I’m reading Five Minds for the Future, by Howard Gardner. One of those minds for the future is the “disciplined mind.” Not the go sit in a corner discipline, rather, the “systematic instruction” designed for a particular subject or field of study. So I thought I’d dive deeper into some of the more interesting topics to be explored in the sociology of social media.
Some context—why study it?
The study of sociology has much to offer public relations, marketing, and development. Not just for enterprise and profit, but for the benefit of societies everywhere, even offline. This happens when developers, community managers, and leaders come together for common purpose, to solve the needs of the group, and that happens through understanding what people want and need and why that is so, we can make better informed judgments and decisions as creators.
I remember sighing in relief when I read what PR/new media pro, Brian Solis, wrote in his book, Putting the Public Back in Public Relations:
Today’s communication strategies can benefit from the social sciences such as sociology and anthropology… You must understand that technology supports the sociology of the network— it doesn’t replace it.
I studied sociology because I found it interesting, not because I thought it would lead to a great career— or even work (I went to graduate school for that).
Back to the disciplined mind… Gardner describes how to achieve a disciplined mind, the first being to, “Identify important topics and concepts within the discipline.” I’ve drawn some interesting points that I’d like to open up and do more discovery in. So here is my synthesis (Gardners 2nd mind for the future) with the sociology of social media:
- “Social media” is a vague term that attempts to describe something complex.
- Diffusion of the techno-social innovations among different groups of people.
- Variable segmentation from group to group based (correlation difficult?)
- Differences between those groups (demographic, cultural).
- Interaction within & between them (language, norms).
- Macro and micro economic systems related to the social technologies.
- Capitalism driven
- Organic and synthetic communities
- Roles in the community.
- Developing and addressing norms when boundaries are loosely drawn, or non existent
So there are a few ideas that I’m swimming with if you have any other ideas that you’d like me to add, let me know and I’ll put you and it on this list.
Good reads on this topic:
Five Minds for the Future, by Howard Gardner
Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media Is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR, by Brian Solis
