Disciplinary brakes on the sociology of digital media: the incongruity of communication and the sociological imagination

ABSTRACT

This paper draws on my experience over two decades as part of an early generation of scholars who graduated with a PhD in sociology into a career as a researcher and teacher in the multidisciplinary field of digital media. I reflect on my experiences to offer an assessment of the state of digital media scholarship within sociology and the field of communication. The study of digital media remains underdeveloped within sociology. In part, this is due to disciplinary failures, an array of relevant, specialized areas within sociology have yet to fully realize the role of digital media. Sociological perspectives are also constrained through a dominant ‘communication perspective’ at the center of the field of communication. Communication is home to most digital media scholars and uses its institutional dominance to arbitrate what qualifies as scholarship. Whereas communication serves as a plural disciplinary catch-all for the subjects of the social sciences, it often does so without crossing the boundaries of a relatively homogeneous, epistemological framework. That framework does not adequately represent sociological perspectives on digital media. I point to key differences between sociology and communication that tend to marginalize sociological perspectives. These differences have also served to render the field of communication less relevant to sociology (and likely to other disciplines in the social sciences). I stress the importance of building institutions and practices that support (multi)disciplinary representation in the field to strengthen sociology and other perspectives and avoid a myopic lens on our understanding of digital media and social life.

KEYWORDS:

• Communication studies
• sociology
• epistemology
• CITAMS
• administrative approach
• mass communication

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the reviewers, graduate students, and faculty from sociology and communication, who provided feedback on drafts of this essay. These key informants were instrumental in helping me to clarify my arguments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This statement is a somewhat narrow view of both communication and sociology. As Chen (2018) has pointed out, ‘media sociology’ has persisted as a limited area within the broader landscape of communication programs, particularly journalism. Media sociology grew largely outside of US sociology, with origins in the Frankfurt School, critical literary studies, and cultural studies (Revers & Brienza, 2018). My focus and observations primarily apply to empirical US sociology.

2 Indeed, I am not doing justice to ‘theory’ by reducing it to only two perspectives. See Abend (2008) for seven different things that sociologists may mean by theory.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Keith N. Hampton

Keith N. Hampton is a professor in the Department of Media and Information at Michigan State University. He previously held the position of Endowed Professor in Communication and Public Policy in the Department of Communication at Rutgers University; Assistant Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania; and Assistant Professor of Technology, Urban and Community Sociology and Class of ‘43 Endowed Chair in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.