#schroederinternet

Hot take from this week's reading: the internet did NOT completely revolutionise society. I know. Controversial.

Ralph Schroeder's Social Theory after the Internet (2018) basically argues that scholars have been overcomplicating and over-hyping what the internet actually does. Here's the breakdown.

The problem? Most communication theories were built for either mass media (TV, newspapers — one to many) or interpersonal media (phone calls — one to one). The internet does BOTH simultaneously, so old theories just… don't fit anymore (Schroeder, 2018).

Schroeder looks at three big theories and explains why each falls short:

Castells' network theory — ignores how different countries (China, Sweden, Malaysia) have completely different media systems.

Mediatization theory — useful but too vague; doesn't distinguish between politics, culture, and the economy.

Actor-network theory — so focused on individual contexts that you can't generalize anything useful.

Instead, Schroeder (2018) proposes we look at the internet's role across three separate social orders:

🏛️ Politics — the internet lets leaders bypass traditional media gatekeepers (hello, politicians going live on TikTok), but it also fuels populism and disinformation. Dobber et al. (2022) found that micro-targeted political ads online can directly influence how people vote. Scary.

📱 Culture & Everyday Life — Schroeder (2018) calls this "tethered togetherness", we are constantly connected to people and information via our phones. Not revolutionary, just… more intense. The anxiety of leaving your phone at home? That's tethered togetherness.

💰 Economy — big data allows companies to target us with disturbing precision. Every ad that feels like your phone was listening? That's the economic internet at work.

The key takeaway: the internet intensifies existing social patterns, it doesn't replace them. It's a powerful tool shaped by the society it operates in.

References

Dobber, T., Fathaigh, R. Ó., & Borgesius, F. J. Z. (2022). The regulation of online political micro-targeting in Europe. Internet Policy Review, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.14763/2022.1.1614

Schroeder, R. (2018). Social theory after the internet: Media, technology and globalization. UCL Press. https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781787351226