those of the Science and
      today in blogs, wikis, SNSs) in which     Technology Studies, showing which
      “la caratteristica più evidente sono le   contribution these studies may offer
      persone” (p. IX) (translated by the       to digital innovation, and which are
      reviewer “the most striking feature       the fundamental problems in their
      are people”).                             application.
      The first section shows how digital       In the second section, Bennato tries
      media force us to rethink in a new        to define what we mean when we talk
      way some of the key issues in             about digital media, showing the
      communication studies, such as            complexity of distinctions between
      broadcast, audience, media, relations     the various galaxies in web universe.
      between public / private. On the one      The basic thesis of this section is that
      hand this can lead us to come back to     many of the relational possibilities
      some classical theories, however,         made available by digital media are
      though shifting the focus to these        inscribed in the technologies them-
      new digital tools. In particular,         selves, and are integrated in machi-
      Bennato describes the shift from          nes. The chapter traces the genesis of
      analogue to digital media, from mass      those terms mostly used today by
      to social media (or, according to         researchers, journalists, marketing
      Castells, to “self mass communi-          people and entrepreneurs to describe
      cation”) as a shift from broadcasting     those technologies which have been
                                                        TECNOSCIENZA – 2 (2)        179




part of the shift in the third           as we know, it managed to become
millennium.                              the label for the whole world of
The first term, taken into account by    social networking and of new services
the author, is “Social Informatics”      and platforms in the web.
(study of the social aspects of          The second part of this section gives
computerization and ICT), whose          an account of the consistency of
main features regard that of problem     these transformations and labels with
solving in computing in the specific     some key concepts in theories of
context of application, of attention     technological development such as
given to institutional and cultural      Diffusionism and Social Shaping of
dimension, of integration between        Technology. The section later tackles
technological and social design. The     a detailed analysis of various types of
second step consists of researches       participatory networks: the first
about “Computer Supported Social         examples of wiki collaboration,
Networks” (e.g. Wellman’s work),         experienced at the end of the last
which distinguish between virtual        century, and then made famous by
communities, computer networks in        the creation of Wikipedia (2001,
work team and telework.                  while the preliminary version is
A further step is the “Cluetrain         Nupedia in 2000); afterwards social
Manifesto”, in 1999, when there was      network sites, or web services that
an attempt to redefine the markets       allow to create a public or semi-
on the basis of web impact, in           public profile and a list of users to be
corporate communication.                 connected with (the first, Sixdegrees,
And finally the author tackles the       was in 1997, the famous Facebook
notion of “Social Software” by Clay      was born in 2004, at the time of the
Shirky (2002), which gives rise to the   boom of MySpace).
birth of platforms such as MySpace       Finally, Bennato analyzes a wide
and Flickr. In 2005, Tim O’Reilly        range of “other” social media, such
coined the concept of Web 2.0.           as YouTube, Twitter and Friendfeed.
O’Reilly looked at the market            The third and shortest section of the
performance in service markets in the    book deals with the issue of values
web after the bursting of the dot-com    and ethics in digital media. Here the
bubble in the fall of 2001, and he       author’s starting point is a
argued that companies that survived      philosophical     (Heidegger)       and
the collapse have been reinforced in     anthropological (Gehlen) reflection
subsequent years, while those born       about technique as a human place. In
after (almost all start-up at that       particular, the author reviews Jonas’s
point) tended to develop new and         discussion concerning relationships
original market strategies. The term     between technology and power in
Web 2.0 at that point was already        personal relationships, considering
circulating for over a year, and         current technologies as a whole as
O’Reilly by himself admitted that its    challenging and problematic as those
semantics was still vague. However,      of genetic engineering (that’s why
180   BOOK REVIEWS




      today we talk about techno-ethical          Christian Kehr, Peter Schüßler and
      harmony with bioethics).                        Marc-Denis Weitze (eds.)
      Even though early signs of an interest
      in techno-ethics have come from              Neue Technologien in der
      Wiener’s thoughts, at the end of the           Gesellschaft. Akteure,
      sixties (about limits and values in the    Erwartungen, Kontroversen und
      emerging Computer Science), it can                 Konjunkturen
      be said that this issue was finally
      opened in Moor’s article, “What is          (New Technologies in Society – Actors,
      Computer Ethics?” (1987), in which,             Prospects, Controversies and
      prophetically, the author pointed out                  Conjunctures)
      that the main ethical problems would
      come       during      the     machine        2011, Transcript Verlag, 363 pp.
      assimilation as part of humanity, and
      that this stage would be necessarily                  Mareike Glöss
      followed by a long period of                        (Uppsala University)
      technological development. Compu-
      ter malleability was the main reason       The here presented edited collection
      of its ability to change processes in      seeks to give an overview over new
      which it was used. Before discussing       technologies in society, analyzing the
      some interesting cases (e.g. Simputer,     multitude of actors and factors that
      Miss Bimbo) Bennato notes that an          are entangled with it.
      ethical perspective becomes crucial        The theoretical foundation is hereby
      for social sciences, which are facing      building on social construction of
      epochal changes in which the role of       technology (Bijker et. Al., 1987) as
      technology is undeniable.                  the editors emphasize in their
      This work by Davide Bennato looks          introducing chapter. However, the
      like having two different sides: on the    approach this collection is taking
      one hand a historical review of            analyzes technology as one of factors
      technological,     social,    scientific   besides others and thereby rather
      events; on the other hand a critical       shaped by the social than constructed
      approach to the main theories              (MacKenzie and Wajcman, 1999).
      concerning social media and Web            The work originated from a research
      2.0, which, without a precise re-read      project that was located at the
      of these labels, are now at risk of        German Museum in Munich. The
      becoming buzz words. This ambi-            main idea was to bring together
      valence is an essential quality of this    scholars from social, philosophical,
      well organized book with a rich            historical fields and discuss the
      bibliography and lists of websites.        different    dimensions     of    new
                                                 technologies along concrete case
                                                 studies. At the same time the
                        ***                      collection also includes contributions
                                                 from actors of the discussed new
                                                 technologies – natural scientists and
