Collectivity, connectivity and control: reframing mass society in the digital era

ABSTRACT

Mass society theory was originally a discourse on crowds, popular culture and revolutionary change. It portrayed the ideological control of the many by the few in situations of close contact without the complexities of mediated connectivity. The notion of social change was premised on analogue forms of collective behaviour within society rather than digital flows in networks. Reviving this theory in the digital era requires a reconsideration of connectivity and control transacted in mediated publics that support virtual gatherings centred on mass- self communication. Smartphones may be considered the iconic connectors that channel such communication. These electronic devices provide a vital understanding not only of the way information and communication technology is reshaping mass society but also the repositioning of the individual in networked relationships. It implies that mass in digitized environments is not simply a concept of nameless uniformity but one stressing the parasitic nature of networked connectivity. At the same time, it also suggests a connectivity made fragile by forms of remote control that are predatory on mass-self communication.

KEYWORDS:

• Analogue
• connectivity
• digitality
• mass society
• mediated publics
• surveillance

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 The idea of mass society emerged alongside several other terms connoting large groups of interacting people such as crowds, mobs, multitudes, swarms and publics. These terms have also produced specific literatures resulting in convergences as well as complexities in meanings. I shall not be dealing with these complexities except to underscore ‘mass’ as an inclusive term that has troubled many a sociologist on the position of the individual within large anonymous assemblies with momentary presence and fleeting connections. For recent works on some of these cognate terms, see for example Dean (2016), Borch (2006, 2012), Mazzarella (2010), Schnapp and Tiews (2006), Hardt and Negri (2004), Virno (2004), and Rheingold (2002).

2 Each trend could be located in specific works with the first set found in those ranging from De Tocqueville (1945) to Leavis (1930). The second set included works from Mills (1956) to the Frankfurt School (Adorno & Horkheimer, 1973) and the third set from Shils (1972) to Bell (1962, 1974, 1976).

3 This reframing of masses as a concept that cannot be made distinct from digital media represents a non-analogue approach to collective behaviour which Borch (2016) designates ‘crowd mediation’ where the crowd itself might also be seen as a mediating entity.

4 Critics might want to argue that even in the era of analogue radio broadcasts and television, co-presence was not a prerequisite for disseminating information. However, information was only passively received since listeners and viewers merely heard or saw but did not interact in the same way that ‘digital natives’ could now relate to one another non-physically on social media.

5 Initially, this new economy was seen to falter in a situation marked by low productivity growth despite high investment in information technologies. This came to be known as the productivity paradox and companies sought to overcome it by ‘using the Internet to build external networks that tie their entire supply chain together’ (Kraemer & Dedrick, 2002, p. 23).

6 The idea of the Internet as universally ‘democratic’ continues to be controversial as critics such as Morozov (2014, p. 62, 101) question its ‘false universalism’ and portray it as a ‘meaningless shibboleth’. However, the initiation of Web 2.0 for promoting ‘user-business interactivity’ also became ‘the instantiation of inward globalisation’ to render possible wide-ranging forms of participation that are ‘infinitely penetrable, flexible and mutable’ (Hassan, 2020, pp. 108–9). In short, Web 2.0 is intrinsically commercial and interactive in a decentralized way that is often taken for granted by most Internet users.

7 The question of virality concerns the contagion effects of informational flow that can shape the ways in which events are recorded, perceived and interpreted within and across networks. Rapidity of reproduction, mutation and dissemination forms the basis of the virus imagery (see Sampson, 2012).

8 This imperative refers to a configuration of capitalism that produces a conjunction of high technology, computerization and automation with new modes of societal organization across the world. According to Kellner (1989, p. 181), it is not only highly mobile but also inherently an acculturating factor in consumptive lifestyles that he termed technoculture in which images and spectacles colonize everyday life (Kellner, 2003). The smartphone may be construed as only embodying the cultural logic of this imperative that makes inseparable the speed of communication and command of imagery.

9 Any decline in smartphone use could lead to the shrinking of these markets, but it has not happened yet despite increasing concern over the likelihood of harmful microwave radiation associated with mobile phone technology (e.g. Davis, 2010; Blank, 2014; Samet et al., 2014; Morgan et al., 2015). A plausible explanation for the discrepancy between smartphone use and health concerns (Agar, 2013, p. 145) may be phrased as a question examining the possible effects of commodified inter-subjectivity on users’ risk consciousness, a question that certainly needs further research. For a work on hyperconnectivity and risk, see Hoskins and Tulloch (2016).

10 Hassan (2020, p. 162) identifies double-alienation as alienation ‘from our relationship with analogue technology and from the natural environment’. But digitality introduces a new type of alienation that originates from the power of remoteness, which transforms ‘relationlessness’ into ‘a particular and nuanced socio-technical and ontological form’.

11 Yet, government agencies such as the US National Security Agency can obtain legal authority ‘to do front-door collection of data directly from the servers of major Internet companies like Facebook, Apple, Google, and Microsoft’ (Munkholm, 2020, p. 251).

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Raymond L. M. Lee

Raymond L. M. Lee, The author was formerly Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Malaya. He is now a non-affiliated researcher addressing questions concerned with digital modernity and theories of mass society and collective behaviour. Some of his recent writings on these questions have appeared in Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory, Third Text, The American Sociologist and Routledge International Handbook of Charisma.