How has digital communication changed the way identities are formed?

Identity has become more reflexive and self-constructed, because people can present, edit and revise themselves online and draw on global cultural resources rather than being tied to the identities offered by their family, neighbourhood and workplace.

What did Turkle argue about identity on screen?

Turkle originally argued that online spaces let people experiment with several identities at once, treating the self as fluid and multiple, though she later warned that constant connection encourages performance and leaves people together but emotionally alone.

How can digital communication produce hybrid and global identities?

Constant contact with distant cultures allows people to combine elements of more than one culture into the hybrid identities Hall describes, and can support the cosmopolitan outlook Beck identifies, in which people see themselves as members of a global as well as a national community.

OCR A-Level Sociology H580

Introducing Socialisation, Culture and Identity

Topic overview Culture, norms, values and cultural relativism Subculture, high culture and popular culture Global and consumer culture, cultural diversity and hybridity Primary and secondary socialisation, the family and peer group Media, religion, education and the workplace as agencies of socialisation Lifelong socialisation and the nature/nurture debate Social control, sanctions and formal agencies of control Informal agencies and theories of social control The concept of identity, ethnicity and nationality Gender, class and sexual identity Age, disability, hybrid and intersecting identities

Families and RelationshipsComponent 01

Topic overview Family types and trends in marriage, divorce and cohabitation Demographic change, family diversity and newer family types Nuclear family ideology, functionalism and the New Right Marxist, feminist and postmodern views and the diversity debate Conjugal roles and the domestic division of labour Power, the dark side of the family and theories of partner roles The child-centred family, views of childhood and its extension Parent-child power, grandparents in an ageing population and feminist views

Youth SubculturesComponent 01

Topic overview Functionalist and neo-Marxist views of youth culture Hebdige, feminist and postmodern views of youth subcultures Class, ethnic and hybrid subcultures and consensus versus conflict Delinquent, criminal, spectacular and anti-school subcultures Gangs, newer deviant subcultures and patterns in youth offending Functionalist, New Right and Marxist explanations of youth deviance Labelling, identity, gender, ethnicity and moral panics in youth deviance

MediaComponent 01

Topic overview Representations of ethnicity and nationality, symbolic annihilation and the male gaze Representations of gender, social class and young people Representations of older people and theories of media representation Direct and indirect media effects models Active audience models, deviance amplification and moral panics

Research Methods and Researching Social Inequalities

Topic overview Positivism, quantitative data and interpretivism Verstehen, qualitative data and validity Reliability, representativeness, generalisability and theory Research topics, aims, hypotheses and primary and secondary data Operationalisation, pilot studies and respondent validation Longitudinal studies, interpreting data and social policy Sampling frames, sampling techniques and choosing a sample Access, gatekeepers and research ethics Questionnaires, structured interviews, statistics, content analysis and observation Unstructured interviews, ethnography and methodological pluralism

Understanding Social Inequalities

Topic overview Stratification, class, poverty, mobility and gender inequality Ethnicity, age, work and health inequalities Functionalist and Marxist explanations of inequality Weberian, feminist and New Right explanations of inequality

Globalisation and the Digital Social World

Topic overview Globalisation, the digital revolution and media convergence Social media, social capital and theoretical views of digital communication Digital identities, the digital divide and social class Gender, age, relationships and cultural impacts of digital communication

Crime and DevianceComponent 03

Topic overview Defining crime and deviance, social control and relativity Social construction of crime and police recorded crime The Crime Survey, victim surveys and self-report studies Crime patterns by social class, gender and age Crime patterns by ethnicity, crime trends and global organised crime Glocal organised crime and green crime Functionalist, strain and subcultural theories of crime Marxist, interactionist and left realist theories of crime Right realism, New Right, feminism and explaining ethnic and age patterns Left-wing crime reduction, social crime prevention and restorative justice Situational crime prevention, zero tolerance and punitive justice

EducationComponent 03

Topic overview Functionalist, Marxist and liberal views of the role of education Social democratic, New Right and feminist views and vocational education Class and ethnic patterns in educational attainment Gender patterns, global educational inequality and intersectionality Inside-school factors: labelling, setting, triage and institutional racism Material and cultural deprivation and cultural capital Explaining gender and ethnic differences and theoretical views of achievement Types of school and education policy since 1988 Ideology, marketisation and equality of opportunity in education policy

Religion, Belief and FaithComponent 03

Topic overview Defining religion, faith and belief, churches and denominations Sects, cults, new religious and new age movements and fundamentalism Measuring religiosity and believing without belonging Functionalist and Marxist views of the role of religion Neo-Marxist, Weberian, feminist, phenomenological and postmodern views of religion Religion, social change and whether religion is positive or negative Class and gender patterns in religiosity Women's changing religiosity and ethnic and age patterns Age cohorts, global religious trends and resurgence Defining secularisation and evidence of religious decline Pro- and anti-secularisation theories Religion and social policy, the golden age critique and global patterns

Globalisation and the Digital Social World

Digital identities, the digital divide and social class

3 things to know
Component 03

Overview

Recall questions on how digital communication shapes identity, Goffman applied to online profiles, Turkle on identity on screen, postmodern pick-and-mix, hybrid and global identities, negative effects on identity, the digital divide and its global dimension, van Dijk on persistent digital inequality, and social class online.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

How can Goffman's ideas be applied to online profiles?

Key term

Why do postmodernists say digital media produce pick-and-mix identities?

Key term

Give three negative effects digital communication is said to have on identity.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1
How has digital communication changed the way identities are formed?
Model answer
Identity has become more reflexive and self-constructed, because people can present, edit and revise themselves online and draw on global cultural resources rather than being tied to the identities offered by their family, neighbourhood and workplace.
2
How can Goffman's ideas be applied to online profiles?
Model answer
Goffman's dramaturgical approach treats social life as performance, so a profile is a carefully managed front stage where users control impressions through selected images and posts, while the unedited backstage self is kept hidden.
3
What did Turkle argue about identity on screen?
Model answer
Turkle originally argued that online spaces let people experiment with several identities at once, treating the self as fluid and multiple, though she later warned that constant connection encourages performance and leaves people together but emotionally alone.
4
Why do postmodernists say digital media produce pick-and-mix identities?
Model answer
Postmodernists argue that saturation by global media images detaches identity from class, locality and tradition, so people assemble the self through consumption and style; Bauman calls the resulting identities liquid because they are constantly remade and easily discarded.
5
How can digital communication produce hybrid and global identities?
Model answer
Constant contact with distant cultures allows people to combine elements of more than one culture into the hybrid identities Hall describes, and can support the cosmopolitan outlook Beck identifies, in which people see themselves as members of a global as well as a national community.
6
Give three negative effects digital communication is said to have on identity.
Model answer
Constant comparison with idealised images can damage self-esteem and body image, users may feel pressure to curate and monitor themselves continuously, and online abuse or exclusion can attack identity in a permanent and highly visible way.

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Introducing Socialisation, Culture and Identity

Families and Relationships

Youth Subcultures

Media

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Murdock identified sexual, , economic and educational functions.

reproductiveemotionalpolitical

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AVictims may fear reprisal, or feel shame or economic dependence.

BAbuse in the home has historically been treated as a private matter.

CMany incidents are never reported or recorded.

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Sex refers to the biological category of male or female.

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