New Technologies, Old Questions: The Enduring Issues of Communications Research

Abstract

Technological change in communications and media has been substantial and dramatic in recent years, particularly arising from the growth of the internet and “social media.” This can lead analysis to give undue emphasis to technological innovation at the expense of the enduring patterns of social structure which lie behind them. This article stresses the importance of such continuities by briefly illustrating the importance of power, inequality, identity and social change in relation to communications processes and institutions.

KEYWORDS:

• power
• inequality
• identity
• change
• communications technology

ORCID

Peter Golding http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4029-4547

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Peter Golding

Peter Golding is Emeritus Professor at Northumbria University, and Visiting Professor at Newcastle University, both in the UK. He is editor of the European Journal of Communication, Hon Sec. of the subject association for the field in the UK (MeCCSA) and Hon. Chair of the Media and Communications Research Network of the European Sociological Association. He is currently completing a book on communications and inequality.